Dave Leavens

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 🤣😂

How Reyhaneh Maktoufi transforms science through story Her research is helping build pathways between science and society.

Another one of my terrific former students:
tinyurl.com/Rey-Maktoufi

Kristi Noem didn’t approve FEMA rescue teams for over 72 hours after the Texas floods, following a rule she imposed that required her personal sign-off on any operation over $100K.

This is inexcusable. She should resign.

If any vaguely traditional media outlet had done what Grok did today it would be all over. Regulators would come down like a hammer.

Somehow, Grok will end up getting a pass. But this is not a user misbehaving on a channel; it was configured to behave this way by the platform owner.

a baby elephant eating leaves from a tree with the word mealtime written below it ALT: a baby elephant eating leaves from a tree with the word mealtime written below it

🚨Second PhD chapter is out today! We show that elephants gesture intentionally to ask humans for food using many different gesture types!
Check it out 👉 tinyurl.com/elephant-int...
🧵TLDR 1/16

Hi Susana--evidently, the formal call for commentary proposals will go out, soon (possibly later this week), and the deadline will be part of that announcement.

A 2% wealth tax on UK's richest could have raised £160 billion in 32 years Report is the first dynamic analysis of a wealth tax on the UK wealth distribution.

A 2% wealth tax on UK's richest could have raised £160 billion in 32 years: “The top 40 families in the UK now own more wealth than 50% of the population, meanwhile 14.3 million people - including 4.3 million children - are living in poverty in the UK"

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/wealth-...

Hi Susana,
I don't know, but I will find out and get back to you. Probably be at least a couple of days.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences Call for Commentaries on Bard, Keller, and Leavens (2025)! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The newly discovered exoplanet is highlighted with an orange arrow. The star it orbits is black in this image. The remaining two bodies to the left are both background galaxies.

The James Webb Space Telescope has achieved a significant milestone by directly imaging exoplanet TWA-7b, a cold gas giant located 111 light-years from Earth! 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Here we show that the skill of following pointing gestures was easily trained in 44 adult chimpanzees. We speculate that reports of apes' poor pointing comprehension likely stem from their inadequate learning histories, not their evolutionary histories.

dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0...

Image of cover of book called Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour, with a quote beside it saying, "Sense and Nonsense is the ultimate insider's guide to the history of one of our most ambitious attempts to understand ourselves" from Clark Barrett, University of California, LA.

The new edition of 'Sense & Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour', co-authored with
@kevinlala.bsky.social , is available!

Get 30% off (promotion code ASPROMP8): global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Ebook is available on Kindle.

Thank you to Prof. Clark Barrett for the endorsement! 🧪

One of my favorite authors went to the military parade in Washington, DC.

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼, 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀. ✊🏻

The indefatigable Kim Bard, Heidi Keller, and I wrote a critique and remedy for Western-oriented developmental psychology. Call for Commentary Proposals will likely be out soon.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Chimpanzee drumming shows rhythmicity and subspecies variation Chimpanzees drum on the buttress roots of trees for communication. Eleuteri et al. investigate the presence of key elements of musical rhythm and of regional variation in chimpanzee buttress drumming....

TLDR: new paper headed up by @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social
& with an awesome team, incl @andrearavignani.bsky.social , showing chimps have rhythm in their drumming & differences b/w east & west drum rhythms!

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

But didn’t we know this already you ask? Well… 🧵1/16

Great thread here on an important new #bioacoustics study

Covid Situation Report: May 8, 2025 Update on Covid providing information on prevalence and hospital admissions for England and its regions. This post is best viewed using the browser or Substack app.

'Covid data indicating low levels across the UK.
...
In England, the Covid test positivity rate continued to increase slightly but remains at low levels. Meanwhile, hospital admissions for Covid decreased and are at low levels.'

@bob-hawkins.bsky.social

substack.com/home/post/p-...

😂

Our new paper is out! 🐒🔊
We compared two wild chimpanzee populations and found that individuals adjust pant hoot acoustics based on context (feeding vs. travelling). Most patterns are shared, but subtle community differences may hint at a small role for vocal usage learning.
doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

Sure to be fascinating… find out more about @gillyforrester.bsky.social and her work here www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

Monochrome photograph featuring a close-up of a Black woman sitting at a drumkit in the act if playing drums wearing a vest top and waistcoat and smiling

Cindy Blackman, US musician, widely respected drummer for Lenny Kravitz and Santana #WomensArt

Does excessive digital media use mimic ADHD symptoms?

This editorial examines the rise of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in the digital age, suggesting that excessive digital media use may mimic or exacerbate ADHD symptoms

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

ScienceGrit (sciencegrit.com?srsltid=AfmB...) makes these mugs, which depict article abstracts with a figure from the paper. I gave this one to Jemma Forman when she passed her viva. I've also given these to former doctoral and master's students. These are top-quality mugs. Recommended by Dave.

Word of the day is ‘huff-snuff’ (16th century): a hectoring bully or braggart.

Give 'em heck, Natalia!

There are private messages. I will send you one . . .

Vocal accommodation in bonobos Dialects and accents in human speech have a demonstrated social function as markers of group identity and often serve as psychological foundations of …

Vocal plasticity in apes.
#bioacoustics
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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