Prof Andy Bremner and our PhD researchers, Jieyi Liu and Rachel Martlew presented their recent work on infant development at ICIS2026 @infantstudies.bsky.social Thanks to the organisers, presenters, and attendees for a great week in Panama City 🌎✈️

1/ The world's songbirds sing in just 8 basic sounds. And where a bird lives decides which ones it uses. My first PhD paper is out now in @science.org (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aee6239) Here is what we found:

Hi #CogSci2026 folks! Anyone into #compositionality #geometry and/or babies' minds? Karthika, an amazing PhD student from the lab is presenting some cool preliminary results. We use geometry as a case study for compositionality and program induction in babies. Do stop by her (virtual) flash talk!

Karthika Kamath@karthikakamath.bsky.social · 2w ago

Can babies understand different geometrical shapes?👶🏼Join my Flash talk 41.1 at #cogsci2026 to find more on July 24th,17:30(Rio) @bpomie.bsky.social @mathiassablemeyer.bsky.social @sarahruthbeck.bsky.social @paulm-k.bsky.social @cogscisociety.bsky.social @bbabylab.bsky.social @thechbh.bsky.social

How do animals cooperate when they aren't even the same species? Our recent review paper dug deep into the literature... 1/ Read the full paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Myself and colleagues from across Higher Ed have gathered under the auspices of @isrfoundation.bsky.social to think about new models for Higher Education... We'll be adding pieces as we go, and we've already published quite a few. We can't go on like this, and we shouldn't. isrf.org/projects/rec...

Reconstructing the British University

isrf.org

Two pieces from me this week you may have missed: (1) why no-one cares about Britain's university crisis. The only answer you get is 'yeah but apprenticeships' - not realising just how critical unis are to their provision. But what can one even say any more. 🤷‍♂️ www.arguably.uk/p/the-quiet-...

The quiet collapse of British universities

One of our great triumphs and economic advantages is fading away

arguably.uk

Don't ask me anything about #dinosaurs.🦖🦕 I hardly know anything about them. But this one never ceases to amaze me: a clutch of Oviraptor, 80 million (!) years old! The eggs were laid pair-wise and covered with sand. On display at Naturhistorisches Museum Wien

I'm proud to say we are releasing LAION-fMRI, a densely sampled 7T fMRI dataset of natural images, with very broad stimulus sampling for testing countless hypotheses and for deeply exploring brain representations. The dataset is now available at laion-fmri.hebartlab.com What does LAION-fMRI offer? 🧵

LAION-fMRI - a 7T fMRI dataset of human vision

LAION-fMRI (LfMRI / LAION MRI dataset): 5 subjects, 25,052 launch-release natural images, 165 acquired 7T fMRI sessions with single-trial GLMsingle betas, retinotopy, localizers, and diffusion.

laion-fmri.hebartlab.com

Since I moved to @mrclmb.bsky.social I’ve been trying to answer this: Why are some mammals active at night and others in the day? Today our answer is out @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/.... If you’re interested in circadian biology, evolution or how timing shapes physiology, take a look

A cellular basis for the mammalian nocturnal-diurnal switch

Early mammals were nocturnal while dinosaurs dominated the daytime. Mammalian transition to daytime activity accelerated after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, but the underlying mechanisms remain...

science.org

🦊🧠 Hello Bluesky! We are the Milestones of Neurocognitive Development Lab, a joint research group at @mpicbs.bsky.social and the University of Technology Nuremberg (UTN). Led by Prof. Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann, we explore the neural and cognitive milestones of the developing mind!

Good morning UoB!

A baby whale is born with 10 female whales and one male helping. During the most beautiful event that happens in life—birth—whales were very chatty. We found vowels during the birth event as well. @projectceti.bsky.social The paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Are you interested in detecting brain changes in individuals with higher precision over shorter intervals? Check out our new paper in Nature Communications. With Randy Buckner, @jingnandu.bsky.social, and others. Link - doi.org/10.1038/s414...

‪ 🌳 Do you want to contribute to research on how humans perceive forests? Take this quick, anonymous 10-min survey 🌲 👉 www.biodiful.org#/forest This will help us explore how people experience forest biodiversity! Please share on 🦋 & tag @biodiful.bsky.social to reach more participants 🙏💚 🌐🌍🦤🦑🪴🍁🧪

Study of 8M biomed & life science articles finds those led by women spent 7 to 15 days longer in review than those led by men. Over a career, women's papers could spend 350 to 750 additional days in review. Delays could slow promotion, esp to full professor. www.the-scientist.com/women-s-rese...

Peer Review Timelines Show Gender Gap, Large Study Reports

A study of millions of life science papers revealed that manuscripts with women in key authorship roles spent longer between submission and acceptance.

the-scientist.com

As if there were not enough bad news around:

Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Scientists are concerned that curiosity-driven research is set to be further cut back after three research councils confirmed they have paused funding opportunities. @jgro-the.bsky.social reports #academicsky #researchfunding https://ow.ly/lpvO50Y67ku

We can use past experience to make predictions about the future. How do predictions affect our memory for the present? My own work (tinyurl.com/42kyukch) suggests that predictions compete with memory. But other recent work (tinyurl.com/2ekd4wr6) found the opposite--cooperation! What's going on here?

I love this metaphor for having AI take over key tasks like writing summaries, doing literature reviews, etc... Yes, please have your LLM buddy lift weights for you. You are now a gym nut

Ross@roscola.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Someone wise on here gave the perfect metaphor. When you’re in the gym, the weights don’t actually need to be moved. The outcome you’re looking for is what changes inside you when you move the weights.

Climate denialism, empowered by nihilists and know-nothings, undermining science & destroying the evidence that they previously just rejected. Meanwhile, out here in WA, roads are sliding into rivers (an unprecedented weather event) b/c it’s too damn warm to be raining this hard for this long.

USA TODAY@usatoday.com · 8mo ago

Exclusive: The Trump administration is moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, according to a senior White House official, taking aim at one of the world's leading climate research labs.

“Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6km each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, annual carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes. This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.” @euronews.com

Cycling like the Dutch would slash the world’s carbon footprint

If everybody cycled like the Dutch, we could offset the UK or Australia’s entire carbon footprint.

euronews.com

Thanks to you, Ekolo ya Bonobo Reserve’s 2024 mammal diversity study is complete. The team identified 28 additional mammal species, and the camera traps captured a thriving ecosystem! Learn more about your impact: savebonobos.org/2024 #YourImpact #EkoloYaBonobo #WildlifeConservation

Comparing this with @a38cycleway.bsky.social shows how much more cycling infra investment is needed in Birmingham. Circa 4 times more people are cycling in Manchester. Andy Burnham with Chris Boardman & Sarah Storey have been ambitious and are delivering, same needed here. @brumgreens.bsky.social

Oxford Road Cycle Bot@oxrdcyclebot.bsky.social · 8mo ago

On Saturday 6th December 2025 there were 1,098 cyclists northbound and 915 cyclists southbound.

It’s a great podcast (Bold Politics)… reassuringly Zack Polanski is a rare host who knows how to listen deeply and if he disagrees he does it intelligently and respectfully. Very well worth a listen even if you’re not a Greens voter

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social · 8mo ago

....and a million plays on the podcast too! Thanks everyone for the support. Let's keep growing! 💚🙌🏼

I had the joy of getting to meet some baby blue-winged parrots today 💚💙

Super pleased with this one, led by the amazing PhD student and foraging expert @emmavscholey.bsky.social!

Mark D Humphries@markdhumphries.bsky.social · 9mo ago

🧪Preprint! How foragers depart from optimal models can tell us a lot about how they compute their decisions. A strong but underexplored departure is that foragers widely vary when they leave identical patches. A 🧵 doi.org/10.1101/2025... With @emmavscholey.bsky.social @brainapps.bsky.social

It’s not just about what you remove (cars, noise, dirty air). It’s about what you add (people walking, a lot of bike parking, trees, outdoor dining, and room for kids to play safely). Amsterdam: 1986 and today. Streets for people. HT @hackneycyclist.bsky.social for the great before-and-after

Public transport in Birmingham is lamentable, cycling is too dangerous for many by design, and our streets have been surrendered to speeding cars and gridlocked traffic. The saddest thing is that, as other cities have shown, it's not that difficult or expensive to fix this.

Dr Vanessa@hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Fun* update: bus subcontractor lost the contract, new contractor has taken over line but changed the time table so that now if I want to get to campus for 9am on a bus I have to leave my house at 7.30. I live 4 miles from work. #BrumIsBroken

We continue to live in a city created by the Victorians and Edwardians. Yet, we've chosen to prioritize only one type of Victorian and Edwardian transport technology, the automobile. Today, I'm talking at the @thevicsoc.bsky.social on why this came to be, and how the cycling city can exist again.

🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology: “A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.” Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍 🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @themanybirds.bsky.social

A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia

Neophobia (the aversive response to novelty) varies considerably across species and individuals, and can impact adaptability and survival. This study assesses neophobia in 1400 subjects from 136 bird ...

journals.plos.org

Great BBC coverage of our 'dinosaur highway' excavation, featuring @kirstymedgar.bsky.social @djemurdock.bsky.social & @peterfalkingham.com. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ficn...

One of the world’s longest dinosaur trackways uncovered in UK | BBC News

YouTube video by BBC News

youtube.com