Philosophers of Many Minds

'Philosophers of Many Minds': A selection of our interviews with philosophers!! 🎙️🎙️

Now on Spotify: open.spotify.com/playlist/6UZ...

Talk about an in-flight meal.

Last year, researchers reported on capturing rats hunting bats by grabbing them from the sky.

Learn more on #WorldRatDay: https://scim.ag/47vw4Ve

New preprint! We sequenced 175 'Alalā (Hawaiian crow) genomes to understand why >50% of eggs fail to hatch in a species recovered from just 9 individuals. What we found was a both exciting and surprising. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Animals rely on sensory cues to choose mates before reproduction. Male octopuses use a specialized arm that acts as both a sensory and reproductive organ to navigate the female’s mantle, locate oviducts, and transfer sperm. These findings reveal how sensory systems shape reproductive behavior and drive speciation. This image shows courtship during mating.

Male octopuses use a specialized arm that acts as both a sensory and reproductive organ to navigate the female’s mantle, locate oviducts, and transfer sperm. These findings reveal how sensory systems shape reproductive behavior and drive speciation.

Learn more in Science: https://scim.ag/4dYMtFq

Science magazine cover featuring a close-up of an adult koala and joey nuzzling, with cover text about bottleneck recovery in koalas and an overlaid caption reading “Reference genomes enable discovery.”

Koala clinging to a tree trunk in a forest setting, with overlaid text explaining that a reference genome is the foundation, not the finish line, and noting that the original koala reference genome was published in 2018 and later improved to support deeper population-level analysis.

🐨🧬First came the reference genome. Then came the deeper story. Biodiversity genomics is helping reveal resilience and recovery across wild koala populations. 🐨
This study is a reminder that reference genomes are not the finish line, but the foundation for discovery.

@bioplatformsaus.bsky.social

I love it when a native pollinator garden comes together! A visitor to our lantana this evening, the lined sphinx Hyles lineata.

Evolutionary Clues Reveal How a Key Hearing Protein Adapted for Function - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology A new study in Current Biology (PDF) sheds light on how a critical protein underlying hearing evolved to perform its specialized role in vertebrate sensory systems—offering a rare […]

Evolutionary Clues Reveal How a Key Hearing Protein Adapted for Function 🧪 🧬 #AcademicSky #higherEd
www.mcb.harvard.edu/department/n...
@nbellono.bsky.social @treyjscott.bsky.social @rachellegaudet.bsky.social @harvardoeb.bsky.social @currentbiology.bsky.social

Butterflies crossing oceans, moths navigating by the stars: unravelling the mysteries of insect migrations Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tra...

“Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements”

#scicomm
#migration
#navigation

www.theguardian.com/environment/...
🧪 🦋 🐙

'We’re constantly surprised': The strange deep-sea creatures that eat whales From bone-eating snot-flowers to snowboarding scale worms, when a whale dies it becomes a colossal island of nutrients – attracting weird and wonderful creatures to feast.

A pop. lit. piece from the BBC discussing whalefall ecology. Lots of our favorite critters get a mention: hagfish, scale worms, snot flower worms, amphipods

We’re constantly surprised': The strange deep-sea creatures that eat whales share.google/amJpU2HEyDqs...

Donald Trump’s Alzheimer’s or senile dementia has reached unzipping his fly level, complete disinhibition.
He has always blurted, but now there’s not even a thin layer of self-protecting hypocrisy left.

We cannot have this man, saying this, in power for another minute.

I hate how math is forced to continuously justify itself by its uses and it can't just be allowed to stand on its own.

Humans have done art for thousands of years because that's what humans do. It's the same with math. Humans reason about pretend things that don't matter, and that's okay.

More coverage of my least favorite company…

"Beth Shapiro stated that the three animals are "grey wolves with 20 edits" as purportedly stated by the company "from the very beginning", acknowledging that it is impossible to bring back an extinct organism"

These are deeply unserious people and even using the term "science" here is misleading.

The science is as over-hyped and borderline fraudulent as the ethics are thorny (and that doesn't even count the George Church, friend of Epstein angle)

Nanoparticle system shows promise for delivering mRNA to prevent type 1 diabetes Research on preventing type 1 diabetes often focuses on limiting the autoimmune response that destroys the body's ability to produce its own insulin. A new technology developed by scientists at the Un...

What a wonderful thing this will be for so, so many people, if it turns out to work. Once we get rid of RFKjr and his lackeys.

‘Who’d guess they’re the same species?’ What Italy’s wall lizards reveal about genetic diversity and why it matters Understanding biodiversity within species is key to our understanding of why nature works the way it does, say researchers

"Diversity within species contributes to ecosystem functioning and represents an often-overlooked layer of biodiversity."

#Biodiversity - we have so little understanding of what we are trashing
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Clonal-aggregative multicellularity tuned by salinity in a choanoflagellate - Nature The choanoflagellate Choanoeca flexa forms motile and contractile cell monolayers purely clonally, purely aggregatively or through a combination of both processes depending on environmental condi...

Salinity tunes mode of multicellularity in a tidepool choanoflagellate www.nature.com/articles/s41... - paper in @nature.com

It looked like a normal bee in an orchard, but after a few seconds, a scientist realized she was seeing something that almost no one had ever seen in that area before Rare chestnut mining bee rediscovered in New York orchard, marking its first Central NY sighting in over a century.

It looked like a normal bee in an orchard, but after a few seconds, a scientist realized she was seeing something that almost no one had ever seen in that area before

www.ecoticias.com/en/it-looked...

#NY #bees #science

The Most Dangerous Corporation in America? The AI surveillance state is real — and it's being built by Palantir.

Billions of your tax dollars are going to Palantir — and the police state it's helping Trump build could soon be used against you.

Giant tortoises return to Galápagos island after nearly 200 years The native species was driven to extinction by sailors in the 1800s. Now, 158 juvenile giant tortoises have been reintroduced to the island.

Giant tortoises restored to Galápagos island nearly 200 years after they were wiped out. #biodiversity www.bbc.com/news/article...

There is no way you can support this man at this point, he is calling for the destruction of entire nations based on his whims. If we do not act quickly, the destruction and loss of human life on this planet will be unprecedented. No matter your beliefs I think we can all agree this is morally wrong

How do busy bees avoid overheating from flying?

New measurements could help predict pollinators’ ability to withstand climate change. Learn more: https://scim.ag/46ZlLbt

On February 19, 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed E.O. 9066, authorizing the forced relocation & incarceration of more than 125,000 Japanese Americans, solely because of their heritage.

I'm very happy to share that a paper from my DPhil thesis has been selected as the Editor's Choice article in Evolution. 😊

You can read it here: lnkd.in/eCnAQfzT 🐜

@journal-evo.bsky.social

#EvolutionaryBiology #SocialEvolution #Insects

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Still can’t even get all democrats on board to impeach Secretary Noem.

Congress needs to stop this. That’s their job.

California scientists, researchers, clinicians — sign the open letter supporting the CA Science & Health Research Bond Act (SB 895). $23B bond on the 2026 ballot to fund research across the state. Takes <1 min.

fundcascience.org

#FundCAScience #SB895

I met this Anochetus rugosus trap-jaw ant on the forest floor in Danum Valley, Sabah. If you look closely, you’ll notice the trigger hairs between the mandibles. When these hairs touch a prey insect, the mandibles snap shut at an incredible speed, generating enough force to propel the ant backwards.

Yellow and black bumblebee gathering pollen on the yellow and carmine spiky center of an orange and yellow blanket flower.

Something beautiful for this day: Bumblebee on a blanket flower, Yakima, Washington (August 2024). #bees #flowers

compassionate societies invest in development instead of punishment, investing in programs that help people become responsible productive citizens;
cruel societies invest in punishment instead of development, investing in detention centres, prisons and concentration camps to punish 'bad' people;