The force required to separate and disperse dandelion seeds can vary by an order of magnitude, depending on the angle at which the wind is blowing. This prevents the seeds from falling near the parent plant. Perhaps that's why you can't blow them all away at once (paper) phys.org/news/2025-09...

1/2 Our immune system responds just by being around someone who appears to be sick. Not only that, but our peripersonal space also expands. This has been demonstrated using virtual reality, EEG, and analysis of innate lymphoid cells. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Estamos en #NaukasBilbao25 Podéis seguirlo:    ◻️ Por streaming: https://www.eitb.eus/es/divulgacion//    ◻️ En Tik Tok Live: https://www.tiktok.com/@katedratik    ◻️ En Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLHQo6zdotY

1/2 Chimpanzees consume the equivalent of 2.5 glasses of wine per day It is interesting (although still speculative) how it seems to relate to specific behaviors, such as territorial patrols, group hunting, and general cohesion among males. (paper) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1/2 Los chimpancés consumen el equivalente a 2,5 copas de vino al día En los 4,5 kg de fruta que comen al día hay mucho alcohol, y esto podría afectar a algunos de sus comportamientos. Me ha entrevistado para comentarlo www.eldiario.es/sociedad/chi... por @aberron.bsky.social en @eldiario.es

This is Finny. He doesn’t go chasing waterfalls. He carefully studies their timing and arrives in advance. 14/10 very impressive (TT: jordancain70)

1/2 Namu Myōhō Renge Kyō Spiritual chants from around the world share a common style. It seems that these chants are the result of a cultural evolutionary convergence mediated by our psychology, as they are relaxing. (paper) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Crows can learn to use tools The flexibility of corvid cognition is once again demonstrated to be sufficient for tool use, even in the absence of previous related adaptations. (paper) www.cell.com/current-biol... (blog) phys.org/news/2025-09...

1/5 Encyclopedia of octopus movements A study of the movements of 25 octopuses of three different species from Spain and various locations in the Caribbean (O. vulgaris, O. americanus, and O. insularis), and, unsurprisingly, they have surprised us once again! (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

1/2 A parasitic trematode with a caste of soldiers, like ants, has been discovered. These parasites (Haplorchis pumilio) typically infect snails (and sometimes infect humans). These soldiers are sterile and have mouths five times larger than normal. (paper) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

1/4 Thumb length and the evolution of the mind in primates They compared 95 species of primates (including fossils) and found a positive correlation between relative thumb length and neocortex size. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s42...

Eyy!! Qué ya tenemos programa para Naukas Bilbao 15º Aniversario!!! Viernes 19 y sábado 20 de septiembre (+ el Naukas Kids el domingo 21)... Guardad bien el fin de semana que va a ser espectacular! naukas.com/2025/06/12/o...

1/3 Rooks that understand us when we speak! Leo, a 21-year-old rook, began following verbal instructions spontaneously during comparative cognition experiments. He has been tested for this ability, and did great. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

‼️ Aviso importante: el Naukas Bilbao es el 15 aniversario y será el último con este gran formato. Si no has estado nunca, es tu última oportunidad. ⌛️

1/2 Chimpanzees learn to communicate (gestures + vocalizations) from their mothers. Interestingly, there is no influence from the father or the sex of the chimpanzee, which indicates that these differences are learned and not genetically inherited (paper) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Buenos días. Hoy comenzamos a recuperar las tres primeras temporadas de Catástrofe Ultravioleta para los lectores de @eldiario.es . Mientras, preparamos el regreso para principios de 2026 😌

Seguimos. 🎙 PODCAST | Morgan o la historia de una de las criaturas más inteligentes de la Tierra

1/6 Primates originated in cold climates. Given the current distribution of our group, it is easy to assume that the first primates emerged in tropical climates. However, it seems that this is not the case. We originated in cold climates. (paper) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

1/3 The larger a school of fish is, the faster and better the decisions made There are several mechanisms: quorum-based responses, critical response points, integration of individual and collective responses, etc. (paper) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

1/2 Yellowstone wolves carry their pups over long distances (+20 km) and across difficult terrain in order to follow elk on their migration. Until now, it was believed that these migrations protected them from wolves with pups. (paper) www.cell.com/current-biol... by @averyshawler.bsky.social

1/6 How our perception and memory work Our brain's default neural network divides our experiences into small, general fragments. It then uses these fragments to interpret new experiences and reconstruct our memory. (paper) www.cell.com/current-biol...

1/2 Experimental evidence that psychedelics reverse aging This evidence was obtained with psilocybin, both at the cellular level (in vitro) and in mice. Life expectancy increased by up to 57% (depending on the dose) (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41... (blog) www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

1/4 This explains why dolphins take so long to learn how to use sponges as tools. In Shark Bay (Australia), dolphins use sponges to dig and find fish hidden in the mud, but these alter their echolocation. (paper) royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Lightning kills 320 million trees every year. (paper) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... (blog) e360.yale.edu/digest/light...

we like to let our imaginations run wild about what forms alien life might take, but at least some of them are almost certainly crabs (and maybe anteaters) if their planets are remotely similar to ours

1/2 Sooner or later, mammals become anteaters Mammals have evolved to specialize in eating ants between 12 and 14 times. Anteaters, aardvarks, echidnas, numbats, etc. (paper) academic.oup.com/evolut/advan... (blog) www.sciencealert.com/mammals-have...

Aliens with alien abilities It turns out that the strange shapes of treehoppers have a function that also seems like science fiction: they help them detect the electrical charge of their predators. Amazing. Check out the thread and paper below

1/4 They adapted the rubber hand illusion experiment for octopuses. Like with humans, the researchers stimulated an arm while touching a fake one. It appears that octopuses have a similar sense of ownership over their bodies as we do. (paper) www.cell.com/current-biol...

The Cambridge elements series ‘Philosophy of Biology’ includes short, accessible books by experts. Everything from humans to slime moulds, selection to minds. And they’re all free to read and download this week! 🧪📚

If you have read "Der Erfindergeist der Tiere" by @auersperga.bsky.social, you may want to vote for it to win the "Wissensbuch des jahres" here: www.konradin-service.de/umfrage/inde...

1/4 Gifts from Orcas to Humans A total of 34 cases have been documented in which orcas have offered food to humans, whether they were on boats, swimming or even on the shore. These 'gifts' vary from seaweed and jellyfish to a bottlenose dolphin. (paper) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

1/2 Pigs are not 'stuck in the present'. Evidence of episodic memory in miniature pigs This experiment is an adaptation of a previous one designed for dogs, which used their sense of smell. Mini pigs seem to perform just as well as dogs. (preprint) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

1/2 Trash TV Macaques pay more attention to videos of familiar individuals in situations that show or suggest conflict (aggression or monkeys running) than in calm situations (e.g., grooming). (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1... (blog) phys.org/news/2025-07...

Very excited to announce that our latest feral cattle paper “Strategic third-party interventions in feral ungulate affiliation” is out today in @royalsociety.org Proceedings of the Royal Society B royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... by myself, Kate Flay, Tania Perroux & @amcell.bsky.social

1/2 Pigeons pay attention to where other pigeons are looking They used a motion capture system to study this. The probability of them paying attention to an object increases with the number of pigeons already looking at it. It is linear, with no quorum or limit (paper) www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

1/3 Tortoises not only experience emotions, but also mood states Although emotions in reptiles have been studied (to a limited extent), we didn't know nothing about whether they maintain them over time as we do. This is evidence that they do. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/5 Intentional and complex gestural communication in elephants They offered a tray of apples to elephants (n 17; Zimbabwe) and observed how the elephants tried to get the researcher's attention depending on whether or not they were given apples. (paper) royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

1/10 Aversion to inequality does exist in other species You will all remember that video from Frans de Waal's talk where a capuchin monkey furiously threw a piece of cucumber at the researcher. Since then, there has been much debate about this apparent outrage at injustice.

cc @biotay.bsky.social

🐵Un estudio cuestiona la dominancia social de los machos en la mayoría de las sociedades de primates 🗨️ @biotay.bsky.social: "Algo muy interesante, y que quizás haga pensar en el humano, es que esto puede variar entre poblaciones dentro de una misma especie" sciencemediacentre.es/un-estudio-c...

1/3 Is there an ant expert or parasitologist here who can explain what's happening here? This behavior resembles that of manipulative parasites, such as Dicrocoelium dendriticum or Ophiocordyceps unilateralis. However, this occurred on a window in central Vienna.

1/3 Age-related inflammation is something that only occurs in industrialized societies They have compared inhabitants of industrial societies (Italy and Singapore) with people from non-industrialized places (Tsimane and Orang Asli) (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Kisses between orcas For the first time, orcas in the wild have been filmed performing the ritual of biting each other's tongues. It was only known in captivity. It is believed to serve for reconciliation. This confirms that it is not an artifact of captivity. (paper) www.mdpi.com/2673-1924/6/...

1/4 Lateralization in dolphin echolocation Echolocation in odontocetes depends heavily on the cerebellum (a convergence with bats), specifically the right cerebellum. (paper) journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

1/3 Japanese macaques show an aversion to maggots in corpses and wounds. They have studied the reaction to wounds and corpses. Those who are socially bonded approach more closely. An alpha female groomed the corpse of the alpha male and ate the maggots. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

1/2 Imitation in sea lions The 'do as I do' method has been successfully tested on Hana, a female sea lion from Toyooka (Japan). She has proven capable of imitating humans, even when asked to perform previously seen actions. (paper) link.springer.com/article/10.1...

GPS tracking revealed that a seagull traveled 160 km inside a trash truck from San Francisco to California twice. The first time, perhaps by mistake. The second, perhaps to reach the compost center again (paper) bioone.org/journals/wat... (paper) www.mercurynews.com/2018/07/13/h...

1/2 To experience an 'aha' moment, it is best to reach the second phase of NREM sleep. In this experiment, 90 participants took a test, then slept for 20 minutes. Of those who reached light N2 sleep, 87.5% experienced an "aha" moment. (paper) journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

1/3 First evidence of anxiety in snails They exhibit fear responses hours after the source of their anxiety is removed. These responses can be reduced with an anxiolytic, such as alprazolam. They have also demonstrated high-level learning. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Social anxiety in macaques Tibetan macaques show self-directed behaviors before facing difficult social situations. For example, when females plan to approach higher-ranking females, or when low-ranking males are plan to approach receptive females. (paper) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...