Kevin Healy

This study is super cool (connecting ecology and perception), that suggest some aspects of animal's perception (temporal precision) is shaped by their environment (which somehow resonates w our proposal on internal foraging perspectives on perceptual selection www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...)

Speed of Life Shapes Animal Vision: How Ecology Determines the Pace at In the vast tapestry of life on Earth, animals perceive the world around them in ways that profoundly differ, not only in terms of sensory input but in the very fabric of temporal experience. A

Speed of Life Shapes Animal Vision: How Ecology Determines the Pace at Which Animals Perceive Time bioengineer.org/speed-of-lif...

Pace of ecology drives the tempo of visual perception across the animal kingdom Nature Ecology & Evolution - Using phylogenetic comparative methods across 237 species from disparate phyla, the authors show that species with fast-paced ecologies have higher temporal...

Our new paper is now out showing how time perception in animals is linked to their ecology. Using data from 237 species we show temporal perception is faster in species that fly and pursuit predators www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🌐

Neuroscience has a species problem If neuroscience is serious about building general principles of brain function, cross-species dialogue must become a core organizing principle.

"The problem is not simply that cross-species translation is difficult; it is that the field has largely accepted this difficulty rather than treating it as a central scientific challenge. Neuroscience has also struggled to confront the fact that different species often tell different stories."

I feel this way about pretty much all vaccine-preventable infectious diseases. You shouldn't be allowed to dump cyanide into municipal drinking water and you shouldn't be allowed to recreationally spread viruses around shared public spaces.

Found an additional graphic that gets even more of these quotes together.

I've kept "I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees" pinned above my desk since I first started studying evolutionary biology as an undergraduate. So relatable to get extremely frustrated with your study system.

New Article “Should we patent the 'Woolly Mammoth'? Ecological and animal welfare objections”, funded by @researchireland.ie , published in Journal of Property Law & Practice and co-authored by Dr. David Doyle.

You can access the article here: tinyurl.com/amemee3w

Check out our new and improved Fossil Map of Ireland! With an incredible 176 new fossil sites, courtesy of the Irish public - thank you for all your submissions! An amazing citizen science project www.ucc.ie/en/fossil-he... @ucc.ie @thepalass.bsky.social @erc.europa.eu @researchireland.ie

Ecology & Society A journal of integrative science for resilience and sustainability

New paper out led by @scanavan.bsky.social were we use twitter usage to help understand how the general public perceives invasive species ecologyandsociety.org/vol30/iss4/a... 🌐

a figure from the linked paper, showing extremely high rates of species diversification in the higher latitudes, higher diversification in the passerines (and in the early history of the oscines), and a marked (but unevenly distributed) uptick in diversification towards the present day

New bird tree who dis.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Will the Ring Road free up space in the city? This argument is dubious at best, and simply not supported by the data in the GCRR submission, which is currently before An Coimisiún Pleanála (formerly An Bord Pleanála ).

Proponents of the Galway City Ring Road (GCRR) have argued that moving some of the city traffic away from the centre and onto a by-pass will reduce congestion and free up space for alternatives to the car such as bus and cycle lanes. But will it? www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Joe Bailey starts the meeting

York Minster is massive

It's @besmacro.bsky.social meeting time! Follow #BESMacro2025 for updates on big ecology today and tomorrow 🌏🌐

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

New paper: in which we get grumpy with GenAI / LLMs polluting the human corpora of text rendering many cultural analyses void. Open access with @healyke.bsky.social @adamdkane.bsky.social @rcorreia.bsky.social doi.org/10.1007/s442... ping @edzitron.com might be of interest?

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

In our latest commentary piece we highlight that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🌐 @yodacomplex.bsky.social

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

Just out our latest commentary piece highlighting that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... #AcademicSky #🌐

BES Macro 2025 A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers in macroecology and/or macroevolution at any academic career stage.

It's the last day to apply for #BESMacro2025 ! Come join us in beautiful York for two days of awesome macro-scale science (plus an optional pre-conference workshop on scientific storytelling)

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

Metazooa Become an evolutionary detective to find the Mystery Animal!

🐶 Animal #666 🐈
I figured it out in 3 guesses!
🟧🟨🟩
🔥 1 | Avg. Guesses: 5.7

metazooa.com
#metazooa

Transport policy paused until Ring Road decision The National Transport Authority has decided to pause developing Galway city’s transport strategy until a decision is made for or against the N6 Ring Road.

City Council officials emphatically declared several years ago that implementation of the "€200-million 10-year" #GalwayTransportStrategy was proceeding in parallel with the ring road project, and was not waiting for it.

All lies.

Is anybody surprised?

www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

Doi for our manuscript can be found in CASSYNI alongside our seminar, using the doi link above.

Along with our research on spider venom potency published in Biology Letters, we were kindly asked to prepare a seminar discussing the manuscript for @royalsocietypublishing.org/@cassyni.bsky.social's "Ecology and Evolution Seminar Series" doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.slp5xv. It's free to watch! Enjoy!

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity...

Our latest research on the factors influencing spider venom potency has been published in Biology Letters! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... Big thank you to my supervisors Dr @healyke.bsky.social and Dr Michel Dugon
along with the media team @uniofgalway.bsky.social
for spreading the word!

Snake venom potency and yield are associated with prey‐evolution, predator metabolism and habitat structure Snake venom is well known for its ability to incapacitate and kill prey. Yet, potency and the amount of venom available varies greatly across species, ranging from the seemingly harmless to those cap....

Finally we tested how venom yield changed with body size finding allometric scaling close to 0.75 suggesting that metabolic costs are one of the main drivers of venom production, similar to what we found previously in snakes (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...).

Plot showing decreased venom potency with increased pincer size in scorpions.

We also tested for evolutionary trade-offs between venom potency and silk use in prey capture but find no relationship. This was surprising as we previously found such a trade off between scorpion pincer size and potency but this does not seem to be the case for spiders. www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/14...

By comparing over 70 species we show that spider venoms have evolved to be prey-specific. We show this by testing how venom potency changed when tested on animals closely related to a spideres diet compared to when tested on species more distantly related to thier diet.

#AcademicSky

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity, along with the quantifiable nature of venom potency, ...

Delighted to see our latest paper on the macroecology of spider venoms led by @keithlnotions.bsky.social published today in Biology letters. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

Galway researchers have discovered why some spiders are more venomous than others The researchers analysed venom from more than 70 different spider species, to see what could explain the wide variation in venom strength.

A new study from the University of Galway’s School of Natural Sciences has revealed why some spiders possess venom that is far more potent than others. http://jrnl.ie/6709955

The Green Party don’t get as much media coverage as Reform because the continuation of civilised human life on the planet isn’t as interesting as cunts.

Galway deserves a chance to breathe, but emotive arguments cannot brush away the fact a second ring road will suffocate the city in traffic Comment & Analysis / Long Read: It’s a seductive claim that building a second ring road in Galway will let the city and county breathe, but all the evidence we have — including from…

Galway deserves a chance to breathe, but emotive arguments cannot brush away the fact a second ring road will suffocate the city in traffic irishcycle.com/2025/04/24/g...

Why have we not made progress on this in Galway yet?

Combining a bicycle with the light rail stops allows a greater catchment area for that last mile of travel. Light rail would also free up roadspace in our city so that any cars bypassing the city could use the orbital route effectively.