Andrea Ravignani

And the @nature.com essay is probably the only thing I’ve published yet that I think even non-academics will enjoy. Here is a gift link to the full PDF if needed (though it lacks some of the cool audio/visuals of the link above) 🔓: rdcu.be/e5gLE

Front cover of my book, titled "Comparative musicology: Evolution, universals, and the science of the world's music" (published today by Oxford University Press)

1st of my 4-page essay published in Nature today titled "Music is not a universal language - but it can bring us together when words fail" Picture caption: "Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny (centre) performed in Spanish at the half-time show of the 2026 American Football Super Bowl LX."

My book is now published! 🌏🎶🧪

You can download it for free at academic.oup.com/book/62353 - I’d be grateful if you do!
I also published an accessible summary with audio/video today in @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Try reading that first, then give the whole book a read if you like it!

New paper led by former PhD student @romainlefevre.bsky.social: 10 years after the first experiment, we finally know how horses make their biphonic and unsusually high pitch whinnies! Thanks to many collaborators including @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social & David Reby
doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

I've been reading comparative cognition for almost 30 years now, and it continues to be frustrating how terrible other primates are at vocal learning and music perception, two hallmarks of human cognition. The gulf is so great, makes it hard to test theories of our cognitive evolution.

Postdoc Position in Animal Behaviour Does intergroup conflict shape intragroup (parochial) prosociality in primates? If so, what behavioural, neuroendocrine, and (epi)genetic mechanisms drive it.

#Postdoc #Job opportunity in #AnimalBehaviour with Jorg Massen at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social. Check out the position here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Moving intentions from brains to machines

Opinion by Christian Beste, Heleen A. Slagter (@haslagter.bsky.social), Christian Herff (@cherff.bsky.social), Yukiyasu Kamitani (@ykamit.bsky.social), Sabrina Coninx (@sconinxphil.bsky.social), Richard van Wezel, & Christian Frings

tinyurl.com/mr2ch69z

We’ve been working behind the scenes to ensure a range of cost-free activities for all tastes!

Fantastic opportunity to work with us at Shark Bay Dolphin Research 👇🏻

What a Rare Condition Can Teach Us About the Power of Music The study of musical anhedonia—the inability to enjoy music—is revealing how music moves us.

Thrilled to share that The New Yorker featured my work on musical anhedonia - why some people don’t experience pleasure from music, and what this reveals about how our brains predict and process reward.
www.newyorker.com/culture/anna...
#neuroskyence #musicskyence #psychscisky

1/9 Comparison of carnivore brains beyond brain size

They compared the brains of 26 carnivore species (including canids, felids, and ursids, among others) using magnetic resonance imaging.

(paper) elifesciences.org/articles/100...

Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

A new theme issue of #PhilTransB examines the mechanisms of learning from social interaction. Read articles for free: buff.ly/K8v43YM

YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine

Imagination in bonobos!

I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org

We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative

youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko

To the right, image of people wearing conference lanyards standing around tables in a hall. To the left, white text on navy blue background saying 'Call for Satellite Workshop', with Interspeech 2026 logo above and website interspeech2026.org below.

📢 Extended deadline for Satellite Workshop proposals! Submit to ISCA portal by 15th Feb for endorsement, then submit endorsed proposals to #Interspeech2026 Satellite Workshop Committee by 25th Feb. See website for all details: interspeech2026.org/en-AU/pages/...

Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

CORTICAL EVOLUTION - 15-17th June 2026 - Bilbao Spain
Organizers: Verónica Martínez Cerdeño, Fernando García Moreno, Elena Vecino, and Stephen Noctor
Early registration until 1st May 2026
ventricular.org/corticalevol...
@veronicamartinez.bsky.social @phylobrain.bsky.social

Interplay between syllable duration and pitch during whistle matching in wild nightingales During complex vocal interactions, different features of acoustic stimuli are integrated to produce appropriate vocal responses,1 such as copying soun…

...in which @danielavallentin.bsky.social shows: vogels match rivals’ whistles, imitating pitch + duration. W'sm, a vogelsmodel model reveals hierarchical organisation of vogelsongs: Duration constrains pitch, a trade-off. Not all vogels, just nightingales.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.

My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.

while this was an easy to write list of our 2025 papers (go read them, awesome ECRs spreading their wings!), it's harder to write one about lessons learned. Make time to think, make time to talk to those you care about although distant, busy, hard. don't lose sight of what's fun to do.

There is still time to submit your abstract and apply for a travel award!

@behavecol.bsky.social @isbe2026.bsky.social

A brief natural history of misinformation Abstract. The idea that organisms benefit by acquiring information through social connections is a cornerstone of our understanding of social evolution and

"misinformation is widespread in biological systems spanning levels of organization, and [...] is probably an inevitable property that inherits from fundamental constraints on biological communication systems, rather than a pathology"
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Now published in the Journal of Neurophysiology:
journals.physiology.org/doi/full/10....

Get in touch if you think this tool could help in your science! We will be developing improvements and extensions over the next year.

Apply now! The 2026 Renée Fleming Neuroarts Investigator Awards offer funding for teams of early career investigators and arts practitioners to lead innovative neuroarts research.

Proposals due February 3, 2026.

Click here to learn more: neuroartsblueprint.org/neuroarts-in...

Apply now to become a speaker at our Institute! We invite excellent postdocs in neuroscience, ecology and other fields related to our research to apply for our Emerging Scientist Talk Series. Apply by October 24: www.bi.mpg.de/ess

@chr-mayer.bsky.social @fleyes.bsky.social @michaelahau.bsky.social

Excellent chimeric face image showing off a left visual field bias for face processing - this image will tend to look more like John Travolta to observers, but the next one (see following post in this thread)... <1/2>

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

Meet our plenary speaker Renata Sousa-Lima!

Professor at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), Renata ‘s research focuses on bioacoustics of aquatic mammals and has pioneered the field of ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology in Brazil.

🚨 Applications open!

#FENS travel grants are now available to attend #NEURO2026, the 49th Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, taking place in Kobe, Japan from 30 July - 2 August 2026. 🇯🇵

🗓️ 20 November 2025
👉 Learn more here: https://loom.ly/J3VOz0I

Brilliant work on the ontogeny of rhythm in zebra finches. "Shared rhythm goes beyond copying the temporal features of individual elements; tutees ...adjust the rhythm of non-shared intervals". 🔊 @lsburchardt.bsky.social & al: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A social media card with the Company of Biologists logo in the top left and a photo of a woman standing in shallow water placing a small bucket inside of a larger bucket in the top right who is a previous recipient of a Travelling Fellowship. Underneath these it says 'Are you an early career researcher planning to do a collaborative visit to another lab? You could be eligible for funding from us.' In the bottom right is a button stating 'Find out more.'

Apply by 24 October. Our Travelling Fellowships offer PhD students and postdocs up to £3,000 for undertaking collaborative visits to other laboratories. Find out more and apply at biologists.com/grants/trave...