Why does music exist, and why does it move us so deeply? Beyond being a universal source of emotion, music reveals something fundamental about how the brain works: we are constantly predicting. Check this @nature.com review www.nature.com/articles/s41... @manlius.bsky.social @gemmadlc.bsky.social

fomo intensifies

fomo

“Science shares things that we can’t face but have to face. We still undergo the same emotions today. Science can haunt and depress. But it can also expand and excite”

Humans share acoustic preferences with other animals Many animals produce courtship sounds, and receivers prefer some sounds over others. Shared ancestry and convergent evolution may generate similarities in preference across species and underlie Darwin...

Shoutout to @mehr.nz for making all the data openly available and thoroughly documented for other researchers to use 👌

Thanks to bsky-less contributors for their thinking along and to
@edwardvessel.bsky.social

🔗 to original work and response below

This isn't a neg. critique. Quite the opposite. The original work opens exciting new windows into how human and non-human animals might share similar biases in acoustic processing. We just think that what makes us differ in our preferences is an equally fascinating puzzle to solve

Appreciation of singing and speaking voices is highly idiosyncratic Abstract. Voice preferences are an integral part of interpersonal interactions and shape how people connect with each other. While a large number of studie

While humans share some acoustic preferences with other animals, most of the variation in what we like may come down to the individual listener

Sound preferences appear to be (mostly) in the ear of the listener, a finding that aligns with work on e.g. preferences for singing and speaking voices

Screenshot of an eLetter posted in Science, on April 13, 2026, titled "Shared and unique taste in acoustic preferences.", as a reply to the James et al. (2026, Science) study, which showed humans share acoustic preferences with other animals. The eLetter reanalyses data and finds that only 30% of repeatable variance in acoustic preferences is shared across humans, while 70% is unique to the individual listener. The eLetter concludes that acoustic preferences are predominantly idiosyncratic, and call for focus also on what makes individual taste unique.

Enjoyed diving into the fascinating work by @loganjames.bsky.social et al. on shared preferences between human and non-human animals

Liked it so much, we wrote an eLetter, now posted in Science 😅

Our take? There's another side to acoustic preferences worth exploring: idiosyncratic taste

Erfzonde - Kathryn Paige Harden - De Bezige Bij

“ERFZONDE” now out in Dutch translation! I’m particularly excited about this edition because of the outsized role that Dutch scientists have played & still play in the genomics revolution. To all my Netherlands BG colleagues, this is a love letter to your work

www.debezigebij.nl/boek/erfzonde/

We are excited to announce the winners of the 2026 IAEA Awards 🏆
Anjan Chatterjee - Fechner Award
Edward A. Vessel - Washburn Award
Aenne Brielmann - Baumgarten Award
Katherine Cotter - Baumgarten Award
Congratulations! 🎉
Award winners will be honored at IAEA2026 in Jena and deliver an address

I'm very excited to announce that I've been selected as the recipient of the IAEA 2026 Mid-Career Award. Thanks so much to the IAEA Awards committee for this honor, and congrats to the other winners!

Coming soon! Did you register yet?

www.colorado.edu/ibg/workshop...

An opposing molecular gradient axis underlies primate cortical organization The principles organizing cellular diversity and connectivity in primate brains remain elusive. By integrating spatial transcriptomics, magnetic resonance imaging, and retrograde labeling in marmosets, we identified two opposing molecular gradients that ...

“An axis in primate brains links molecular profiles to anatomical & functional architecture, offering a precise biological basis for delineating cortical boundaries, elucidating cortical-subcortical relationships, characterizing functional networks, & identifying species specific specializations.”👇🧪

Genetic underpinnings of chills from art and music Author summary Many people experience chills when listening to music, reading poetry, or viewing art. Yet not everyone feels these reactions in the same way. These differences provide a window into ho...

At this weeks lab meeting we continued our discussion on aesthetics and genetics with a great paper from
@giacomobignardi.bsky.social

🧬🎶🎨

journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

Our team received a report of intermittent app outages at about 11:40pm PDT on April 15, 2026. They worked through the night to mitigate a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.

FULLY FUNDED PhD - Ultra-high field brain imaging of imagery and aphantasia at University of Glasgow on FindAPhD.com PhD Project - FULLY FUNDED PhD - Ultra-high field brain imaging of imagery and aphantasia at University of Glasgow, listed on FindAPhD.com

Exciting new PhD opportunity (funded) in the lab of @larsmuckli.bsky.social www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

After decades of searching, we have finally identified a trait with no missing heritability.

Cattle’s burps.

"...few other subjects had been discussed as passionately as the polarizing opinions on Toast Hawaii."

🍍 strikes again.

@profsimonfisher.bsky.social Is pineapple on sticky toffee pudding the British equivalent of pineapple on pizza?

Pineapple has a remarkable talent for making itself unwelcome in dishes that were doing fine without it.

Can we estimate assortative mating for outcomes shared by partners? Yes we can! In a new paper together with @philippdierker.bsky.social, I find that individuals with similar liabilities to divorce are more likely to get married in the first place!

Max Planck Postdoc Program Launching in April 2025, the Max Planck Postdoc Program features structured application calls and a comprehensive support system for researchers.

Only a few more days left to apply for a 5 year postdoc with me and Sergio on the neurobiology of child language development. Apply via the MPG postdoc program portal www.mpg.de/en/max-planc... Deadline 13th April

Delighted to share our latest research from the 23andMe Research Team, just published in @nature.com !
We looked at data from >27,000 participants to uncover how human genetics influences weight loss efficacy and side effects of GLP-1 medications like semaglutide. A short thread 🧵👇

Sociology and Social Research Con il PhD in Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale studi le politiche sociali, le disuguaglianze, la demografia e le migrazioni. Con laboratori, borse e mobilità

The call for the PhD programme in Sociology and Social Research at Trento is out, with deadline 14 May.
Interested in a PhD in cultural evolution / social media / cultural analytics? Get in touch!
www.unitn.it/en/phd/socio...

Cambridge University Library, University Museum of Zoology and the University of Cambridge - Collections Connections Communities

Here's an awesome natural history humanities PhD opportunity, working with Cambridge University Library & our insect & archive collections here at @zoologymuseum.bsky.social, exploring the links between entomology, life writing & environmental change. Please share!
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

Precision reward/affect fMRI study out now in HBM! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

@dvsmith.bsky.social @olinotom.bsky.social @coopersharp.bsky.social and @shenghanwang.bsky.social

Intensively sampled task + rest fMRI data with behavioral manipulation openly available on OpenNeuro!
(1/2)

Come work with us, answering interesting questions in new ways

"One test, many tongues: Surveying language proficiency across the globe" out now in @pnasnexus.org

A practical challenge in online experiments with global participants is testing language proficiency. We automated the generation of language tests across nearly 2,000 languages.

Opportunities and pitfalls of data contextualization in neuroimaging - Nature Reviews Neuroscience Despite rapid exploitation of the opportunities that contextualization of brain maps affords, potential limitations have received little attention. In this Roadmap, Royer et al. provide practical guid...

Correlating brain maps across datasets is everywhere in neuroimaging. Here we ask: when you contextualize a brain map against genes, metabolism, or connectivity... What can you really conclude? How can we do better? We explore these questions here: tinyurl.com/2dudkevc

Pablo Villar et al discover male octopus mating arms are sensory organs used to find females, navigate internally to the oviduct & deliver sperm. From behavior to structure, these findings offer a framework for how sensory systems shape reproduction & species barriers
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...