Why the cat wags her tail Here's a puzzle: how could evolution favour such a costly, frivolous and fun activity as animal play? by Mathilde Tahar-Malaussena

A year ago !!!
« I am very happy to share this piece, exploring the link between inventiveness and play in our fellow nonhuman animals. It was written with care and a sincere desire to convey what science and philosophy can teach us about this fascinating topic. »

aeon.co/essays/how-e...

Churches to lecture theatres! @Scotfly26 in Glasgow, Sir Charles Wilson Building

De-extinction for giant dragonflies is in the books again.

@helephantmylne.bsky.social Hi Helen, could you please add me to the animal behaviour list? Thanks!

🧵 New preprint led by @bingbrunton.bsky.social, @elliottabe.bsky.social, @lawrencehu.bsky.social

We gave a worm brain control of a fly body and it walked

What did we learn? Nothing, other than deep reinforcement learning is effective

We call it the digital sphinx

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Very cool - congratulations!

It’s the little things that wouldn’t cost much to get right… I’m sure many hospital series must be painful to watch for an MD.

Context

You‘d be looking grumpy too if you were surrounded by snakes…

If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.

Career Week in Primary School with @clarahowcroft.bsky.social: fun times talking about flies and brains!

Toy Dolls - Nellie the Elephant (We're Mad, Sunderland, UK, 1984) YouTube video by Cherry Red Records

Today I learned that the Toy Dolls were from Sunderland. Olga was a sundancer! Apparently it was banned from local pubs as it all got out of hand every time it was played...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9m7t...

“…but that’s just because it wasn’t properly implemented!” Reality doesn’t matter anymore.

🚨 Postdoc opportunity to study memory or nutrition in #Drosophila 🪰

I am looking for a candidate to support for a 3 year Addison Wheeler Fellowship application lnkd.in/e2rvNf5x

Interested? Please send a CV & cover letter with brief research outline by 20th February to vincent.croset@durham.ac.uk

Come hear me stir up some controversy* next month with my take on the evidence for insect sentience.

*or not, depending on your point of view.

Time perception follows Weber's law in Drosophila www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.02...

Monday

MRC instructs grant review boards to slash funding rates - Research Professional News Boards asked to recommend just three applications for funding, as BBSRC also suspends calls

Both MRC and BBSRC responsive modes now withdrawn until further notice. Existing applications unlikely to succeed (late 2025 round expecting 1-5% success rate).

Listen, I get that UKRI wants to pivot. But killing both at once is devastating.

Let's hope at least one opens by summer... #AcademicSky

Sponges or comb jellies first - where do you stand? www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-0023...

1️⃣ Sponges - always was, always will be!
2️⃣ Clearly it's Comb Jellies!
3️⃣ Who cares (prepare to be blocked)

📊 Show results

3-panel comic. (1) [Three small arthropods on ocean floor.] ARTHROPOD 1: Now that we’re multicellular, what are your plans? I’m gonna evolve little legs and swim around with them! ARTHROPOD 2: I’m gonna evolve sharp pincers and use them to crunch stuff! ARTHROPOD 3: I’m gonna evolve glands to make string from my butt and use it to construct elaborate geometric nets hundreds of times my size to catch other animals. (2) [Silence] (3) ARTHROPOD 1: *Dude.* ARTHROPOD 2: Can you *please* just be normal about this? ARTHROPOD 3: *What??!*

Early Arthropods

xkcd.com/3199/

I had a fabulous day at the Psych department in Durham, talking at their LAMP seminar - thanks @marcobocchio.bsky.social for the invite!
And I found this gem pinned at the shared fridge in their department kitchen: #spinthewheelandfindout

Angry and Alone: How Social Experience Shapes Female Aggression in Flies at Newcastle University on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - Angry and Alone: How Social Experience Shapes Female Aggression in Flies at Newcastle University, listed on FindAPhD.com

We're advertising a PhD project on how social isolation influences aggression in flies. Based at Durham, co-supervised by @clarahowcroft.bsky.social . Despite what the ad says, this is also open to international applicants! Any questions, shoot me a msg! www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

I used dashes in my texts before AI thought it was cool.

Parallel Pathways for Visual and Olfactory Information in the Mushroom Bodies of the Swallowtail Butterfly Brain Papilio xuthus is a flower-foraging butterfly with sophisticated color vision. In the Papilio brain, the mushroom bodies (MBs) receive prominent visual input that is spatially segregated from olfacto...

Mushroom bodies! Butterflies!
What’s not to like?
New paper by Naomi Takahashi and Michiyo Kinoshita, involving an illustrious round of anatomists (…and me): Parallel Pathways for Visual and Olfactory Information in
the Mushroom Bodies of the Swallowtail Butterfly Brain
doi.org/10.1002/cne....

Butterflies have notoriously convoluted mushroom body lobes, and their organisation is far from clear. A meticulous analysis of intracellular fills and immunohistochemical stainings brings now some order into the lobes and their primary sensory input.

📊 Just launched: An interactive dashboard for visualising UK university finance data published by HESA.

Compare universities. Explore key financial indicators, trends and correlations.

🔗 shiny.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/lpzjd/uni-fi...

#UKHE #OpenData #rstats #AcademicSky

Exciting creatures that definitely deserve to be better studied!

Get ready to join us in Portugal this year, 1-3 June, in panoramic Palmela, just south of Lisbon! We have planned 3 days of science discussions and activities aimed at fostering our network of JEDIs in a supportive, fun, and sunny setting.

Happy New Year from seasonally beautiful Newcastle-upon-Tyne! Get in touch if you are interested in our #PhDstudentship to research the neurobiological basis of social behaviour and its dysfunction in Drosophila melanogaster. Deadline for applications: 23rd January.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere.