After attending the 'AIvolution' meeting of @ehbea.bsky.social in Leiden last week, topical to see this paper on "evolvable AI" www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rounded off the CBEN & @ehbea.bsky.social conferences in Leiden with a bike ride to the coast, running into some fine floral displays on the way

In the Netherlands, Tesla owners go under cover

Great to be at @ehbea2026.bsky.social and to hear so many great talks. Not so clever was missing the abstract deadline so here's the poster I presented here at the CBEN preconference day

Congratulations! Look forward to following your research.

It's sad after i was such a fan of his in his red queen and origins of virtue days

It may indeed be the death of a civilization - that of US society unless they remove Trump from office

My first swallows of the year and sand martins back - nice birthday present

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

unusual eyes...

How many years were you there to take these photos?

POTUS is using a technique?? POTUS is incapable of using techniques. Why is someone trying to have a logical conversation about what the POTUS will do? Bizarre

To put things in perspective...

and sad you won't be there 😭

Meanwhile, on the moon...

This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.

‘This feels fragile’: how a satellite-smashing chain reaction could spiral out of control Today, the space around Earth can no longer be considered empty. More than 30,000 objects are in orbit, and that figure is rising exponentially

It doesn't seem such a novelty spotting satellites go by these days.. www.theguardian.com/science/ng-i...

Well said

Ah yes, just wrong. Much better than having to supply reasons. Thanks for enlightening me about absolutely nothing at all.

Well aware, thanks. Is that an attempt at sarcasm?

would be interested to see the references for this - all I see is the wood-chipping of habitats occupied by rare species in order to build capacity for 1% of a coal plant

Nonsense. The 300 wind turbines it takes to replace one coal power station take away the habitats of our native animals and plants. I am a strong advocate of renewable energy but not of the idiotic idea that you can replace a coal plant with a turbine

Absolutely. Point is that morons think there is some comparison between one/ a few turbines and a power station. Doesn't help a rational discussion

Thanks! My point is why not make a more realistic comparison of say 300 wind turbines with associated destruction of habitats, 100,000 tonnes of concrete brought by 10,000 truck journeys to one power station. Personally, I favour renewable energy and nuclear but my main concern is biodiversity

Not related to my point though

Great to hear that one wind turbine can now generate the power of one coal-fired power station.

Ha. I was going to submit that one but didn't dare. (I think I met the lead author and his students who had travelled from Australia to the UK to present this work - nice folks so nothing personal but really, you did ask for it!)

Down on your luck? How behavioural neuroscience could help The latest research suggests there’s far more to good fortune than mere accident

www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

This news article seems a bit misleading. My initial reaction was they were using AI in writing abstracts but it seems they were using it in peer review of abstracts which doesn't seem so bad...

Abstract: Social norms are unwritten rules that guide human behavior and social interaction. They play a central role in promoting cooperation and maintaining cultural diversity. Yet because norms pressure people to do what others do, they may also sustain practices that are inefficient or harmful. In this talk, I present insights from a mathematical model and a field study that together examine whether and how such norms can persist. The model challenges the idea that arbitrary or harmful norms can be maintained solely through social pressure. It shows that norms with continuously varying behavioral options cannot be maintained at ecologically or psychologically suboptimal equilibria, suggesting that norms adapt more readily than previously assumed. I then present evidence from a field study among the Derung, small-scale horticulturalists in Yunnan, China. Derung farmers continued to follow a traditional cooperative farming harvest division norm after market integration. They did so even though they recognized its lower ecological payoff and expected no social disapproval for deviating from it. Rather than payoff calculations, Derung farmers adhered to the norm out of a desire to follow tradition and common practice. However, five years later the norm had changed, consistent with the model’s prediction that norms with continuously varying options eventually adapt to ecological conditions.

This week's Cooperation Colloquium:

Minhua Yan @minhuayan.bsky.social @iast.fr

The persistence and adaptation of social norms: Theory and field evidence

Date: March 27
Time: 15:00 UTC+1 (Vienna) / 10 am ET (NYC)

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