In 2018, Charles Murray challenged me to a bet: "We will understand IQ genetically—I think most of the picture will have been filled in by 2025—there will still be blanks—but we’ll know basically what’s going on." It's now 2025, and I claim a win. I write about it in The Atlantic.

Impressions from #gradmeet25 @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social

Our 2nd session of the morning focuses on personality and flexibility — from aggression rates in lemurs to inhibition in cichlids, showcasing again the incredible diversity of behavioural research! 🐒🐀🐟 #gradmeet25 @jannesdoesscience.bsky.social @saskiasp.bsky.social

Kicking off day 3 of #GradMeet25 with more talks on sociality — linking it to dispersal, cognition, and endocrinology! From social dispersal in burying beetles to hormonal changes in cheetahs 🐘🐅🦀🪲 @paulhuber.bsky.social @carolin-schlarb.bsky.social @robotowilliam.bsky.social

Our final session focused again on methodologies 🧩 — with exciting applications from form-based approaches to assess chimpanzee gestures to facial action coding in rabbits 🐒🐇 @chiarazulberti.bsky.social #gradmeet25

Thank you very much for having me on today! Had a great time presenting my results about the adorable mouse lemurs.

Is it ok to acknowledge in papers funding opportunities that did not give you any $? Like "We’d like to specially thank the NSX grant panel ABC for not giving us a cent and for pushing our creativity to a level we didn’t know we had—allowing us to complete this project with no funding"? #academia 🧪

Sir David Attenborough’s latest film reveals the truth about bottom trawling — a fishing method that razes the seafloor like a bulldozer. This #WorldOceansDay, let’s raise our voices and take a stand.

Are you into 🐟🦐 ,🌊&💻📈? Come join us at the Theoretical Ecology Group @unibergen.bsky.social We’ve got 2 #PhD and 1 #Postdoc openings—fully funded, all for 3 years, all part of a funtastic team. 🔗 PhD: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... 🔗 Postdoc: www.jobbnorge.no/en/available... #AcademicJobs

To add to your annual report

On a remote Panamanian island, capuchin monkeys began kidnapping baby howlers and carrying them for days. Nobody was on the island to witness the origin and spread of this strange social tradition. But camera traps were there: www.ab.mpg.de/677569/news_... Study from @livingingroups.bsky.social ⬇️

Humans have many unusual traditions. But did you know animals’ strange behaviors can become culture too? Out now in Current Biology (doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...) we show the rise and spread of a surprising tradition: interspecies infant abduction. Interactive timeline (www.ab.mpg.de/671374) 🧵 (1/12)

Cross-species teamwork from @livingingroups.bsky.social reveals unexpected similarities in three social mammals 🤔 By lead author @pminasandra.bsky.social with Emily Grout, Katrina Brock, Meg Crofoot, Vlad Demartsev, Amlan Nayak, Eli Strauss, Ari Strandburg-Peshkin🧵1/2 www.ab.mpg.de/679000/news_...

In related news: arstechnica.com/science/2025...

For German and French speakers interested in animal culture, this doco will be well worth 43 mins of your time. For everyone else, great tits solving puzzle boxes speak for themselves 🐦🧩🧠@lucymaplin.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social www.arte.tv/de/videos/11...

Bonobo societies are famous for being “female dominant.” But females are weaker than males, so how can this be? Study by Barbara Fruth and Martin Surbeck on wild bonobos explains how. Hint: it has to do with female solidarity. Paper ▶️ www.nature.com/articles/s42... www.ab.mpg.de/673281/news_...

ICARUS BIRDS Where, how, and why do birds die? We are launching the ICARUS BIRDS project to find out! Join us in tracking common birds across Europe to uncover the factors behind their decline. Learn more on our website: www.ab.mpg.de/icarus

2025. A new approach for better understanding animal consciousness phys.org/news/2025-02...

🐶🐕🐩 My colleagues in the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University (Hungary) are conducting a survey of dog owners. So if you are a dog owner, please consider completing their survey at tally.so/r/nPXKPb. #dogs