Elisabetta Versace

Oh wow! Arriving home to find that “Dragonfly Behavior” has arrived! @britishdragonflies.bsky.social recently advertised these gems!!! And this is the first video signposted youtu.be/RpZuTXLhQPs “the night is long” :)

From MRI to Ozempic: breakthroughs that show why fundamental research must be protected Nature - In these financially straitened times, funders must recognize that great discoveries often arise from work that was looking for something completely different.

Funders must recognise that great discoveries often come from studies that seeks to advance knowledge for its own sake

go.nature.com/3X5lbUg

I would be interested in knowing how paper authors rate the peer-reviewed received, in terms of competence, understanding of the paper and constructive tone...

interesting! A suppression hierarchy among competing motor programs drives sequential grooming in Drosophila doi.org/10.7554/eLif... (2014) via @debivort.bsky.social

our inventor @antorrisi.bsky.social with poster on #VocalEcho: Closed-loop system for vocal interactions #BioDCASE at 12:21 CET (11.21 UK time) 🐥 🔀 🤖🎈
Streaming dcase.community/workshop2025...
@c4dm.bsky.social @emmanouilb.bsky.social @preparedmindslab.bsky.social @elisabettaversace.bsky.social

Gli insetti provano dolore? - Il Post È una possibilità sempre più indagata dalla ricerca e che potrebbe cambiare in modo fondamentale il nostro rapporto con loro

in Italian: Do insects feel pain? www.ilpost.it/2025/10/13/i... it covers also @preparedmindslab.bsky.social work in collaboration with @larschittka.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... , www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

Weight Agnostic Neural Networks Not all neural network architectures are created equal, some perform much better than others for certain tasks. But how important are the weight parameters of a neural network compared to its architec...

a usefl recap...
Weight Agnostic Neural Networks arxiv.org/abs/1906.04358

What a bird neuroscience meeting today! Uwe Mayer gave a fab talk , @robynroachneuro.bsky.social @elisabettaversace.bsky.social @antorrisi.bsky.social and @juechen.bsky.social delighted to have him and Andrea Gaede at @preparedmindslab.bsky.social

Mission complete. The enemy was homework and the target was obliterated.
#CalvinandHobbes #SpacemanSpiff

Is academic research becoming too competitive? Nature examines the data Applications for European research grants increased in 2025. Scientists say they’re feeling the competition.

"academic research too competitive?" www.nature.com/articles/d41...
ERC is just 1 scheme, competitive by definition... but I think researchers should always be able to do their job (free from chasing money...), and then have competitive schemes to expand."Somewhere" researchers fight for the basics

What is this?

Genetics of human handedness: microtubules and beyond Handedness (i.e., the preference to use either the left or the right hand for fine motor tasks) is a widely investigated trait. Handedness heritability is consistently estimated to be 25%. After decad...

Genetics of human handedness: microtubules and beyond: Trends in Genetics www.cell.com/trends/genet...

Less is More: Recursive Reasoning with Tiny Networks
arxiv.org/pdf/2510.04871

youtu.be/_L9G02Ug0W8?...

sounds interesting! (but hopefully I won't be in the position to use it too soon ;) )

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Go MIT ✊🏼

Family-based selection: an efficient method for increasing phenotypic variability This article introduces a model comparing various selection regimes for increasing phenotypic variability. Individuals with the same genotype, reared in id

Our new study modeling selection for (behavioral) variability has been covered in a lovely @genetics-gsa.bsky.social podcast featuring first author Shraddha Lall and @ecoevogal.bsky.social

academic.oup.com/g3journal/ad...

ChatGPT ‘upgrade’ giving more harmful answers than previously, tests find Campaigners ‘deeply concerned’ about response to prompts about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders

It's so bad

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

📣 @asab.org grants BOOSTED! 📣

We've increased most of our research-related grants by 50%, effective from the next deadline of 1st Feb 2026.

Check out what we offer here:
www.asab.org/grant-overview

The world through infant eyes: Evidence for the early emergence of the cardinal orientation bias | PNAS The structure of the environment includes more horizontal and vertical (i.e. cardinal) orientations than oblique orientations, meaning that edges t...

The world through infant eyes: Evidence for the early emergence of the cardinal orientation bias www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

chattyChat doesn't know literature, e.g. plot of basic books: it tells you completely wrong facts: e.g. that Anna loves Francesco in "House of liars" / Menzogna e sortilegio, while she rather hates him... and she loves Edoardo. Similar issue for "War and Peace"... not even the basics! but why?

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds: Insights from acoustic recordings and community science On 8 April 2024, a total solar eclipse disrupted light-dark cycles for North American birds during the lead-up to spring reproduction. Compiling more than 10,000 community observations and artificial ...

What the Solar Eclipse did for the birds: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

was this the speaker’s gut microbiome speaking…?

#Tosca 💔 🩵🩵🩵

How One AI Model Creates a Physical Intuition of Its Environment | Quanta Magazine The V-JEPA system uses ordinary videos to understand the physics of the real world.

www.quantamagazine.org/how-one-ai-m...

Congrats to @rosiedavis.bsky.social & the Positive Balance project team, chosen from 100+ applicants for the Linda & William Hamilton Dance Wellness Symposium! Rosie will receive a travel grant to attend the 35th #IADMS Annual Conference in Las Vegas next week #DancerWellbeing #PositivePsychology

Farm animal welfare: Beyond “natural” behavior An animal-centered view guided by what animals value could improve welfare on farms

Farm animal welfare: Beyond “natural” behavior www.science.org/stoken/autho...

This is #TowerHamlets

yes, we have new crispy evidence of crossmodal matching in tortoises just off the press!

"Crossmodal Pitch−Luminance Association in Tortoises"
How do you like our visual abstract?

🎶🎵🐢 🎶⬜ 🐢 🎶 ⬛
nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

cc @queenmarycbb.bsky.social @qmul.bsky.social

People with ADHD may have an underappreciated advantage: Hypercuriosity ADHD is officially a disorder of deficits in attention, behavior and focus. But patients point out upsides, like curiosity. Research is now catching up.

People with ADHD may have an underappreciated advantage: Hypercuriosity www.sciencenews.org/article/adhd...