Liz Renner
banner
lrrenner.bsky.social
Liz Renner
@lrrenner.bsky.social
Academic; cats, culture, child development, cultural evolution, social learning; she/her #BiInSci
Pinned
Are you interested in doing a PhD about what humans infer about animal minds?

Check out this opportunity @northumbriapsy.bsky.social with me, @mdconstable.bsky.social and Lee Shepherd!

Deadline 23 Jan 2026

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Bridging the Species Divide: Animal minds and the human-animal relationship (Ref: RDF26/HW/PSY/RENNER) at Northumbria University on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - Bridging the Species Divide: Animal minds and the human-animal relationship (Ref: RDF26/HW/PSY/RENNER) at Northumbria University, listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com
Reposted by Liz Renner
Impossible how good reading is. You mean I just point my face at the paper for a bit and it does a whole update on my brain?
November 23, 2025 at 1:52 PM
this
Yes! This also comes up in my recent contribution to CHE:

www.chronicle.com/article/how-...
November 23, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Origins of language, one of humanity’s most distinctive traits, may be best explained as a unique convergence of multiple capacities each with its own evolutionary history, involving intertwined roles of biology & culture. This framing can expand research horizons. A 🧵 on our @science.org paper.🧪1/n
What enables human language? A biocultural framework
Explaining the origins of language is a key challenge in understanding ourselves as a species. We present an empirical framework that draws on synergies across fields to facilitate robust studies of l...
www.science.org
November 23, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
This is the technological equivalent of not being able to get your house insured in Florida, and for similar reasons.

share.google/SOpWK172vQx5...
Insurers retreat from AI cover as risk of multibillion-dollar claims mounts
AIG, Great American and WR Berkley seek permission to limit liability from AI agents and chatbots
share.google
November 23, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
This is the sad impact of grade inflation:

"These kids were not doing anything wrong. They were lied to. They were told that they were prepared for classes they were not prepared for. They were told that they were excelling in classes that they were not excelling in. They deserved better."
November 23, 2025 at 5:17 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Wondering why no one likes your posts anymore, even among your friends? It's because @jay.bsky.team and team have decided to hide a huge amount of content from all of our feeds by default.

Here's how to turn it off.

First go to the hamburger menu in the upper left corner
November 6, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear.....
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
November 8, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharply—showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY
November 22, 2025 at 12:00 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
I am currently, because I know how to enjoy a Saturday morning, writing some guidance for people on filling this consultation in. As I do several things are highly apparent. Before I go through them though I don't want this to put people off of filling it in. It is important to do so nonetheless. 1/
Government has today published its consultation into "earned settlement", the forward alone contains a hot mess of misrepresentation of the current system by the Home Secretary. I would strongly urge anyone affected by the current system to respond.
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/691edd...
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk
November 22, 2025 at 8:57 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Beyond criterion: cognitive flexibility in wild striated caracaras: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... | #BiologyLetters #Behaviour #Cognition #Ecology
November 21, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
For those of you in the UK, especially if you are a UK citizen, can you please take part in the consultation on changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain (Settlement) that were just proposed by the UK government. We need as many people as possible to reject these proposals. www.gov.uk/government/c...
Earned settlement
The government is consulting on how the current settlement system should be reformed and how those reforms should be implemented.
www.gov.uk
November 21, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
The Marsh Palaeoart Award nominations for artwork depicting fossil fauna from Britain and Ireland, close soon. It is your last chance, send artworks in!
November 20, 2025 at 6:40 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
November 18, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Confidence interval discussion time! The perfect opportunity to repost this blog post answering the question you haven’t dared to ask: www.the100.ci/2024/12/05/w...
November 19, 2025 at 6:47 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
So this ad revenue metric is indicative of such a fascinating and weird set of business decisions by Google to inexplicably kill of SEO-- and I honestly don't get how they think this is going to pay off for them in the long run.

🧵

1/
November 18, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
From my colleague; paper here dropbox.com/scl/fi/55uok...
new paper by Sean Westwood:

With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
November 18, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
One thing I wish I could plaster everywhere: none of the other students know how to do this either. If they look like they know, it's because someone taught them in secret. No one knows. But the key to this whole adulting thing is trying. Try to do the assignment. Try to come prepared.
November 18, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
We need to talk about the carbon footprints of the rich.
November 18, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Compulsory team teaching on every module is perhaps the biggest ever threat to the quality of teaching in UK universities.

It causes chaos on the ground for timetabling, ruins course coherence and turns lecturers into permanent supply teachers. It is pedagogically incoherent… 1/
November 6, 2025 at 6:57 AM
Reposted by Liz Renner
just added more glass wreaths to nora.jewelry
November 17, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Reposted by Liz Renner
Repost this everywhere you’re active on social media. Send to your friends and family who aren’t.
NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen.

Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.
November 16, 2025 at 11:48 PM
Are you interested in doing a PhD about what humans infer about animal minds?

Check out this opportunity @northumbriapsy.bsky.social with me, @mdconstable.bsky.social and Lee Shepherd!

Deadline 23 Jan 2026

www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Bridging the Species Divide: Animal minds and the human-animal relationship (Ref: RDF26/HW/PSY/RENNER) at Northumbria University on FindAPhD.com
PhD Project - Bridging the Species Divide: Animal minds and the human-animal relationship (Ref: RDF26/HW/PSY/RENNER) at Northumbria University, listed on FindAPhD.com
www.findaphd.com
November 17, 2025 at 12:07 PM
😰

Feels especially true when an unnamed Employer is trying to force you onto a worse pension.
I can't believe we're expected to work under these conditions
November 17, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Where will art come from in 10 or 20 years' time if we don't train and support artists now?

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...
Paul McCartney joins music industry protest against AI with silent track
Former Beatle and artists including Sam Fender, Kate Bush and Hans Zimmer record silent LP Is This What We Want
www.theguardian.com
November 17, 2025 at 7:58 AM