Looking for an Associate Prof position? Interested in behavioural ecology & cultural evolution? Come join us at the Dpt of Ecology and Evolution in Lausanne🇨🇭 @dee-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! Great department & great place to live. Pls RP. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

Out now in PNAS. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Thank you to all peers and colleagues who provided invaluable feedback during the process!

A demographic theory of similarity-biased social learning | PNAS

We develop a demographic theory of similarity-biased social learning that formalizes our understanding of when and why individuals should preferent...

pnas.org

Alejandro Pérez Velilla@apvelilla.bsky.social · 6mo ago

New preprint with @psmaldino.bsky.social on the evolution of similarity-biased learning: osf.io/preprints/so... This mathematical treatment both simplifies and extends our previous simulation treatment of the subject: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Publishers: Would you like to write a textbook? Me: Maybe. Will I get paid a lot? P: Not at all. M: Oh so it will be affordable for students? P: Also no. M: But at least I can easily make edits after release? P: Definitely not. ….

Jennifer N. Victor@jenvictor.bsky.social · 4w ago

Today, in middle-aged academics' rage, I learned that a paperback version of the course textbook I've used for 20+ years costs $265!! The electronic version, which requires students to read it through the publisher's proprietary software interface, is $98. RIP books! 😩

Open position of Associate Professor in Behavioral ecology and cultural evolution at the @dee-unil.bsky.social! You can toggle the ad to English on top right: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...

"Where the fuck are you? Where the fuck are you? Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?" System of a Down, always relevant. Where the fuck are you, voters? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.Y.O.B...

B.Y.O.B. (song) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Do humans still genetate em dashes? Existence guaranteed.

Somebody needs to read Marx.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences@pnas.org · last mo.

Productivity increases can improve conditions for workers, but not when workers have little power. A study of Bangladesh brick kilns found that when more efficient methods were introduced, there was no reduction in forced or coerced labor. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/fE2u50Zs28U

No, not everything done with AI is great. No, not everything done with AI is slop.

Hear me out, what if Nolan tried to keep the linearity by cutting the timeline down to a day and setting it in Dublin

The University of Exeter is not in budget deficit. Yet are proposing to cut 150 academic jobs. This include my job. Please sign and share the petition, write our Vice Chancellor, to your MP, and get the word out about the act of self harm this university is about to commit. c.org/yKcx6Zr29H

This campaign needs you now

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter

c.org

Political leaders, take note. This is how you should speak. "While we cannot end the genocide on our own, we can decide whether our silence will become another weapon, and we can examine every tool we have to defend the humanity and dignity of all people."

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · last mo.

Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal.

First you're robbed (housebreaking), then you're interrogated by the police, then you're interrogated by your landlord, then you're interrogated by your insurance company, then you're interrogated by the expert hired by the insurance company. At this point you are only waiting to be sent to jail.

Many thanks to the Toronto Star for inadvertently showing us why we should all use the Oxford Comma. Apparently Sylvia had some, let's say, complicated hobbies:

ass out flower ate this is how i like pollinate

How can we collectively contain the threat of dishonest delegation to AI? Our paper "Whistleblowers can contain the unethical externalities of human–AI delegation" is out in PNAS, with @nckobis.bsky.social , Andrew Samuel, and @jfbonnefon.bsky.social. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

For me this paper is a career highlight..truly astonishing biology! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A queen odour mediates reproductive suppression in a eusocial mammal - Nature

Naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber) queens produce isopropyl myristate, a low-volatility ester that high-ranking animals detect and avoid, which alters prolactin and progesterone in other females t...

nature.com

I had a paper accepted and learned that PNAS got rid of their free, “closed access” (preprint ok) option - they now charge at least $3K to publish because they are greedy little pigs who have no shame.

I'm sorry to agree with the Argentinian national football team but las Malvinas son argentinas.

Argenfifa.

Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵

only suckers say soccer

Peer review is unpaid. Click "claim credit" for a review and that record enters a database owned by Clarivate, the company that also sells the impact factor. Your free labour becomes their inventory, and once anonymised, raw material for profit. academicrenewal.substack.com/p/who-owns-y...

Who owns your peer review?

The reward for reviewing has quietly become an asset on someone else's balance sheet.

academicrenewal.substack.com

Yes, Messi is a good player and Argentina is a good team, but it is easy to win when not only the referee but also the FIFA plays in your team.

Read elsewhere: "[US]'s global standing now so poor that entire world celebrates their loss to history's most barbaric colonisers". Indeed.

"A journal" was @biologyopen.bsky.social from the @biologists.bsky.social

Nature@nature.com · 2mo ago

A journal trialled paying their reviewers and found it led to faster first editorial decisions – and increased review quality go.nature.com/3RcRfpY

Jon Fosse's Trilogy (Wakefulness, Olav's Dreams, Weariness) is now up on my personal pedestal, together with Beckett's own trilogy and some other fetish novels. What a masterpiece. Incredible how such beautiful prose can be made without ornaments and with the simplest words. I'm truly in awe.

Preprint: Electoral Systems Shape the Entry and Entrenchment of Extremist Parties w @chasnew.bsky.social, Tyler Marghetis & @bradleveck.bsky.social We compare proportional representation v plurality voting & compare how each represent voters & are susceptible to extremism osf.io/preprints/so...

Have ideas for your own, independent research program in Theoretical Biology? Then come and join us as a Group Leader at the @mpi-evolbio.bsky.social in Plön, Germany!

Group Leader in Theoretical Biology (m/f/d)

Experience in Theoretical Biology, Applied Mathematics, Theoretical Physics

mpg.de

Reading dystopian literature to escape from a dystopian world. Surely there's a meme for this. There might be even theses written about this. But I'm lazy to look.

If you have (or will soon) complete your PhD & would like to join a thriving cultural evolution research group in NEW ZEALAND, drop me a line. UoA offers a handful of funded research fellowships. Applications must be made by a faculty member. Deadline August. Pls share with your students