Did you know? The human voicebox (larynx), likely evolved from a primitive organ similar to the "swimbladders" found in these charming fellas. Some 500-450 million years ago, an ancient ancestor began the gradual fine-tuning that ultimately gave us humans our voice.

My review of Philip Lieberman's legacy is now officially part of the most recent volume of AmJournalPrimatology Read it for a correction of several inaccuracies in the literature on the evolution of speech.

Reposting for #internationalcat2024 I did a paper on why we seem so universally agreed that cats say "meow". Very scientific, promise. Expecting a call from the Nobel people any day.

Thrilled to share our new study, the first to use EEG to explore brain activation during early hominin tool use, with fascinating insights! Congrats to Simona Affinito and team! Senckenberg Research Universität Tübingen Link: nature.com/articles/s4159… Press Release: shorturl.at/sHkMX

Halfway to domestication is this.

Finally a good use case for voice cloning! #warcraft2

Tough math teachers get lower ratings from students, because students like them less. However, students get better grades with the tough teachers than with laxer teachers. Reason #167 why student evaluations of teaching aren’t particularly useful. [Link below.]

The original Neanderthal was first presented to the scientific world #OnThisDay in 1857, at a meeting in Bonn, Germany. Considered at the time to belong to Homo sapiens, it would be another 6 years before the fossils were called Homo neanderthalensis.

Working on computer models of cat vocal tracts and realizing ... cats are just perfect.

Filippa Mannerheim 📖📚✍️ Första fråga från elev i parallellklassen blev "Vad betyder attentat"? - med anledning av dubbelmordet i Sarajevo 1914. Man kan inte förstå en vanlig nyhetssändning med så begränsad vokabulär, ej heller läroboken.

TRÅD: Att tala om "den isolerade hjärnan Ypsilon" som en metafor för det kognitionsvetenskapliga fältet kring undervisning och lärande visar på djup okunnighet och gagnar inte samtalet och diskussionen om en bättre lärarutbildning. Hade skribenterna haft kunskap om vad

Colossal Biosciences FINALLY admits that they haven't "de-extincted" the dire wolf It's a grey wolf with a few edits. archive.ph/E03Pd

An analysis of ~100,000 academics finds that a small subset of academics generate majority of tweets. That vocal minority can skew how the public—and even journalists—infer “academic consensus,” potentially fueling false perceptions.

Puffer fish create remarkable "art", according to David Attenborough David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet. Beautiful as it is, is it really art, if they can only create one design? In my book 'The Pattern Seekers' I argue humans alone can produce art and invent "generatively" youtube.com/watch?v=B91toz…

Unsolicited advice for incoming PhD students: Maintain your friendships with people who aren't academics

For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper

gp.se/debatt/kogniti… "Droppe menar att ... "teknikträning i inlärning" riskerar ... reducera människan till ett kognitivt system. Hemska tanke. /sarcasm Människan som levande varelse *är* ett kognitivt system. Bra av Jonas Linderoth och Ida SW.

How to be a scientist in a post-journal world: +Preprint +Read widely and critically +Use your own scientific judgment +Share insights and critiques publicly It is possible to imagine a future where science is not gatekept behind paywalls and editors who decide what is worthy!

Rethinking Hominin Air Sac Loss in Light of Phylogenetically Meaningful Evidence - Ekström - 2025 - Evolutionary Anthropology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.10…