"Design of [AI] agents should rely on the decades of scholarship that we have about individual, collective, and organisational behaviour. We should be drawing on what we know about the patterns that emerge in situations of competition, coordination, collective decision-making, and co-operation." 💯

Great paper, very readable: ‘Correcting for extrinsic mortality raises the estimate for the heritability of human life span in twin and sibling studies to ~55%, more than twice previous estimates and in line with heritability of most human traits.’ www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (open access)

The 3 starlings from Crosby Beach… out of a couple of hundred hanging out there in winter. #Crosby

🚲🚶‍♂️10 points, 2 pages, not-tl;dr → “The Bristol Declaration - calling for the transformation of the UK to a place where healthy transport options are the easiest, natural choice for most everyday journeys, without relying on a car.” www.fph.org.uk/media/tr2bnu...

A walk in the pinewoods for lunch. Feels very much like spring 🤩 #Formby

A walk in the pinewoods for lunch. Feels very much like spring 🤩 #Formby

“It’s the oldest cheese DNA in the world.” Bronze Age herders were buried with lumps of cheese starter, shows a 2024 study of ancient DNA. https://scim.ag/49HeqxQ #CheeseLoversDay

Just out 📄: UK gov’s ‘Global biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and national security assessment'. With all the other distressing news, ecological degradation and predicted effects sometimes don’t make it to the top, despite the urgency to act. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/696e0e...

#SquirrelAppreciationDay classic work 🐿️: Hans Hoffmann (German, 1530–1591) Red #Squirrel, 1578 watercolor & gouache over traces of graphite on parchment 25 x 17.8 cm (9 13/16 x 7 in.) National Gallery of Art 1991.182.5 www.nga.gov/collection/a...

Time line cleanse. Apparently it’s Red Squirrel Appreciation day today ( possibly just a Formby thing!) so here’s something Orange that isn’t hideous. 1/2

Trump just repeated again that China just builds wind turbines but did not use them themselves. Truth is :they actually do. China has more wind power than any other country.

Laura Fumagalli has created a virtual BJA issue on the aesthetic appreciation of nature. It includes BJA papers ranging from 1963 to 2024. Check it out here. academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics... #philsky

Congratulations to Susi Zajitschek, the University winner in the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Open Research, at LJMU’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Conference 2025 👏💐🎉 #LJMU #OpenResearch #RKEconference #ResearchAndKnowledgeExchangeConference

By combining mark-recapture and genetic parentage data from wild #lizards, we show that the offspring of older parents do not have lower survival or reproductive success than the offspring of younger parents: doi.org/10.1093/jeb/... Crain et al. 2025

Broadcasting for Democracy: Reimagining Official-Citizen Communication. Preprint. My take on strengthening the connection between representatives and the represented: individual, verified information channels for every elected official. osf.io/preprints/so... via @socarxiv.bsky.social on OSF

What is Git/Github, and how do I use it with R? A Git/GitHub Desktop/GitHub/RStudio Open Research tutorial: zajitschek.github.io/git_workshop... Part of the LJMU R Community's LJMU Bag of tRicks ljmutricks.github.io/bag-of-tricks

Crazy: Microbes can consume hydrogen from air to synthesize ATP www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I ❤️ inventions like that: bladeless wind power. ‘Instead of blades, these turbines use a tall, mast-like structure that oscillates or vibrates due to the aerodynamic phenomenon of vortex shedding. This oscillation is then converted into electricity.’ vortexbladeless.com

Why does eating less extend lifespan? 🧬 Mutation accumulation underpins evolution of lifespan extension by dietary restriction We often think about saving energy or recycling waste - but we show how evolution acting on mutation load can generate longer life on low food 🧵 🔗 tinyurl.com/jn5ryhxv

This is wild! Engineering E. coli bacteria to turn plastic waste into paracetamol (Tylenol) www.nature.com/articles/s41... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Instead of only reacting when local special places are at risk, let's remind ourselves what we love about our community: localglow.uk ⭐️ To protect and improve, we can mobilize for action: act.localglow.uk ⭐️ 🏡🌳🍔🤼‍♀️🏀👍 #Community #MakingADifference #SupportLocal

Maths gender gap emerging in first school year. Data of children who started first year of school in France 2018-2021 (almost 3 million 5-7 year olds). Gap showed in all cohorts, socioeconomic groups, regions of France & school types. Martinot, P. et al. Nature 2025. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great paper👍👍

A review of balancing selection www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Models of pest impact predict that climate warming will alter growth rates and distributions of insect pests. 🐞🌱🐞🌱🐞🌱🐞🌱🐞🌱🐞🌱🐞🌱 How do trait-specific evolutionary responses affect predictions? Have a look at our new paper rdcu.be/d6G2u in @naturecomms.bsky.social to find out. Short summary below.

Cacio e Pepe for everyone: “…a scientifically optimized recipe based on our findings, enabling a consistently flawless execution of this classic dish.” Will try it this week 🥰 ‘Phase behavior of Cacio and Pepe sauce’ arxiv.org/abs/2501.00536

from the editor’s summary: “Thus, consumption of meat in these early hominins did not pave the way to humanizing traits such as larger brains.“ Australopithecus at Sterkfontein did not consume substantial mammalian meat | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Isn't this great: description of new species, especially of 'common' organisms, such as Sydney funnelwebs and, just recently, a new earthworm endemic to Bavaria: zenodo.org/records/1451...

Nothing against cat videos (I'm more of a dog person, but hey), but this makes me much much happier!!

"Fruit flies dosed with lithocholic acid survived about 7% to 10% longer [...], and it extended nematodes’ life span by more than 20%. But the benefits for mice were less clear, producing a slight but statistically insignificant boost to longevity." www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08329-5

Awww... why not start 2025 with getting mesmerised by some Rtistry 😎