We are offering 3 #PhD positions in our Ecology of Animal Societies Department @livingingroups.bsky.social at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior - check them out! imprs-qbee.mpg.de/66685/current
Current
imprs-qbee.mpg.de
Pranav Minasandra
@pminasandra.bsky.social
Nature and structure of animal behaviour | Postdoc and PhD @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social | MSc and BS @iiscbangalore | English | ಕನ್ನಡ | हिन्दी | اردو | Dalit lives matter. ➡️ pminasandra.github.io
My institute is hiring a group leader in Neuroethology! Bonn is a wonderful place to do neuroscience. Check it out! jobs.b-ite.com/jobposting/4...
Max Planck Research Group Leader (W2) in Neuroethology (m/f/div)
limited contract
jobs.b-ite.com
Thrilled that our research is featured on the cover! There is also a perspective piece. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Observation and exploration widen the menu
Orangutans expand their foraging skills by combining observation with trial-and-error learning
science.org
Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior@mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social · 3w agoHow do orangutans build their huge diet profiles before adulthood? @revathe.bsky.social and colleagues show, for the first time, how multiple forms of learning interact over many years to build broad, survival-relevant ecological skills in a wild great ape. Paper: doi.org/10.1126/scie...
Apply to join a really cool new group!
Zoë Goldsborough@zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 3w ago📣🎓 Open #PhD Position (3.5 years) 🎓📣 Want to come work with me on culture and social bonds in apes? 🐵 Apply to join my new group in the @livingingroups.bsky.social at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social. Full job posting: imprs-qbee.mpg.de/131133/cultu... Deadline 📅 23 October 2026 Please share widely!
I wrote down my thoughts about the last several weeks of AI hell. aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading...
Misleading Metaphors, Real Risks
What To Fear from AI Agents and How to Reclaim Our Human Agency
aiguide.substack.com
Alexander Kasprzyk@amkasprzyk.bsky.social · last mo.If government believes "math is solved"; if research funders believe "math is solved"; if university administrators believe "math is solved"; if future would-be students believe "math is solved": then it really doesn't matter what the #LLM is capable or not capable of doing. Communicate our value.
So excited to see my first PhD paper featured on the cover of J. R. Soc. Interface! 🦅🎉 Thanks to @joefresna.bsky.social & Hannah Williams! Check it out @royalsocietypublishing.org doi.org/10.1098/rsif... @imprs-qbee.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de
🚨Preprint alert! 🚨What if your study animal doesn't know the landscape yet? Standard movement models such as SSA assume it does. In our new study we let it learn instead, and put "learner" against "omniscient" head to head (1/4) doi.org/10.64898/202...
Excited to share our new publication in Bioacoustics today, describing the vocal repertoire of white-nosed coatis! 🐾 We combined traditional acoustic analyses with an unsupervised approach to characterise the complexity and diversity of their vocal behaviour. doi.org/10.1080/0952...
I couldn't do it much justice with my phone camera, but this eclipse was a beauty. The moon remained visible until 10 mins before eclipse maximum, when the moon slipped behind a cloud bank with flashing lightning. I suppose that's the only appropriate exit.
Just watched Nolan's Odyssey and was disappointed despite the visual spectacle. But piggybacking off this, if you haven't read it already, do check out A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. A small review of that book by me here: pminasandra.github.io/reviews/2024...
'A Thousand Ships' by Natalie Haynes
Wrath! Sing, Goddess, of the wrath of Achilles, Peleus’ Son, whose wrath brought on the Achaians innumerable woes, hurled down into Hades countless brave men’s souls while leaving their bodies to dogs...
pminasandra.github.io
Slightly out of date, but Melanie Mitchell is one of the most thoughtful people in the ai/cogsci space: aiguide.substack.com/p/llms-and-w...
LLMs and World Models, Part 1
How do Large Language Models Make Sense of Their “Worlds”?
aiguide.substack.com
Yesterday the European Parliament gave the green light to #ChatControl, here are some very useful tools to go against their mass surveillance: @signal.org , Posteo, @nextcloud.bsky.social , Linux or @grapheneos.org are very good options, in my opinion. exitchatcontrol.org
Exit Chat Control · Become Ungovernable
A practical field guide to escape Chat Control and reclaim your digital privacy: encrypted messaging, email, VPN, DNS, passwords, Linux, GrapheneOS, self-hosting. Free, open source, no tracking.
exitchatcontrol.org
I’m beyond excited to share I’ve been awarded a Minerva Fast Track Fellowship by @maxplanck.de to start my research group “Culture and Social Behavior” at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social! Keep your eyes peeled for a PhD position advertisement coming later this year 🐒 www.ab.mpg.de/1442914/zoe-...
Zoë Goldsborough named Minerva Fast Track Fellow
ab.mpg.de
Does anyone have any idea how to get in touch with editorial staff at *Animal Biotelemetry*? I've agreed to review a paper for them, but need a small extension. There is absolutely no point of contact or e-mail ID anywhere, and all contact was from do-not-reply IDs. Help is welcome!
the amazing @mayankchugh.bsky.social once again powerfully captures the lived realities of inequality in academic mobility by sharing his experiences. this artwork "weighing" Indian and American passports hits really hard -- goes much beyond mobility privileges.
I was set to lead an undergraduate research trip abroad. Then my visa was denied
Through flexibility, problem-solving and the generosity of colleagues, I shepherded students through fieldwork remotely.
nature.com
"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."
Minas Karamanis@minaskar.bsky.social · 7mo agoHey, I wrote a thing about AI in astrophysics ergosphere.blog/posts/the-ma...
If you have ever thought 'I wish I could track individuals in real-time' or 'this tracker runs too slow on my laptop' or 'I want to remove observer bias in my study' or 'how could I automatise my setup?', then you'd like this project 👇 @asab.org @ceiussi.bsky.social @iussi-nwes.bsky.social
Dom Roche@domroche.bsky.social · 7mo agoSuch a fun project led by really talented and passionate people! If you want a free, user-friendly tracking option (live and post-hoc) check out TracktorLive! doi.org/10.64898/202... @rasmusern.bsky.social @jutfelt.bsky.social @tnorin.bsky.social @shaunkillen.bsky.social @zegnitriki.bsky.social
Such a fun project led by really talented and passionate people! If you want a free, user-friendly tracking option (live and post-hoc) check out TracktorLive! doi.org/10.64898/202... @rasmusern.bsky.social @jutfelt.bsky.social @tnorin.bsky.social @shaunkillen.bsky.social @zegnitriki.bsky.social
Pranav Minasandra@pminasandra.bsky.social · 7mo agoInterested in automating lab experiments or tasks with camera-trackable animals? We (@vivekhsridhar.bsky.social, @domroche.bsky.social, @iplanass.bsky.social) are launching TracktorLive, a real-time #python package for tracking and response. Video below by @iplanass.bsky.social [1/4]
Interested in automating lab experiments or tasks with camera-trackable animals? We (@vivekhsridhar.bsky.social, @domroche.bsky.social, @iplanass.bsky.social) are launching TracktorLive, a real-time #python package for tracking and response. Video below by @iplanass.bsky.social [1/4]
Interested in automating lab experiments or tasks with camera-trackable animals? We (@vivekhsridhar.bsky.social, @domroche.bsky.social, @iplanass.bsky.social) are launching TracktorLive, a real-time #python package for tracking and response. Video below by @iplanass.bsky.social [1/4]
🚨REPOST PLEASE! 🙏🏻 Calling all South African 🇿🇦 zoology students! You have ONE more week to apply to our Collective Behaviour Field Course 📍Two weeks at the Kalahari Research Centre 🗓️ June 2026 💸 Fully funded Application details are at www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/cbfc DM for any questions
Some of us put together a cool real-time tracking+ response system as a python package. Super accessible for those without much computer vision expertise. More when the paper is published. See the pre-print below! 👇
bioRxiv Animal Behavior and Cognition@biorxiv-behav.bsky.social · 7mo agoTracktorLive: an integrated real-time object tracking and response system https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.03.12.711471v1
One issue is, what happens when the big AI companies start charging the actual costs of running these models? I predict that future AI-agent use may be restricted to big companies and universities. Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/m...
Coding After Coders: The End of Computer Programming as We Know It
nytimes.com
✨New Perspective out w/ Wenning Deng and @fearbrain.bsky.social in @cp-iscience.bsky.social ! We argue that social foraging gives us a unifying, and ecologically grounded way to study how decisions unfold across levels — from individuals and dyads to collectives. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
This is really interesting!
Colin Gorrie@colingorrie.bsky.social · 8mo agoIf you liked this experiment, I published a full piece today in the same vein: a text that gets 100 years older with every section, from a modern blog post to a medieval chronicle. It's a single story spanning 1000 years of English. See how far you get. www.deadlanguagesociety.com/p/how-far-ba...