We had the pleasure of awarding the Fyssen International Prize last June to two outstanding laureates — Prof. Jean-Louis Deneubourg and @icouzin.bsky.social Prof. Iain Couzin — in recognition of the excellence of their work on the theme "Collective behavior across species".

It’s the New Fellows Seminar Day - incredible talks in an inspiring venue. I love the motto of the Royal Society: “Nullius in verba”
“Take nobody’s word for it” -
don’t just believe something because someone says so—find out for yourself.

Spent a fantastic week in Konstanz visiting @icouzin.bsky.social and having so many discussions about collective behavior in *everything*.

Heuschreckenschwärme sind Wunder der Koordination. Wie sich die einzelnen Tiere im #Schwarm orientieren, können @icouzin.bsky.social et al. vom @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social und @cbehav.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de) jetzt annähernd erklären: www.laborjournal.de/rubric/journ... (von Larissa Tetsch)

From humans to swarm intelligence, what is the impact of uninformed individuals on collective decisions? Check this comment in @science.org by @kenjennings.bsky.social and @carlbergstrom.com on @icouzin.bsky.social et al's paper cdanfort.w3.uvm.edu/csc-reading-...

I’m thrilled to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society. What an honour! Would not have happened without the mentors, postdocs and students who I’ve had the great privilege to learn and collaborate with throughout my career. @uni-konstanz.de @maxplanck.de

Liang Li and team have developed a VR system for fish to decipher how they school. The team uncovered the natural ‘control law’ used by zebrafish to coordinate behavior with others.

@icouzin.bsky.social @uni-konstanz.de @cbehav.bsky.social

Paper: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New episode 🎧 We discuss Geometric Decision-Making with @icouzin.bsky.social! We go over the collective behaviours seen in different animals 🐠🪰🐙and ask: how much do physics models ⚛️portray the dynamics of collective-decision-making? Listen to learn more! open.spotify.com/show/4GrM2vL...

In his new book, published today, Nachum Ulanovsky calls on the field to embrace naturalistic conditions and move away from overcontrolled experiments.

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur...

Pretty much everything is fucked, but here is some beautiful and exciting science from @archaeon-alex.bsky.social and colleagues.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A special issue of Science explores the complex and close associations rats share with humans—from their ubiquity in the human environment to their crucial role as biomedical models.

🐀 Learn more on #WorldRatDay: scim.ag/3E7Xo04

🌍 We are launching a new #ManyLabs!!! Join the Heat & Cognition project! We're studying how extreme heat affects human thinking, social behavior & well-being — globally.
Contribute & co-author:
🔗 Info: heatandmind.wordpress.com
📋 Sign up: www.soscisurvey.de/HeatandCogni...
#EnvironmentalPsychology

We use multi-sensor field studies, swarm robotics and computational modelling to understand the 'what', 'how' and hopefully the 'why' of it all. Tagging our collaborators @swarmdynamics.bsky.social @joefresna.bsky.social @icouzin.bsky.social & Kalle Åström at Uni. Lund 3/n

Kicking off the UK Multi-Agent Systems Symposium 2025 (UK-MAS) by The Alan Turing Institute!

Opening with @icouzin.bsky.social from @cbehav.bsky.social on "The Geometry of Collective Multi-Agent Decision Making."

Exciting day of #collective #behavior across scales.

👾🤖🦠🦈🖥️🏦

We are proud to present our new preprint “Correlative light and electron microscopy reveals the fine circuit structure underlying evidence accumulation in larval zebrafish”, just posted on bioRxiv (www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...). (1/10)

Thank you all for the opportunity to talk about insect swarms, and for the President’s Medal. Lovely to see so many friends from over the years there!

📢 It's tomorrow!

The 2025 #VerrallLecture will be given by Professor @icouzin.bsky.social, Director of the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behaviour @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social.

The Lecture takes place Wed 5 March. The talk will be recorded & shared after the event 🔽
buff.ly/4hJ9BGz

Thinking of starting a new religion

The final keynote speaker of #cultureconference2025 is Michael Chimento, with his work on methods and models of ephemeral animal cultures 🐦

@cultconf.bsky.social @mchimento.bsky.social

More cool work from the “Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour” @cbehav.bsky.social at the University of Konstanz.

London folk - I’m giving a public lecture on Wed “From Democratic Consensus to Cannibalistic Hordes: The Remarkable World of Insect Swarms” - Come along!

Heartbreaking chats this week with students thinking of giving up on their dreams of getting a PhD. They worry about getting in PhD programs and careers post PhD. My suggestions: don’t be hasty, think broadly incl EU & Canada, & careers beyond traditional academia. What’re you telling your students?

#Swarm science just got a shake-up! 🦗🦗🦗For decades, #locusts were thought to move like particles but new research indicates they actually use sensory & cognitive mechanisms, not simple alignment @icouzin.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @sercansayin.bsky.social