Can you believe that until now there were more genomes sequenced for the woolly mammoth than for living African elephants?

Today, we bring you the first genomic, continent-scale analyses of 232 high-quality genomes of both species, the savanna and forest elephant.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Great tit perched on a branch, with beak slightly open. Photo credit: Alizée Vernouillet

📢Fully-funded #PhD opportunity with us:

🐦 Quantifying (social) learning and social behaviour in an urbanised world 🐦

Position at @ceec-research.bsky.social

📆29th May deadline
More info: tinyurl.com/yz28s96x
Apply: tinyurl.com/2wpkb64y

#cognition #socialbehaviour #fieldwork #birds

🙏Please Share

Seeds of doubt: The dark side of an Italian energy giant’s green jet fuel promise Italian state-owned oil giant Eni presents its Kenyan biofuel project as a model for sustainable air travel. Many small farmers say it’s failed them.

Kenyan smallholders exploited by multinational oil co, EU & global traders www.politico.eu/article/seed...

SO exciting! What a great project 🥳🤩

Scientists captured female sperm whales on video working together during a birth to protect the calf Scientists have captured rare footage of a sperm whale giving birth, offering a window into the large mammals' behavior.

How incredible: “The full delivery took about 30 minutes. For hours afterward, pairs of whales held the baby above the water until it was able to swim…
What struck the researchers was how many mother, sister and daughter whales united to support the new calf, even ones that weren’t related.”

Exactly! People will start using social media at some point so the crucial thing is educating young people to use it safely and in a way that doesn't negatively impact their mental health.

Wolves kill—and ravens remember where When a wolf pack runs down its prey, the first on the scene is often the raven. Even before the predators have had time to dig in, the ravens are already in line, waiting to take advantage of the odd ...

Cool new insights into the raven-wolf relationship...

phys.org/news/2026-03...

Adapted from Axelsson et al. 2013 Fig 2c: Histogram showing the distribution of diploid amylase copy number in wolf (n=35, blue) and dog (n=136, red). Dogs carry more copies of the starch-digesting gene AMY2B than wolves. Additional copies make dogs better than wolves at digesting starchy foods like grains & vegetables.

Dogs evolved to eat your leftovers! Comparing dog & wolf genomes revealed dogs have up to 30 EXTRA copies of the amylase gene (AMY2B) that helps digest starch. This is a key genomic signature of living alongside humans & table scraps for thousands of years 🐕 www.nature.com/articles/nat... #2026MMM

Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz. A.I. chatbots contain the sum of all human knowledge. That can make them pretty good writers.

How does A.I. stack up against some of the world’s best human writers? Take our quiz.

Amazing news! Congrats to the team 🥂

So you like www.animordle.com?

Be sure to share the #Wordle Game with Animal Names with friends, family, students, and colleagues because as we all have learned...

Sharing is caring.
#animordle #2026MMM

Toward the end of his two-volume Treatise on the Venom of the Viper, published in 1781, the Tuscan naturalist Deluxe Fontana declared: "I have made more than 6000 experiments; I have had more than 4000 animals bit; I have employed upwards of 3000 vipers and may have been deceived; some essential circumstance may have escaped me: I may have neglected some other, not thinking it necessary; my consequences may have been too general, my experiments too few in number. In a word, I may very easily have been mistaken, and it would be almost impossible that I should never have been so in a matter so difficult, so obscure, and likewise so new."

Fontana thinking his 6000+ experiments may not have been enough to feel confident in his conclusions in the 18th century while we expect our singular experiments and their standalone replications to do wonders some 250 years later... (excerpt from the intro of Jutta Schickore's About Experiment)

I'm loving this #kakapo content on my feed!
If you like cute birds and conservation give this guy a follow...

Animals experience joy. Scientists want to measure it Scientists have long focused on quantifying fear and other negative emotions in animals. Now they’re trying to measure positive feelings — and it’s a challenge.

A lovely read about researchers who make animals happy for a living 😊 A day spent playing the sounds of baby bonobo laughter is surely a day well spent

www.sciencenews.org/article/scie...

I’m going to halve my publication output. You should consider slow science, too If we don’t slow down, the research enterprise is going to crash, argues Adrian Barnett.

When I changed research field I was lucky to have opportunity to participate on lots of papers. This helped me learn my new field
But I agree with slow science 💯 & hope I can focus on higher quality research that takes more time now I have the luxury of a permanent job
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Belugas are fascinating! So glad there are people out there finding out more about them 🐳

This will be scientifically interesting for many in the tool use research community.
For me it's simply very cute to watch the video of Veronika 🐮

I'm Kenyan. I Don't Write Like ChatGPT. ChatGPT Writes Like Me. I'm calm. I'm calm. I promise.

This is incredibly important. If you read one thing this week: marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

1/3 Jellyfish and anemones also sleep, despite not having a brain

Not only do they sleep, but their behavior is affected if they lack sleep; they become clumsier and need to catch up on lost sleep. Interestingly, they sleep 8 hours a day, just like us.

(paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The man actually mistook his *bat* for a hat, but lexical competition just didn't have the same broad appeal

Super proud of my office buddy and unofficial PhD student for defending her thesis!
She's done some great work on stress in young people, especially gender-non-conforming youth.

Here's to further collaborations Dr @teresaorourke.bsky.social!

I agree!

Iain Douglas-Hamilton, pioneering elephant conservationist, dies aged 83 His groundbreaking field research was instrumental in banning the international ivory trade and protecting elephants from poachers.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton was a champion for elephants 🐘 & one of the inspirations for my own research. He was among the 1st to study ele social behaviour & it was his life's work to protect them

Sending my condolences to all the friends & family during this sad time

www.bbc.com/news/article...

watch out for pretend papers guys!

"when people can see real, practical ways to make a difference, their worry can turn into positive action... Also research consistently shows that taking climate-positive actions can improve wellbeing"

#hope

The problems with academic publishing in one graph. The big for-profit publishers get product for free and sell it back to us. Their profits rival those from the big tech companies. This is money that could have supported research, teaching and graduate students.

From: danielroelfs.com/pos...

NEW RESEARCH 📣

Now with a summary infographic

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#LGBTQIA+ #psychotherapy #psychotherapie

These results highlight that psychotherapists in Austria feel underprepared to work with LGBTQIA+ clients. This has important implications for health equity in gender and sexual minorities.

People of LGBTQIA+ communities are at increased risk of experiencing negative effects during therapy. So it's important to evaluate to what extent psychotherapists have the necessary awareness and knowledge to work with LGBTQIA+ clients.

Attitudes of Psychotherapists in Working with LGBTQIA+ Clients and Validation of the German Version of the Ally Identity Measure It is well established that people of LGBTQIA+ communities suffer more often from mental illness and encounter greater barriers to accessing mental health services compared to hetero/cis people. Mo...

📣 NEW PAPER!
How prepared are psychotherapists in Austria to work with LGBTQIA+ clients? 🏳️‍🌈

Only 5% felt they definitely had enough training on LGBTQIA+ topics and 2% received obligatory training. Training & self-education were positively associated with allyship
1/3

#LGBTQIA #InclusiveHealthcare