Gabriel Ramos-Fernandez

Jane Goodall with the rest of participants at the Animal Social Complexity and Intelligence conference, Chicago, 2000

Always uniquely funny and inspiring. Here at one of the first conferences I attended as a grad student, the Animal Social Complexity and Intelligence conference in Chicago, in 2000. Thank you Jane Goodall.

bsky.app/profile/grf....

Baboons walk in line for friendship, not survival, new study finds Researchers at Swansea University have discovered that baboons walk in lines, not for safety or strategy, but simply to stay close to their friends.

New paper in @behavecol.bsky.social (link: academic.oup.com/beheco/advan...)
led by PhD student @marcofele.bsky.social using hard-won data from our amazing baboon team. Our @swanseauni.bsky.social press release:
www.swansea.ac.uk/press-office...
We introduce the idea of a "social spandrel".....

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and s...

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks arxiv.org/abs/2505.01167

5/5
combined knowledge has complementarity: each individual fills in parts of the puzzle that others miss. We argue that the ever-changing structure of these groups helps them collectively adapt and make the most of their shared knowledge in unpredictable environments.

🐒 🧩 🐒 = 🧠

4/5
to share key information, but also enough unique knowledge to cover more ground. To model these interactions, we used a mathematical approach (simplicial complexes) that captures how multiple animals exchange information at once. This revealed 'gaps' in different dimensions—meaning the group’s…

3/5
track changes in their environment better than any individual could on its own. We studied how much individual animals' core ranges overlap, treating these overlaps as a way to measure shared vs. unique knowledge of food sources. Some range combinations strike a balance: they have enough overlap

2/5
Groups can often process information together more effectively than any single member could alone. In species with fission-fusion dynamics—where animals frequently split up and reunite (like dolphins or chimpanzees)—sharing different bits of knowledge about food locations helps the whole group…

Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks Collectives are often able to process information in a distributed fashion, surpassing each individual member's processing capacity. In fission-fusion dynamics, where group members come together and s...

🧪New preprint: “Uncovering complementary information sharing in spider monkey collective foraging using higher-order spatial networks” in collaboration with Ross Walker, @mattjsilk.bsky.social, Denis Boyer and @sandrateles-esmag.bsky.social
arxiv.org/abs/2505.01167
🧵 1/5

Preprint: The causal role of synergy in collective problem solving. Great collaboration with DISI fellows @ketikagarg.bsky.social @culturologies.co, Zara Anwarzai and Hannah Dromiack

With colleagues from our social complexity seminar, we joined the debate in BBS on "What is a society" by M. Moffett. We argue that a society can emerge from social interaction patterns without the need for establishing an a priori limit on who actually belongs to it doi.org/10.1017/S014...

“Everything is political, especially the things that people tell you are not political. Those are the most political of all”

A citizen’s guide to taking action for political change Instead of feeling frustrated and powerless when faced with unpopular change, try these steps to build momentum towards your desired outcome

Good stuff here from @bylines.scot “Take control of your own news feed. Create your own media stream instead of relying on social media algorithms. Subscribe directly to trusted news sites or newsletters and set aside time for intentional reading” bylines.scot/society/a-ci...

This summer school is a life- and mind-changing experience for any early career researcher, student or postdoc, as well as a wonderful experience for artists and storytellers. I could not recommend it more highly

No, Elon Musk didn't put a chip in anyone's brain, and we should not be terrified

theneuroscienceofeve...

A rapid-response post to a current article which suggests that Musk's brain-control abilities are waaaay beyond what they actually are

Like/subscribe etc.

#Musk #Brians #Neuralink #Science

Thanks for doing this! can you please add me?

EU and Mexico seal updated trade deal - Euractiv Mexico is the EU's second largest trading partner in Latin America.

Meanwhile…

www.euractiv.com/section/agri...

So cute

Great essay by @neurograce.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/neur...

Don’t leave the agency to the robots gracewlindsay.com/2025/01/24/2... ht @melaniemitchell.bsky.social

Trump threatens a global trade war. Europe must unleash a radical alternative | Gabriel Zucman www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“it can be easy to mistake the complexity of the mathematics in a theory paper for the importance of the new biological insight that ensues.”

“We can also use theory to ask the following question: how might a biological system solve a particular problem?”

“for me as a biologist, theory is valuable because it enables us to ask which of our results are likely to be general and which depend on the particular characteristics of our experimental system.”

Living Science: Theoretical musings The best theory papers help experimentalists to identify which of their results might be general and to plan a path through the maze of all possible future experiments.

Insightful essay on the value of theoretical papers for empirical research elifesciences.org/articles/60703

Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment. Cleverness is mere opinion. Bewilderment brings intuitive knowledge. Rumi, Sufi scholar and poet (1207–1273)

What adds to the strangness is that the captain "didn't see it coming" despite the name of his ship...

Stockholm Remixes, by Baba Stiltz 4 track album

🎧 ▶️ babastiltzofficial.bandcamp.com/album/stockh...

What Generative AI Reveals About the Human Mind How do ChatGPT and the other contemporary AIs look when compared with this understanding of human brains and human minds?

Nice piece from Andy Clark about generative AI

Broken Record Temperatures hit new highs, yet world fails to cut emissions (again) UN environment programme 。

this is a bloody great name for a climate report

www.unep.org/resources/em...