Lmst

@albertcardona thanks Albert! Indeed, I hope it will be fun!

Stoopid cat prodly brought home a bird yesterday (a wren) and proudly showed it off. First time this has happened. Why do cats bring home prey? Is this a behavior that evolved with domestication ("look how useful I am, give me food and shelter"), or is it a remnant of a wild behavior?

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

So Tim Walz is a trained geographer and a former high school geography teacher?!

This is the biggest political news for the profession since Prince William got a masters degree in Geography.

Here's Gov Walz giving a talk at the ESRI GIS conference just last month!

https://mediaspace.esri.com/media/1_d2sqkrju

He's totally locked up the pivotal mapmaker demographic.

#GIS #gischat #GovWalz #TimeWalz #geographer #geography #uspol #uspolitics

@meraord får du också det?

Mastodon has clearly matured as social network. Im now getting bot followers!

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

#humour #eclipse

A picture of an eclipse, showing a flat band, with the shadows of four elephants under that and the shadow of a giant turtle underneath. Yes, it is Diskworld.

Don't know who made it: it was sent to me sans provenance.

In 1936, Karl Ritter von Frisch made a curious observation: injured Eurasian minnows induced fear reactions in conspecifics. The identity of this alarm signal has remained a mystery since. A new paper in @CurrentBiology now reports novel Schreckstoff components. Below a link to my commentary about the paper!

https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1iuYM3QW8S6DtH

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

In a new paper, published today in Current Biology, we analyse the genome of renowned composer Ludwig van Beethoven using a polygenic index related to musicality, as a way to illustrate the limits of genetic predictions at the individual level. Beethoven, one of the most celebrated musicians in history, scored unremarkably, ranking between the 9th & 11th percentile based on modern samples. We explain why this is no surprise & how it can provide a valuable teaching moment on the complex relationships between DNA & behaviour.
An interdisciplinary collaboration across two Max Planck Institutes (Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen & Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt), University of Amsterdam, Karolinska Institute, Vanderbilt University and others.
#MastodonScience #science #music #genetics #genomics
@mpi_nl @maxplanckgesellschaft

https://authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S0960982224000253

On the left is the opening paragraph from the paper, with the title "Notes from Beethoven’s genome".
Rapid advances over the last decade in DNA sequencing and statistical genetics enable us to investigate the genomic makeup of individuals throughout history. In a recent notable study, Begg et al. used Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair strands for genome sequencing and explored genetic predispositions for some of his documented medical issues. Given that it was arguably Beethoven’s skills as a musician and composer that made him an iconic fi gure in Western culture, we here extend the approach and apply it to musicality. We use this as an example to illustrate the broader challenges of individual-level genetic predictions.
On the right is the main figure from the paper which shows how the polygenic index of Beethoven for the music-related skill of beat synchronization ranks between the 9th and 11th percentile of that for modern samples

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

Several of us overly online biologists spent years quietly doing an experiment on Twitter, trying to find out if tweeting about new studies from a set of mid-range journals caused an increase in later citations, compared to set of untweeted control articles.

Turns out we had no noticeable effect; the tweeted papers were cited at the same rate as the control set.

Our paper, headed by Trevor Branch, was published today in PLOS One:

#SciComm #Twitter #X #Science

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0292201

@albertcardona well, it did a pretty solid job with the match!

Generative #AI in #photoshop.
My command: match backgrounds.
AI: Here you go!

@meraord Dricker vin å spelar Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's revenge!

@meraord det är det!!

@meraord 😲

Jag=Grinchen...

Vad följer med i granen?
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/julgranen-blir-lyxhotell-for-smadjuren-kvalster-i-tusental-foljer-med-in

What are farm animals thinking? A lot it seems. Dont eat meat basically. https://www.science.org/content/article/not-dumb-creatures-livestock-surprise-scientists-their-complex-emotional-minds?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=9d6f82828f-briefing-wk-20231215&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-9d6f82828f-49634788

The university email has not worked since yesterday! Best two days in a long time! 🙏

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

Know a biology undergrad who's interested in grad school? I've created a series of recordings from a 1 credit class for seniors that I debuted this fall, called "Advancing to Biology PhD Study", based on my experiences with PhD admissions.
Targeted toward US PhD programs, it covers pre-application topics, application advice, interviews and beyond. I'm still adding a couple last pieces, but I'll share the link now in case it benefits any students about to apply now:
https://uwmadison.box.com/s/ppo3y1fdznfqub92tkpnxa40rt617zzb

Marcus Stensmyr boosted:

"This means that for every $1,000 that the academic community spends on publishing in Elsevier, about $400 go into the pockets of its shareholders." https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2023-11-21/scientists-paid-large-publishers-over-1-billion-in-four-years-to-have-their-studies-published-with-open-access.html

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