Okay for the rest of my life I have a new preferred go-to example of what a DFA is

There is still time to apply!💼📝Deadline: April 6, 2026⌛ #jobalert #Humanevolution #academia

Applications are now open for a PhD on collaborative problem-solving with @nicolacutting.bsky.social and myself. The deadline is soon (31st March) so get in touch with questions. jobs.yorksj.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

Non-human apes rarely teach their young.

The problem of interdisciplinary research: you don't need to jump through one hoop, but through several. At once.

Computationally formalising a verbal theory is an eye-opening experience because it forces you to openly state all the assumptions that the theory rest on

"We found that cumulative improvement occurred across generations even in the absence of causal structure, demonstrating that cultural transmission alone *can* drive technological improvement." Beautiful study. No notes. Highly recommended.

I second all that Ammie says here :-) ***If you are interested in why ape culture researchers so often disagree (and how we may change that in future) you'll find our analysis worth a read*** The paper is open access. Link is in Ammie's post.

Interested in the weirdness that is humanity? Ever suspect human evolution itself may be changing? Join my colloquium at the KLI in Austria to learn about: The Science of an Evolutionary Transition in Humans kli.ac.at/en/events/ev... (3pm CET, 9am US Eastern, on zoom and live)

@teap2026.bsky.social is over: 4 days, 10 workshops, 1 public lecture by @jensfoell.de, 3 keynotes, 80 talk sessions, and 3 poster sessions 👍🏼 Co-organizing this international experimental-psychology conference with Franziska Rück and Barbara Kaup, we brought over 700 researchers to Tübingen 😊

🚨Job alert!🚨 The Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS announces 2 junior Professor (W1) positions: A W1 Tenure track Professorship in Evolutionary Modelling (shorturl.at/FN102) and a W1 Professorship (non Tenure-track) in Primatology (shorturl.at/sH0Mk) Deadline: April 6 2026! Please share! 🔄

A fresh take on kid innovation in relation to task properties. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Interesting.

Nice mini thread on biological channeling

"projectile method"

I expect an inflow of aquatic ape hypothesis posts coming soon to bsky ;-) (The finding in seals looks interesting)

Seeing how, in reality, "simple" actions are hard, imagine how much harder is to "simply" copy them. Such copying is a special thing, and doesn't come easy (and involves many other things, too).

Our new Tübingen research cluster 'HUMAN ORIGINS' is now on bsky: @humanorigins.bsky.social

Baumard and André (B&A) responded to the (many) comments that their original piece (www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...). Their response is linked in Alberto's post. I just got a pdf copy and will read it now; this will be a thread with my first thoughts...

If you want to take your mind off awful politics and look at awful science stuff instead, this is a good read: www.sciencedetective.org/scientific-d...

For our recent paper - on naive humans reinventing how to shape early stone tools - we did sth unusual and sth (hopefully) useful: We included an FAQ section in the supplementary material New methods may benefit from such FAQ's being included. [available at ars.els-cdn.com/content/imag... ]

Enculturated chimpanzees like the bling www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

A Swedish state-funded research funding agency, Formas, has started to approve applications based partially on random draws. Applications are grouped into high quality (gets funding), low quality (doesn't get funding) and a middle group where a lottery takes place 🎰. formas.se/en/start-pag...

Unbelievable - Culture Conference is 10 years old! What a journey…🩵

This seems like the visual version of the ‘infinity scale’ from Dunkirk

This is what we never learned at school when learning about the Nazis in the 1930s. The big WHY people let it happen and why so many people were actually attracted to the Nazi Germany. And why that attraction never died. Now we are learning all this in real time.

Ok. Admittedly I didn't read this. But hey. Look at that chicken.

Reminds me of reading somewhere that academia is like a soup-eating contest, where the price is more soup.

I am absolutely thrilled to announce that I have accepted the position of Independent Group Leader in Experimental Archaeology at the University of Tübingen! The program will focus on establishing a reference collection for taphonomic phenomena specific to Island Southeast Asia 😁 🐘🏝️🇮🇩🦴

Our cultural backgrounds almost always (perhaps unavoidably) influence our epistemology & the questions we ask. Especially in the human sciences. E.g. some really interesting discussion here about how renascence values shape our thinking about neanderthal artwork. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Many thanks also to @elena-moos.bsky.social, who just joined bsky. Elena was the master knapper in the new study who made the application of the new method possible. Follow Elena, and I am sure you'll see amazing stone tools (and even dice!) made by her.

Most researchers are unaware that the concerns about strength of theories, methodology, and lack of generalizability led to a crisis in the 60's and 70's as well. Nothing changed then, and history is a good teacher for why nothing is likely to change this time around doi.org/10.5334/irsp...

Naive humans can reinvent knapping techniques - but can they also reinvent strategies to make early handaxe shapes? Turns out, yes, they can! Check out Nolan's new study (open access) and I recommend to follow him, too. He is going places.

So TL;DR, it costs us 1.5 cents per 3D printed whistle (approximately) in filament and electric costs, compared to about 6 for drop shipping; we're more nimble with a distributed network, and also, they can't just seize our whistles off the ship and stop the whole thing; and we pay less in shipping.

Sounds also like the voice of La Linea?

Open Science NL is funding 27 replication studies with €5.2M. Projects will reanalyse data, repeat experiments, and explore variations across many fields. Read more 👉 www.openscience.nl/en/news/27-s...

Ok, this is nuts. Once you see it you cannot unsee it. Do you see it? (OP @drgbuckingham.bsky.social )

The anti trip breaker is an INUS condition of your house burning down

Machine learning in archaeology (open access) doi.org/10.5334/jcaa...

Want to make nice graphs with me, starting next year? I'm hiring for a position at the University of Witten/Herdecke. uni-wh.softgarden.io/job/61280592...

This is part of a thread on a paper in a predatory journal. But this absolutely happens in non-predatory journals, too. I have noticed *several* examples already.

One of the undergrads in my lab cited a paper in their Honours thesis that doesn't exist. I am guessing they are trying to use AI to "help" with their lit review and didn't bother trying to download the actual paper. Thanks tech-bros for making academia worse. #academicsky

I am pleased to announce that from Jan 1 2026 I take over as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Theory. My first act, with the support of the editorial team, is to bring the journal to BlueSky from X. Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.

Currently spreading in Tübingen...

📣 Very happy to announce a new BBS target article with Nick Chater in which we propose a new theory of cultural evolution, highlighting the importance of bottom-up social interaction in explaining the emergence of cultural complexity 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Just saw this in my inbox. It seems to make a claim for biologically predisposed (due to natural selection) anatomy for nutcracking using hammers with power grips in west African chimpanzees. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

There were 18/167 Influenza A infections in the intervention and 31/167 in the control. There were 39/167 influenza B infections in intervention and 28/167 in the control. Overall lab-confirmed influenza was 57/167 vs 59/167. About as null an effect as you can imagine.

We’re looking for a motivated & curious researcher to join our team as a PhD candidate! You’ll work with Prof. Bridget Waller, Dr. Annika Bremhorst, & me at the Dog Cognition Centre, UoP. Are you fascinated by the dog–human bond & dog-human communication? 🐶 Interested? Get in touch with me.

I had not seen this before. Very interesting, by Jane Goodall - taken from the transcipt of this interview: freakonomics.com/podcast/jane...

Orangutan youngsters reach the broad diet they need to survive only if they culturally learn what to eat & where to find it -> This is the first clear evidence for cultural dependency of any kind in apes <- More info, and link to the paper in this thread by Elliot [the master-modeller behind this]