Highlights of this year’s Ig Nobel recipients include a nutrition prize for studying the preferred pizza toppings of rainbow lizards at a seaside resort in Togo go.nature.com/3I4wd8E

"good advice should balance doing more with doing less... while well-meaning, it can unintentionally make mental health feel like an endless list of chores." I think even mental health professionals have a bias for additive advice. This is an interesting concept that definitely needs more research

Incredible shots as always for the #Wildlife photographer of the year. The elephant in the rubbish tip is particularly shocking and the wolf photo is simply beautiful.

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you're inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won't. Habit is persistence in practice.” ― Octavia Butler #AcWri #WritingSky #AcademicSky

📣 New paper! When young adults took part in a digital detox to use their phones for <2h/day, their mental health and stress improved. Great! BUT... their heart rate variability went up, indicating higher physiological stress. What’s going on? 🧵 1/3 @ehps.bsky.social #psychology

Do you know the difference between misinformation and disinformation? Find out. 👇🏿

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said." It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy. I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

It's world elephant day! 🐘 I so missing working with these goofy guys but at least I still get to talk about them on the podcast

Living in Vienna I get complacent about the beauty of the city. Seeing the buildings through fresh eyes at #ICBM2025 this week 🤩

Excited for #ICBM2025 this week! If you're interested in inclusive healthcare for LGBTQIA+ people, come along to my talk:

Social movements play an essential role pushing for action on climate and nature, and it’s now widely recognised that support from scientists can make them more effective But not everyone can take to the streets or risk arrest That’s ok – there’s lots we can do in other ways 🧵1/

Grant editing day. It's time to kill my darlings #AcademicChatter #AcademicWriting

This is so cute! I just registered 😀

Psychologists & related fields: what is a big methods question that you believe remains somewhat unanswered & that you'd love to see adressed? There may be an opportunity for a large-scale meta-science project with many teams trying to figure out a question. Any thoughts welcome! #psychscisky

Walking 7,000 steps a day (compared to 2k) can be enough to boost your brainpower & help protect against a range of diseases, including cancer, dementia & heart disease. A new Lancet study analysed previous research & data from 160k adults worldwide. 🧪🚶🏼‍♂️🚶🏾‍♀️🧠🫀🔬 www.bbc.com/news/article...

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/...

My brain every morning for July while I try to smash out a grant proposal 🥴💪

A while back @bmioduszewska.bsky.social and I did a bit with the fabulous @drracheldale.bsky.social and Megan Lambert, that you can check out here. As I’m lazy with my socials, they already have an new episode out with @goatswhostare.bsky.social… Also very worth listening to 👍

In this edition of Ideas, philosopher Susana Monsó explores a new study which has uncovered the mysterious burial of elephant calves in Indian tea plantations and what these findings reveal about elephants’ remarkable understanding of death. hubs.ly/Q03tFH6m0 #Animals #Philosophy @susanamonso.com

Love supporting my talented friends... especially when it involves a fancy dinner at the beautiful Rathaus (city hall) 👀 (Scots are suckers for free food) Excited for my pod co-host Megan as she starts her big project on animal innovation!

Some weekends are for switching off, taking a breath and just listening to the sound of the river #WorkLifeBalance #nature

Science is full of all kinds of wonderful amazing people 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ #PrideMonth #Pride #LGBTQ

I'm SO happy to live in a city with so much water for recreation and a short journey to higher altitude mountains for heat respite. This will become more & more important. Don't get me wrong, I love summer! But it's getting extreme. Create your own temperature stripes here: 👉 showyourstripes.info

NEW EPISODE 📣 Meet the man who stares at goats. @goatswhostare.bsky.social tells us about what goats understand about human behaviour. Goats vs sheep. The weirdness of goat eyes. And more! Listen: linktr.ee/wild_behavior_pod Photo: ThomasHäntzschel #goat #behaviour #farm

We are looking for a Research Assistant to contribute to our ongoing analysis of dolphin acoustic data from West Wales - collaboration between @wtsww.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social 🐬 Deadline is 29th June - please share widely! www.bristol.ac.uk/jobs/find/de...

Here also a non-scientific summary of our recent systematic review:

NEW PAPER 📣 We conducted a systematic review on the relationship between how we divide our movement/sleep time in a day and mental health This paper was a mammoth undertaking. We had many more papers than expected. I'm SO happy it's out & now need a wee break before another systematic review! 1/🧵

I like to include weird or funny studies in examples for students. This one about what happens if you swallow Lego definitely makes the cut! Parents can rest assured the average FART score (Found and Retrieved Time) was 1.7 days and most toys were retrieved.

We are reviewing the current state of scientific publishing, and we want to hear from researchers on their perceptions of publishing in the current context and how it might develop in future. Complete our short survey now:

This highlights how often basic psychology and health conclusions are made based on WEIRD populations. Much more cross-cultural comparisons are needed. Congrats to the authors, super interesting!

Alligator Talk! I had a great time as a guest @wildbehaviorpod.bsky.social! Want to hear three old university buddies geek out about crocodilians? Then give it a listen, it was so much fun! Thanks for the invite, Megan and Rachel! Link: linktr.ee/wild_behavior_pod

Always a pleasure to go to the pub and learn about cool stuff at Pint of Science. Who knew water treatment could be so interesting! Glad there are scientists out there both removing harmful things from the water and figuring out how to extract the excess useful things. #Pint25 #PintOfScience

Due to the whites of the eye, humans have a uniquely communicative gaze. Other primates have dark eyes, hiding their gaze from conspecifics. We cooperate, they compete. Common knowledge – right? Yes, but it’s incorrect, as we argue in our new paper 🧵🧪1/11 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Aw shucks! He's right though... if you like to get your animal behaviour facts in audio form then @wildbehaviorpod.bsky.social is the place to go 🤣

I will forever be haunted by this footage. Trawling has only been filmed underwater a few times in documentary history, and never with such clarity. What’s so heart-rending about these shots is watching how the animals don’t just get swept up — they swim for their lives. 🌎🦑🧪

Happy 99th birthday to David Attenborough. Thanks for inspiring generations of animal behaviour researchers! 🐘🐬🐵🐸🐝🦅 www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

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Graduate students working in any aspect of Animal Behavior: sign up to attend the 5th annual SIGNAL Workshop May 15-16th! Featuring professional development, peer networking, & career panel. 100% of past respondents recommended it to other grad students! signal-ab.weebly.com/register-for...

Hey #AcademicSky as part of a course I want students to rate journals on the thinkchecksubmit checklist. I already found some predatory egs from my spam folder but what's a good eg high quality journal in #pyschology or #psychotherapy doing everything right? Open access, peer-review, licensing etc.

🚨 Come work with us! 3-year fully funded PhD position in Social and Cognitive Neuroscience @univie.ac.at @clauslamm.bsky.social to join our project investigating prosocial behavior under uncertainty. More info: shorturl.at/1fnb2 Please share widely 🔁

NEW EPISODE 📣 Are you unsure what Bioacoustics is? So were we! Dr Max Garcia saved the day. Layringes, howler monkeys, sounding bigger than you are, animals listening to sounds in the wild - we've got you covered! linktr.ee/wild_behavior_pod #acoustic #SciComm #animal

1/5 Our relationship with dogs. They have studied the relationship of 717 people (90% women) with their romantic partner, children, close kin, their best friend and with their favorite dog. They perceive their dog as a mix between child and their best friends (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Most conservation initiatives require changes in human behavior. Insights from behavioral science may help bridge that gap. Learn more on #EarthDay:

Even accepting the premise that AI produces useful writing (which no one should), using AI in education is like using a forklift at the gym. The weights do not actually need to be moved from place to place. That is not the work. The work is what happens within you.

I actually think a LOT of naive optimism is a good idea for animal behaviour research. You never know what can be achieved till you say 'screw it' and just try!

🐘 Gentle Giants - in this episode we learnt how behaviour research can be used for elephant conservation with Dr Josh Plotnik. Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/7kJT... Or wherever you get your pods! Photos: Rachel Dale/Think Elephants International #elephant #conservation #podcast

NO, they did not "resurrect" the dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus). They have only edited 14 genes of the gray wolf to resemble it. Apparently, all the changes are focused on its appearance (color, size and shape of the ears) It is pure propaganda. (blog) www.newscientist.com/article/2475...

This episode is one of my favourites & I'm not at all biased & I won't hear any more on that matter 🐘 I know the US is going through a tough time with science right now, so I'm also happy we can do a tiny part by highlighting US scientists and the importance of their work #StandUpforScience

Behind the scenes 🎙️ Listen to Megan and Rachel's own research stories in our intro episode: Shifting the Spotlight. Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/4piX... And wherever you get your pods! #podcast #SciComm #animal #psychology

Do you (mostly) work in an office? Do you feel like procrastinating for a couple of minutes? -> then help my student out by completing this 5-min survey 😀 uwk-krems.limesurvey.net/828444?lang=en