Children drive all sorts of things, including me, to distraction; but they also shape culture. Important theory piece.

Sheina Lew-Levy@sheinalew.bsky.social · 3w ago

www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96

New 🦍 💭 paper in @psychscience.bsky.social We continue to ask simple questions that are hard to answer "Individual Differences in Great Ape Cognition Across Time and Domains: Stability, Structure, and Predictability" Bonus: Rasch models in the supplement 🤓 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Spent the last two years developing a new Intro to Physics course for undergrad biology majors. It features tons of examples from biology (especially Ecology & Evolution!) and requires only middle school-level math. Lecture note here shorturl.at/0PiVp Any comments or feedback are highly welcome!

This @noemamag.com article by Ryan Huling, author of Hidden Nations, beautifully covers our Nature Sustainability paper with @merikatariina.bsky.social and @birchlse.bsky.social! If you can’t access it, let me know 😉 doi.org/10.1038/s418...

Protecting animal cultures as World Heritage - Nature Sustainability

It is becoming increasingly clear that animal cultures have intrinsic, irreplaceable value, and yet they are not adequately protected by preserving habitat. The time has come for UNESCO to explicitly ...

doi.org

Noema Magazine@noemamag.com · 2mo ago

From architectural traditions to ancient courtship rituals, evidence of animal cultures is overwhelming but underacknowledged, Ryan Huling writes. #animals #biology #unesco

A very good read: “Recent progress in studies of the last million years of human physical and behavioural evolution” Review by @jamescolearch.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @matejahajdi.bsky.social @chrisbstringer.bsky.social 🧪💀 rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Recent progress in studies of the last million years of human physical and behavioural evolution

This article presents a synthesis of recent developments in the study of human evolution over the past five years. It begins with an overview of hominin species nomenclature and diversity, followed b...

rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Does it matter whether you use focal sampling or scan sampling to collect animal behaviour data? We used simulations to find out, testing how accurate and precise each method is across a range of behaviours, study systems, and observation protocols.

Lauren Brent@ljnbrent.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New paper! We use simulations to test received wisdom on the observational sampling method to use and find that Altmann 1974 was right all along (never bet against Jeanne!). Focal follows capture rare, fleeting behaviours, scans captures long, common behaviours. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New paper! We use simulations to test received wisdom on the observational sampling method to use and find that Altmann 1974 was right all along (never bet against Jeanne!). Focal follows capture rare, fleeting behaviours, scans captures long, common behaviours. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Observation methods in animal behaviour: a simulation study of performance

Most behavioural studies rely on systematic behavioural sampling, as observing and recording all behavioural events that occur is rarely feasible. Cho…

sciencedirect.com

Chimpanzee culture beyond the conspicuous: Evidence for broad-scale observational social learning in wild individuals🧪 www.cell.com/iscience/ful... Suggests wild chimpanzees use peering to learn a wide variety of skills, thereby highlighting unrecognized cultural potential in everyday behaviors.

New study on the evolution of primate cognition, brain size, sensory and motor functions, prompted by "recent work showing fishes perform as well as primates on various cognitive tests." 🐟🦍🧪 Great to see such broad comparative perspectives driving research. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Sensorimotor Complexity and Cognition as Predictors of Primate Brain Size

Objectives As animal brain size increases, cognitive performance generally increases. However, other key brain functions, such as the regulation of somatic processes, processing of sensory input, an...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

“we analysed data for 1436 mammal species, confirming that group-living and pair-living species exhibit longer lifespans than solitary species…findings suggest that while group-living may reduce predation risk, pathogen transmission costs in larger groups may constrain longevity benefits”

Social Organisation Predicts Lifespan in Mammals

Using Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of 1436 mammal species, we show that pair-living and group-living species have longer maximum lifespans than solitary species after accounting for body mass and p...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

New preprint: "Social-information seeking in development: The child as experimental psychologist" (w/ Azzurra Ruggeri). osf.io/preprints/ps... We review literature on how children use their information-seeking and hypothesis-testing skills to learn about other agents, & ask whether...

We’re conducting a short 5-minute survey to support the development of a practical tool for non-human primates welfare. Researchers, keepers, and vets in zoos, sanctuaries, and rescue centres: your input would be incredibly valuable. forms.gle/SPN7PHVPpzF5... Open until 10 April. Please share!

Global Survey on Non-Human Primate Welfare Monitoring and Research Collaboration

Welcome to a survey for researchers, keepers, and veterinary staff to assess current practices, collaboration, and needs for monitoring non-human primate behavior and welfare. Your reply will be extre...

forms.gle

The FameLab Swiss final is happening tomorrow, 24th Sept at 6pm! Live stream www.youtube.com/live/jIc30Fq... In person, free entry in the Aula, 1st floor, PROGR in Bern (Waisenhauspl. 30, 3011 Bern). See you tomorrow 🤗 #famelab #sciencecommunication #talkingscience #primates #primatology

FameLab Final 2025

YouTube video by FameLab Switzerland

youtube.com

Just in: insect application to wounds happens also in East African chimpanzees: share.google/WwKqxSy4t0e2...

Insect applications to open wounds by chimpanzees in the wild: first insights from East African chimpanzees - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Insect applications to open wounds by chimpanzees in the wild: first insights from East African chimpanzees

share.google

Important new work (from Elisa Bandini, @ctennie.bsky.social, @sofiaforss.bsky.social et al.) addressing an elephant in the room - how weird are our weirdest apes, and how is that skewing research efforts? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🚨What is behavioral innovativeness? And how can we make sense of claims that individuals or taxa are 'more innovative' than others? In their new EJPS paper, Grant Ramsey & @andrameneganzin.bsky.social defend a novel, multidimensional & multilevel account of innovativeness.👇 #philsci #HPbio #evobio

Hi everyone, happy to share with all of you the paper from the second chapter of my PhD, where we show that more exploratory birds use a broader foraging niche, linking consistent behavior with ecological flexibility. I hope you can enjoy it and share it!!! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Exploration Behavior Is Consistent and Associated With Foraging Behavior in Island Songbirds

We tested the neophobia threshold hypothesis in six landbird species, including four Darwin's finches. Exploration behavior was consistent over time and contexts, with species exhibiting greater fora....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Our #study finds that #male #dominance isn't the norm among #primates, and starts to unravel what shapes flexibility in intersexual power paper (OA) https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2500405122 press release https://www.mpg.de/24986976/0630-evan-beyond-the-alpha-male-150495-x?c=2249

🚨New article in Proc B: "Reciprocity evolves more readily in competitive than cooperative socio-ecologies" Using agent-based evolutionary models, we show that reciprocity emerges more reliably in competitive environments with high exploitation risk. 🔗 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Reciprocity evolves more readily in competitive than cooperative socio-ecologies | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Tracking what others did and matching other’s expected actions is seen across a range of biological systems. As reciprocal matching rewards and reinforces cooperators and punishes and discourages non-...

royalsocietypublishing.org

We have a new paper out in @cp-iscience.bsky.social reporting that more socially integrated female chimpanzees have lower offspring mortality 🧪 #evosky #primates #primatology #anthropology www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Socially integrated female chimpanzees have lower offspring mortality

In humans and other social mammals, more socially connected females often have higher fitness. Yet evidence linking female sociality to offspring surv…

sciencedirect.com

New paper in @behavecol.bsky.social (link: academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...) led by PhD student @marcofele.bsky.social using hard-won data from our amazing baboon team. Our @swanseauni.bsky.social press release: www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office... We introduce the idea of a "social spandrel".....

Baboons walk in line for friendship, not survival, new study finds

Researchers at Swansea University have discovered that baboons walk in lines, not for safety or strategy, but simply to stay close to their friends.

swansea.ac.uk

🚨CogSci preprint alert🚨 When you look at reviews, do you like to focus on positive or negative ones? @stepalminteri.bsky.social, @thecharleywu.bsky.social and I set out to investigate how learning rate biases differ between individual and social learning in our new study. osf.io/bcrw9_v2 🧵 below!

Had a fantastic #pintofscience night in Baden! 🌟 Sharing stories of curiosity & sociality in humans and non-human primates with laughs, interactions, and great questions. This is why I do science communication to spark curiosity and make science joyful. 🐒 Massive thanks to organizers!

Great opportunity! If you are interested in it, please check the links below the original post.

Raphaela Heesen@heesenr.bsky.social · last yr.

Interested in biology and comparative psychology, and working in an interdisciplinary project and research team? I’m advertising two PhD positions on the evolutionary origins of cooperative sociality and communication (start 1.10.) at the University of Konstanz👇 links below!

Updated the reinforcement (+social) learning models in my cultural evolution agent-based modelling in R tutorial. Now uses cmdstan rather than rstan (and more importantly now works again). On github (Model 17): github.com/amesoudi/cul... and bookdown: bookdown.org/amesoudi/ABM...

Don't miss Pint of Science Switzerland. See you in... Baden! 📍Kulturhaus Royal - Baden, Bahnhofstrasse 39 📆20 May - 6.30PM 🎤Talks in 🇩🇪 and 🇬🇧 🎟️FREE ENTRY Program: pintofscience.ch/event/scienc... @pintsworld.bsky.social #PintCH #Pint25 @uzh-ch.bsky.social @fnhw.bsky.social

New paper alert 📢 Young wild chimpanzees from the @taichimpproject.bsky.social show attachment types with their mothers similar to human children. Only they do not display patterns related to disorganized attachment. Read our new paper in Nature Human Behavior www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Evidence of organized but not disorganized attachment in wild Western chimpanzee offspring (Pan troglodytes verus) - Nature Human Behaviour

This study of 50 wild Western chimpanzee mother–offspring dyads revealed no evidence of disorganized attachment. Instead, offspring exhibited secure-like and insecure avoidant-like behaviours during t...

nature.com

I'm THRILLED that our book is out. This book, with other 60 contributors from across the globe (!!!) is a love letter to the science we want to do, and a how-to guide for how to do it. Please read it and share it!

Open Book Publishers@openbookpublish.bsky.social · last yr.

OUT NOW: A Field Guide to Cross-Cultural Research on Childhood Learning reimagines how we study kids—globally. With voices from 21 countries, this inclusive, practical guide bridges disciplines and challenges Western-centric research. buff.ly/0qk1cOs