Headbutting goats self-inflict traumatic brain injury www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... "Overall, the goats sustained 5,000-7,000 head impacts each over six months."

Filippo Balbi, Testa Anatomica, 1854: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/testa-anatomica/ Available a a print here: https://publicdomainreview.org/product/testa-anatomica/

Let's start the week with an idyllic timeline cleanse. Kazuki Ikeda captured this footage in Nara Park in April 2020. Let's talk about the weird confluence of Nara Park deer & the tradition of 花見 'hanami' (flower viewing) that originated in the Nara Period (710–794 CE). (📷: Kazuki Ikeda)

A single cortical neuron could perform complex computations such as classifying dogs vs. cats! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... Some caveats: this is based on a model of a neuron, not an actual physical cell. We don't know if real neurons can do this. Still, fascinating!

Book of the Day in the Guardian! ‘My copy of Togetherness is now peppered with marginal annotations of “Wow!”’ - what a glorious review from the great @philipcball.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Togetherness by Rowan Hooper review – a stunning portrait of cooperation in nature

This corrective to our habitual emphasis on competition had me writing ‘wow’ in the margins again and again

theguardian.com

Here's my review for @theguardian.com of @rowhoop.bsky.social's superb new book Togetherness. I recommend it highly. www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

Togetherness by Rowan Hooper review – a stunning portrait of cooperation in nature

This corrective to our habitual emphasis on competition had me writing ‘wow’ in the margins again and again

theguardian.com

MBARI captured these views of glass squids in family Cranchiidae. I want to talk about some of the unique adaptations these Ghosts of the Midwater have & how they're adaptive to life in the twilight waters of the mesopelagic zone (200 m to 1000 m). (📷: Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)

These jellyfish larvae: * . * . * . * . * * . * . * * . *

#SundayReads: In the Middle Ages, rumours spread across Europe of a strange hybrid creature, half-animal, half-plant, known as the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary.... https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/animal-vegetable-lamb/ @longreads

Powered flight evolved three times in vertebrate evolutionary history: the pterosaurs, birds, and bats. What sets bats apart from flying birds & insects is their highly flexible, anatomically-complex wings, making them far more agile flyers while also being less "aerodynamic". (📷: Lund Univ)

Large male Australian giant cuttlefish (Ascarosepion apama) will try to guard females to prevent other males from mating with her. Smaller males will mimic a female cuttlefish to sneak past and mate. Paternity tests have shown that female cuttlefish prefer the smaller "sneaker" males.

This planet is just ridiculous www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

For #NationalPigeonDay, some very fancy pigeons courtesy of Emil Schachtzabel's Illustriertes Prachtwerk sämtlicher Taubenrassen (1906). More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/schachtzabel-pigeons

Wohoo, the whole special issue "Continually Discovering Complexity: Essays in Honor of William Bechtel" in @biologicaltheory.bsky.social is out! Edited by Daniel C. Burnston - explore this intellectually exciting collection! #HPS #PhilSci #HistSTM #PhilBio #mechanism #complexity #explanation 1/3

Biological Theory

Biological Theory is devoted to theoretical advances in the fields of evolution and cognition with an emphasis on the conceptual integration afforded by ...

link.springer.com

More astounding innovative palaeoart by Chinese graduate students. This time dinosaur dioramas locked in epoxy, with Tyndall effect (小红书: 念崽不会画画) 📍CAA Grad Show, Zhejiang Art Museum

😸"The philosopher who has ever had the nerve to defend illusionism publicly often encounters, from colleagues or strangers, half-fascinated and half-disgusted incredulous stares, frequently followed by a question: Do you *really* believe *this*? Here is an honest answer."

House of Mirrors: The Illusion of Phenomenal Consciousness

Abstract. This book provides a defense and an exploration of illusionism regarding phenomenal consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness supposedly encompasse

academic.oup.com

Quine was right about most things

Written by Uju ✍🏽@writtenbyuju.bsky.social · 2mo ago

What's a hill you'll die on?

Weird enough already that their antlers form the velvety skin, but then this only makes things infinitely weirder.

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Want to hear something freaky? If a deer gets a cut on its antlers while it's still in velvet, the next year when the deer grows a completely NEW rack, it will often grow an extra branch in the exact spot of the cut. Let's talk about TROPHIC MEMORY, the weird way cells (may) remember each other.

The Organism–Environment Pairing was published by @mitpress.bsky.social one month ago! As a reminder, the book is available #openaccess through the D20 initiative: direct.mit.edu/books/oa-mon... Please share it & help us bring this 📗 to as many readers as possible! #HPS #evosky #histsci #booksky

Just now learning that the term "navel-gazing" has its origins in an actual yogic practice that involved staring at your belly button as an aid to meditation. I know what I am doing with my evening...

"The subtle body in Indian mysticism, from a yoga manuscript in Braj Bhasa language, 1899. A row of chakras is depicted from the base of the spine up to the crown of the head" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtle_...)

Another new report on wild chimpanzee plant tool use, this time breaking down the fundamentals of fishing for algae in Guinea (part of the @mbchimp.bsky.social project). It comes with a figure on fishing techniques that doubles as dance instructions 💃🏺🧪 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

"I thought my husband had a brain tumour, but he was having an affair" www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06... I have to hand it to the Telegraph, they publish mostly nonsense but they know how to write a headline.

Nature reports on how labs are teaming up to run a host of huge projects that aim to bring rigour to cognitive science. #cogpsyc 🧪

Can an army of babies and dogs rescue psychology from its reproducibility crisis?

Labs are teaming up to run a host of huge projects that aim to bring rigour to cognitive science.

go.nature.com

An exchange with a flatmate.

18th century "cat contract" (納貓兒契式; based on a Yuan-dynasty original), laying out the cat's duties and responsibilities: tirelessly guarding the grain, repelling the "mousey bandits" (鼠賊), not messing with the livestock, not stealing numnums "of any kind whatsoever" (不得偷盜食諸般).

New look.⁠ ⁠ Illustration from a Book of Hours attributed to an artist of the Ghent-Bruges school and dating from the late 15th century. More rainbow-coloured "grotesques" here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/rainbow-coloured-beasts-from-15th-century-book-of-hours @BeineckeLibrary