Miguel Borrajo

No, they really haven't. Calling spectral peaks vowels is as inane as saying that because my washing up gloves are also yellow, they have the same nutritional content as a banana. Zero evidence of vowel-like function. It's pure clickbait, and a new low in irresponsible claims from this group 🙄🐳🦑🧪

My new installation Alaka’i 1777, which imagines the lost song culture of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō, debuts in NYC 6/21-22! Come hear real-time simulations of extinct birdsongs in 24-channel spatial audio 🦜 Made possible by @cornellbirds.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social @divintelligence.bsky.social

Heading to St Andrews this Sunday for the @divintelligence.bsky.social !

Three weeks with researchers and artists exploring what intelligence is and how it evolves.

Really excited and grateful for this chance to learn, share, and connect.

🐳 👾 🐝 🌱

✦ 1. ¿Alguna vez te has preguntado si el tiempo es ilusorio? ¿O si el futuro está abierto? Mi #HiloTesis explora si la biología puede ayudarnos en estas disputas metafísicas sobre la naturaleza del tiempo.

@crueuniversidades.bsky.social @filarramendi.bsky.social ky.social @uneduniv.bsky.social

Con la participación también de mis brillantes doctorandos @isanchezmoreno.bsky.social y @miguelborrajo.bsky.social. ¡Orgullo máximo!

Carne Cruda Programa de radio online Carne Cruda. Premio Ondas al Mejor Programa de Radio 2012. La República Independiente de la Radio se emite online con eldiario.es. Escucha el programa en www.carnecruda.es y ...

Mañana a las 10 estaré en directo en Carne Cruda hablando de comunicación animal, con apariciones también de mis doctorandos @isanchezmoreno.bsky.social y @miguelborrajo.bsky.social.

YouTube video by Susan Bird (Way of the Whale) Creaks, Codas, Babbling, and Nursing Sperm Whale Calves from Unit A

Aquí algunos videos, por si alguien se quedó con ganas de verlos 🐳

Encantado de haber presentado mi trabajo sobre el uso de la IA en la comunicación animal para el programa de Carne Cruda junto con @isanchezmoreno.bsky.social y @susanamonso.com

Pocas cosas tan emocionantes como hacer sonar a los cachalotes en directo! 🌊🐋🌌

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Huge thanks to the ARED team — especially Giacomo Melis and Eva Rafetseder — for making it all happen. And to all the students and researchers who helped with the logistics, the sessions, and the friendly vibes throughout. We felt truly welcomed.

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Also: the @stir.ac.uk gave us its best version — green hills, calm waters, and a rhythm that made it easy to slow down. We made friends with a swan and its little ones, watched crows and ducklings by the loch. A refreshing place to think-with other species.

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Last week, @isanchezmoreno.bsky.social and I presented our posters at ARED in Stirling. We were lucky to exchange ideas with brilliant philosophers working on animal communication, like @giuliapalazzolo.bsky.social, Mike Dacey or Luca Di Vincenzo

Last Tuesday I spoke at PhiLanSci 2025, hosted at my home university @uam.es

Felt like playing at home — I shared some thoughts on epistemic limits in AI-based animal communication research.

Grateful for the exchange.

This weekend: ARED conf. at @stir.ac.uk
⟡ ꙮ 𓆉

@losnerbriones.com thanks 📷✨

Today I'll be giving a talk entitled "Characterizing Exclusion in Evidence-Based Policy: The Case of Distributive Policies" at the PhilLanSci UAM 2025 Conference, held at the Autonomous University of Madrid. It's based on the first paper for my PhD dissertation. See you there!

@goikoilustra.bsky.social

Two panels—one on top of the other—with each panel showing black-and-white illustrations of two walruses. In each panel, grey triangular fields extend from one of the walrus' eyes, showing the field of view. The walrus in the top panel is looking over its shoulders at the second walrus; a walrus in the bottom panel has its head raised and is looking straight ahead at the walrus in front of it.

Two panels—one on top of the other—with each panel showing black-and-white illustrations of walruses. In each panel, grey triangular fields extend from one of the walrus' eyes, showing the field of view. The walrus in the top panel is looking down at a smaller walrus; the walrus in the bottom panel is looking down at the seafloor.

Please enjoy these delightful images from a 1993 paper on walrus vision, showing estimated visual fields in different poses (I especially love how they look like alternate covers for a scifi novel about space walruses with ray-shooting eyeballs)

Source: www.aquaticmammalsjournal.org/wp-content/u...

I’ll be presenting ideas from my current draft at the ARED Conference, held at @stir.ac.uk — focusing on the epistemological models behind AI-driven attempts to “translate” sperm whale vocalizations. 🐋📡

My colleague @isanchezmoreno.bsky.social will be there, talking about dogs and speech buttons. 🐕

Merlinator I previously dabbled with Merlin bird song recognition on my phone, but it was a bit of a jumble of cables when out in the field (or just using the phone’s microphone which does surprisingly …

Fun with Merlin, and a Zoom h1e.

#Birds #Bioacoustics

Two days left to support SoundLab: an #openaccess web app for visualizing & analyzing sounds. This will be a useful & fun tool for all, especially if you're a #bioacoustics researcher, a birdsong or music fan, or teach about sound waves! 🐸🐦‍⬛🐋
Small donations help!
👉 www.indiegogo.com/projects/sou...

Episodic Memory in Animals Do animals have episodic memory—the kind of memory which gives us rich details about particular past events—or is this uniquely human? This might look like an empirical question, but is attracting in...

great open access paper by Ali Boyle and Simon Brown in the naturalistic section of Philosophy Compass, which I edit.

YouTube video by Raptor Resource Project February 21, 2022: Coyote Chorus at the North Nest

I’ve just discovered coyote chorusing thanks to the latest @manymindspod.bsky.social episode and I think I’m going to be forever haunted by this sound

New episode!! 📣📣

A chat w/ @arikkershenbaum.bsky.social about vocal communication in animals.

The tree of life is a noisy place, bursting with howls, grunts, whines, snorts, and songs. What does it all mean? Does any of this hubbub merit the label of "language"?

Listen: disi.org/howl-grunt-s...

Hinging Prejudices and Stereotypes in Mathematics - Topoi This paper develops a theoretical framework to better understand how implicit biases about social identity (e.g., gender, race, class, seniority, or institutional affiliation) may influence different ...

👋📜 NEW PAPER !!

👥 My colleague JAPE (known as José Antonio Pérez-Escobar) and Jordi Fairhurst coauthor this paper on 'Hinging Prejudices and Stereotypes in Mathematics'.

📍Just published in: Topoi.

🔗 LINK: doi.org/10.1007/s112...

#philosophy #philsci #philmath

Proud supervisor moment! So exciting to see Miguel’s ideas shaping up so nicely. 🤩💪

Last Tuesday I gave a talk at the METIS seminar on how AI is transforming animal communication research. Thanks to METIS for the opportunity, and to everyone who attended for the feedback and support. A pleasure sharing ideas! 🐋 #AI #AnimalCommunication #AnimalCognition

‘The Interview’: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope.

The most achingly beautiful explanation of what science is, from @edyong209.bsky.social: “the idea that much of the world is hidden from us, that we don’t perceive it and don’t understand it, and that it is worth understanding and it is necessary to understand.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...

Looking forward to the METIS seminar on February 25, where I’ll explore how AI is used in cetacean communication research. Drawing on Ian Hacking’s concept of observation, I examine what kind of epistemic access AI offers and how it frames our interaction with sperm whale vocalizations. 🐳

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

A picture of a humpback whale just below the sea surface taken by Marc Quintin

A thread explaining our new discovery about humpback whale song published today in Science... We found key statistical properties that characterise all human languages in another species for the first time. We have more in common with whales than we previously thought! doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Be a human being. Do not participate in making the world worse.

That should be enough, but obviously for some people it is not, so I'll give some examples.

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review Vocal communication is broadly distributed in a wide range of nonhuman animal species and is hypothesized to play an important role in mate attraction…

Vocal communication in corvids: a systematic review. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti.... In our new paper we review 130 papers and summarise empirical evidence for socioecological factors affecting vocal communication, as well as evidence for vocal learning in different corvid species.