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Reposted by Kiran Basava

Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 7d

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Reposted by Kiran Basava

Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · Sep 4

The academic study of Religion also remains misunderstood as @vox-magica.bsky.social notes—whether because of its common misinterpretation as theological or the sense that it’s arcane +

There are also misconceptions about what religious-studies courses teach. “I get multiple reactions to what I do,” said Shaily Patel, an assistant professor at Virginia Tech. “One is, Oh you’re teaching people theology, which is not what I do. The other is, That’s not a thing that’s worth learning about, because people perceive religion to be esoteric.”

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Annette Yoshiko Reed @annetteyreed.bsky.social · Sep 4

A lot of the justifications point to the number of Religious Studies majors—but is this really how a dept’s value should be judged? In many RS departments in which I’ve taught, our courses have enormous enrollments & student interest +

“Counting majors does not reflect the value religious studies brings to a college, its proponents and practitioners say. Courses in religion are popular among undergraduates because they learn, often for the first time, about religion as something to study rather than to practice. Now that is more important than ever, some in the discipline say.”

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Kalyani Twyman @kztwyman.bsky.social · Jul 28

Really happy to share this article I'm grateful to have been a part of: 'Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience' coauthored with @kevinlala.bsky.social, @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social and Marcus Feldman. Check out a preprint here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
#ScientificRacism #Antiracism

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Aug 4

part of the issue may be that when people say ‘the humanities’, or my personal favorite, ‘the humanities and social sciences’ they could be referring to any of 53982 things that have very little to do with each other

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · Aug 2

Among all the weird takes that seem to be popular online, the one that always gets me is that studying STEM somehow morally corrupts people and the solution is to make people additionally go through a humanities and/or social science curriculum at the university level.

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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · Jul 23

I admit that I do not fully grasp what the knowledge of an ongoing genocide demands of me, but I think if I were not bothered by that question—if I batted it away, like a gnat—it could only be because something essential and irreplaceable had absented itself from my soul.

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

This is still early stages and we’re seeking feedback from animal behavior researchers on how to make future versions most useful for comparative research. Please take a look and get in touch! (5/5)

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

Current version has 133 behaviors for 62 species, mostly mammals + birds. Our focus now is expanding this sample, filling out missing data, and standardizing/quantifying variables (4/5)

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

Web app for the database: datadiversitylab.github.io/ACDB/
(3/5)

datadiversitylab.github.io

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

This includes taxonomic info and IUCN status; descriptions of behaviors, how they’re socially transmitted, and category (e.g. communication, foraging, migration, etc…); and a map of populations and behaviors (2/5)

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Kiran Basava @incertaesedis.bsky.social · Jun 22

Happy to share our new paper introducing the Animal Culture Database in Scientific Data: We’re putting together a resource consolidating primary research on cultural behaviors in wild animal populations and how they’re affected by human activity (1/5) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Mapping nonhuman cultures with the Animal Culture Database - Scientific Data

Scientific Data - Mapping nonhuman cultures with the Animal Culture Database

www.nature.com

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Ellen Garland @ellengarland.bsky.social · May 1

New theme issue in Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B @royalsocietypublishing.org:

Animal culture: conservation in a changing world

Edited by @pbrakes.bsky.social, @lucymaplin.bsky.social, @emma-carroll.bsky.social, Alison L Greggor, Andrew Whiten and @ellengarland.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1098/rstb...

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences: Vol 380, No 1925

doi.org

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Michael Haslam @twigtechnology.bsky.social · Apr 4

“Protecting the living cultural landscapes of animal stone-tool-use sites involves preserving the environments where these behaviors occur and recognizing the intrinsic value of animal cultures” 🏺🧪🐒

Ammie Kalan @ammiekalan.bsky.social · Apr 4

Happy to have a new piece in @science.org with my friend Lydia where we draw attention to the significance of animal material culture for understanding human technical evolution and why we should digitally preserve and protect primate tools and tool use sites. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Saving the cultural legacy of wild animals

Loss of biodiversity threatens the study of tool use and other cultural behaviors in animals

www.science.org

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Graham Coop @gcbias.bsky.social · Apr 8

Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.

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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Mar 18

I cannot imagine an ecologist saying "I'm going to start a genomics project, I don't know anything about DNA but how hard can it be?" You'd ask someone who knew. You'd learn.

You should do the same for social science research! Obviously!

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micamer.bsky.social @micamer.bsky.social · Mar 11

We would love feedback on a new NCBI-BLAST service we are launching today: sky-blast.com

Under the hood it's the same BLAST executable and databases provided by NCBI, with a replica of the NIH's interface - providing an alternative to the US gov service that's less congested, faster & more reliable

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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · Mar 7

New paper on the demographic drivers of cultural evolution in Great Tit song published today - epic work led by @nilomr.bsky.social with help from @andreaestandia.bsky.social Ella Cole & Sara Keen. Why did we do this, and what did we find? 🧵 follows: 1/n
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The demographic drivers of cultural evolution in bird song

Social learning can give rise to shared behavioral patterns that persist as culture within animal communities,1,2 such as bird and whale songs and cet…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · Mar 7

CES offers its full support to the Stand Up For Science rallies in the U.S. on March 7 2025.

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Delphine De Moor @delphinedemoor.bsky.social · Feb 15

Apparently the doi doesn't work for some people, so here's the full link: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... ☺️

Delphine De Moor @delphinedemoor.bsky.social · Feb 12

So exciting to see MacaqueNet out into the world! 🤩

Learn about our global community & database centralizing standardized affiliative & agonistic data from 61 populations across 14 macaque species: doi/10.1111/1365...

Explore >600 networks & request data: macaquenet.github.io/database/

MacaqueNet: Advancing comparative behavioural research through large‐scale collaboration

We present MacaqueNet, a global community of macaque researchers who developed the first publicly searchable, standardised database on affiliative and agonistic behaviour. This cross-species database...

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · Feb 5

Do whales optimize their vocalizations for efficiency, just like human language? 🐋🎶 My latest study in
Science Advances (@science.org) suggests they do—following linguistic laws seen in human speech. 🧵 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Language-like efficiency in whale communication

Whale vocalizations follow efficiency rules seen in human language, revealing striking similarities in communication systems.

www.science.org

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Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · Feb 1

Tips for preserving websites:

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Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute #DISI @divintelligence.bsky.social · Jan 24

📣📣📣

Applications for the 2025 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) are now open!!

Are you interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply!

More info: disi.org

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Claudia Wascher @wascherclaudia.bsky.social · Jan 22

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... In our new paper we review 130 papers and summarise empirical evidence for socioecological factors affecting vocal communication, as well as evidence for vocal learning in different corvid species.

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review

Vocal communication is broadly distributed in a wide range of nonhuman animal species and is hypothesized to play an important role in mate attraction…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Common Descent @commondescentpod.bsky.social · Jan 19

We're on BlueSky now!

Hello! We are Common Descent, a podcast about paleontology, evolution, and the history of life on Earth!

We release episodes every fortnight! Each one focuses on a topic requested by our audience!

commondescentpodcast.com

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