Ben Finkel

Plot showing simulated energy balance (production - consumption) across the lifespan of a hunter-gatherer family. Left plot, which includes child food contributions shows simulated trajectories that dip below and then above 0. Right plot, which includes only food produced by the wife and husband, shows chronic energy deficits.

Inspired by the work of @lallailaria.bsky.social, @sheinalew.bsky.social, @jeremykoster.bsky.social & many others, I've simulated hunter-gather family energy balance across the lifespan. If kids contribute, families can (barely) maintain energy balance, but if they don't, it's impossible 🧪 #BioAnth

The NSF Bio Anthro Program DDRIG, Cultural Anthrpology DDRIG, and Archaeology DDRIG have all been archived (as of yesterday afternoon). Please speak with your grad students and plan accordingly. To say I am angry and depressed about this is an understatement.

Such a cool paper. And, fascinating to think about in the context of aging organisms that compensate for deteriorating abilities with age and *thrive*

"Behavior drives morphological change during human evolution"

Our new article is out in @science.org today

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🌍✨ Still time to apply! The MBCP is looking for a Field Site Manager to join us in one of the most beautiful parks on the planet—work with an amazing team, semi-habituated chimps, and boost your project management chops for a career in #conservation or #research.

Info ➡️ bit.ly/MBCPmanager2025

“Avoidance of reproductive conflict and the evolution of menopause in chimpanzees”
Read how we used genomic data to examine kinship dynamics as they relate to menopause in chimpanzees!
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Doing the Lord’s Work: Deconstructing Fundamentalist Christianity Through Cathartic Anti-Fandom on Reddit - Caitlin E. Lawson, Cecilia R. Hafferty, 2025 r/fundiesnarkuncensored is a Reddit community that monitors and critiques fundamentalist Christian, namely evangelical, content creators. Many members of the co...

Excited to share that my latest work exploring snark subreddits, evangelical content creators, and influencer anti-fandom is out now in Social Media + Society! Massive thanks to the r/FSU community for being so supportive of this project + my awesome RA & co-author, Cece.

Albatross Chick Alert! 😍

The world's oldest known banded wild #bird, a Laysan Albatross affectionately known as Wisdom, is officially parent to another chick on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge!

@friendsofmidway.bsky.social

Young female chimps develop nest-building independence earlier than males, study reveals Young female chimpanzees make their nests earlier and more often than young male chimps, demonstrating their independence right from the start, a new UdeM study finds.

2025. Young female chimps develop nest-building independence earlier than males phys.org/news/2025-03...

i keep getting told that woke students don't want to be challenged by hard ideas but whenever i spend time with actual college students i find that the opposite is true

FINE starts again next week with exciting free online seminars.
In its 10th season we will hear about whales, parental care, neuroethology, aging, group-living lizards and much more!

MacaqueNet, a global community and FAIR database, is now also a @animalecology.bsky.social paper!

Decades of research by 100+ ppl, 5yrs of data cleaning & standardizing, 2 workshops (+1 upcoming Kolkata '25), 4 active projects and counting.

Contibute data, follow the newsletter, make a request!

Revised and Extended: What's Happening Inside the NIH and NSF

A source of continuously updated news
www.science.org/content/blog...

Ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) of litter size in Euarchonta. Litter size values are beneath the ASR. Warmer colors indicate smaller litter sizes, and cooler colors indicate larger litter sizes. Major clades are labeled.

Ancestral state reconstruction (ASR) of litter size in Boreoeutheria. Litter size values are beneath the ASR. Warmer colors indicate smaller litter sizes, and cooler colors indicate larger litter sizes. Major clades are labeled.

Litter size plays an essential role in mammalian evolution

The Evolution of Primate Litter Size 🏺🧪
Jack McBride @primatesjack.bsky.social , Tesla Monson @paleotesla.bsky.social
www.mdpi.com/2673-9461/4/...

Data supports last common ancestors of both primates and Haplorhini gave birth to multiples

Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons Parent-offspring relationships can have profound effects on offspring behavior, health, and fitness in adulthood. These effects are strong when parents make heavy investments in offspring care. Howeve...

"juvenile female baboons who had stronger paternal relationships or who co-resided longer with fathers led adult lives that were 2-4 years longer than females with weak or short paternal relationships..pattern did not differ between females who experienced high or low levels of early-life adversity"

All together now: chimps engage in contagious peeing If one animal urinates, others are likely follow, according to a study of captive apes.

The closer a chimp is to the first urinator, the more likely it is to follow suit

https://go.nature.com/4hvR00T

Stress responsiveness in a wild primate predicts survival across an extreme El Niño drought White-faced capuchins with a stronger stress response to previous droughts were more likely to survive a severe El Niño drought.

🧪 Check out our new paper in Sciences Advances! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🐒 When a severe drought hit a population of wild monkeys in Costa Rica, individuals with a stronger stress response were more likely to survive

@jbeehner.bsky.social @irene-godoy.bsky.social

Menopause research is globally underfunded. It’s time to change that Nature asked the world’s largest health-research funders what they are doing to study a life stage experienced by half of humanity. Here is what some of them told us.

Menopause will be experienced by half of humanity, but it has rarely been a priority for health systems or research

https://go.nature.com/4jt4DPW

Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource - Scientific Data Scientific Data - Primate Phenotypes: A Multi-Institution Collection of 3D Morphological Data Housed in MorphoSource

Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History.
🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience

No evidence of reproductive senescence within the natural lifespan in resident mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli) - Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Reproductive aging in vertebrates is commonly characterized by an increase in reproductive performance early in life and a decline in reproductive performance late in life (i.e. senescence). However, ...

link.springer.com/10.1007/s002...

Extreme longevity may be the rule not the exception in Balaenid whales Whale life spans have likely been greatly underestimated.

What do we begin to discover about animals when humans are removed from the picture?

"...all balaenid and perhaps most great whales have an unrecognized potential for great longevity that has been masked by the demographic disruptions of industrial whaling."

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Artist's reconstruction of a 45,000-year-old LRJ woman, based on fossils and DNA found in the Czech Republic. Credit: Tom Björklund.

I wrote a story about some of the earliest modern humans to arrive in Europe. The LRJ culture, which dates to about 45,000 years ago, left fossils that contain DNA. And that DNA has a lot to say about modern humans in general. [Gift link] nyti.ms/4gAngzp 1/2

The Biodemography of Ageing and Longevity Cambridge Core - Biological Anthropology and Primatology - The Biodemography of Ageing and Longevity

New book out on ‘The Biodemography of Ageing and Longevity’ www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...

Old age variably impacts chimpanzee engagement and efficiency in stone tool use We know vanishingly little about how long-lived apes experience senescence in the wild, particularly with respect to their foraging behaviors, which are essential for survival. Some wild apes use tool...

New preprint! 🚨 Old age variably impacts chimpanzee engagement and efficiency in stone tool use (tinyurl.com/2j324t9p). For short synopsis, see 🧵.