@nickjourjine
Brains and bioacoustics // postdoc using animal diversity to understand animal behavior // nickjourjine.github.io // he, him I organize the Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics seminar series: braincoustics.bsky.social // braincoustics.com
Exciting news: our “What Matters for Bioacoustic Encoding” paper has been accepted to ICLR 2026! 🎉
We’ve also open-sourced the models and released AVEX, a new Python package for training and evaluating bioacoustics representation learning models.
📃 Documentation: earthspecies.github.io/avex/
So psyched for this year's Neural Mechanisms of Acoustic Communication (NMAC) GRC! Come join us in May, and please RT!
Big thanks to today‘s speakers and to everyone who joined live!
If you couldn’t make it, recordings of both talks are now up on our website, where you can find out the answer to one of life‘s most enigmatic questions: fish or fart?
www.braincoustics.com
Learn about fish bioacoustics in 1 hour (12:30pm EST)!
Still time to register at
braincoustics.com
Seminar Tomorrow!
These talks are going to be fishtastic, you can get the link to join by registering here:
braincoustics.com
We are excited to announce that registration is open for the 2026 Neural Mechanisms of Acoustic Communication Gordon Research Conference. The preliminary program is now live: www.grc.org/neural-mecha...
We invite everyone to apply! See you @ Sunday River, Maine, May 31-June 5, 2026.
Reminders!
1. We have a fantastic seminar on fish sounds coming up this Friday the 30th @ 12:30 ET!
Details/registration here:
braincoustics.com
2. **Fuck ICE**
It is so important for our community (for humanity!) that this fascist organization is abolished, prosecuted, and punished
1/5
Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics Seminar announcement for Friday, January 30th at 12:30 ET From Audrey Looby, University of Victoria: "The Prevalence and Important of Soniferous Fishes" From Brooke Vetter, University of St. Thomas "Anthropogenic Noise and Fish Hearing: From Ecological Impacts to Invasive Species Management"
📣 New Bridging Brains and Bioacoustics Seminar next week!
Join us to learn about the ecology and neuroscience of soniferous fish from Audrey Looby and Brooke Vetter
🐟🐠🐡
@FishSounds.bsky.social
#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
#prattle 💬
🗓️ January 30th, 12:30 ET
✅ Register here: www.braincoustics.com
Where does learning through imitation happen in the brain?
In juvenile zebra finches, we pinpoint a synaptic locus of song learning in a cortico-basal ganglia circuit and leverage this localization to measure the timescale of consolidation and make birds learn faster! #neuroskyence (1/14)
If you work on corvid ecology, behaviour, cognition, or conservation, this might be useful for you 👇
I’ve just published CORVIDATA in Scientific Data 🐦
doi.org/10.1038/s415... (1/4)
Using neural networks to analyze animal communication?
Check out this new #python package from @masonyoungblood.bsky.social, provides a full workflow; builds on approaches from @timsainburg.bsky.social @jmxpearson.bsky.social @nilomr.bsky.social & others
#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics
⏰ Reminder: Task proposals for the 2026 #BioDCASE Challenge are due Jan 8.
Submit your idea and help define the next set of challenge tasks!
🔗Learn more & submit: biodcase.github.io/challenge2026/
#bioacoustics #AIforconservation #animalcommunication
Check out this write-up on sound producing Grasshoppers in Europe, and their availability on XC www.researchgate.net/publication/... . #bioacoustics #grasshoppers #orthoptera
A figure from our preprint showing ABR data as a line plot for sounds from the left and right at different sound levels.
1/4 New preprint! We designed an open-source system for auditory brainstem response (ABR), a research & clinical auditory test. Costs $400 to build (vs $10K to buy a proprietary one) and works great! All open-source if you want to make one for your lab or classroom. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Fig. 1. Spectrograms and oscillograms of (A) two meows and (B) two purrs. Oscillograms depict sound pressure over time, and spectrograms depict frequency over time. All spectrograms were created with a 1024-point FFT, 16-bit depth, and a Hamming Window with 87.5% overlap (sampling rate: 96 kHz, frequency resolution: 94 Hz, time resolution: 1.33 ms). The two pictures on the right depict Koda, a 15-year-old male Ragdoll cat, meowing and purring (credit: Marisa Idolo).
what's in a meow?? 🐈
New from @berlinbatlab.bsky.social!
1. "we examined meows and purrs to establish how individual identity is encoded"
2. stronger individual signature in purrs than in meows
3. domestic cat meows more variable than those of wild felids
#bioacoustics
#prattle 💬
#neuroskyence
Excited to see this paper out!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
> 1,000 fish calls from 8 fish species identified including 5 whose wild calls had never been documented. The paper shows species-specific sound characteristics that offers a foundation for future species-specific detectors
🐟🔊🧪
How do you build a brain that lets mice sing? 🎤🐭
If you enjoyed @cliffscience.bsky.social's talk @braincoustics.bsky.social on this work, now you can read it in @currentbiology.bsky.social!
(w / 1st author @xmikezheng20.bsky.social, @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social group)
#prattle 💬
#neurosky
... & while you're at perhaps also support the platform & community sharing the sounds used to kickstart and train most of all that passive monitoring wizardry. Which platform? You guessed it: xeno-canto.org/donate
Thanks so much to this week‘s speakers and to everyone who joined for the discussion!
Recordings of the talks are now up on our website for those who missed them live - enjoy!
www.braincoustics.com
#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
Big week for mouse squeaks coming up! 🐁 💬
🗓️11/18: BBB seminar with @emilyjanedennis.bsky.social and Stuart Newson of the @btobirds.bsky.social
✅ braincoustics.com
🗓️11/20-21: 4th Annual Ultrasonic Vocalization Conference (free!)
✅ bit.ly/3JRVOCu
#bioacoustics #neuroskyence #prattle 💬
FYI!
#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?
Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.
🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515
Our new preprint is out! This time with a focus on prevocal spiking in the AC and how it encodes single and multi-syllabic vocalizations before they occur!
40% off sale on all my stickers because I was up until 1AM revamping my shop. discount code is PEPO ko-fi.com/ascalaphid/l...
Thanks to yesterday‘s speakers and to everyone who joined in!
Recordings of Cliff and Léo‘s fantastic talks are now up on our website, where you can also register early for next month‘s seminar (mice, part 2!)
www.braincoustics.com
Quiet and lovely nocturnal sounds with mating calls of midwife toads and tawny owls 🌙
Recording by @melissapons.bsky.social
earth.fm/recordings/m...
Ground breaking work here from my esteemed colleague @kelseytea.bsky.social !
Natural behavior + neural mechanism + genetics tell a beautiful story about the evolution of an adaptive behavior in wild mice
Read it!
#neuroskyence
Join us tomorrow for two great neuro-eco-evo talks!
Sign up here: braincoustics.com
#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
One week until this fantastic seminar with speakers @cliffscience.bsky.social and @leo-perrier.bsky.social
Register here for the link!
braincoustics.com
#bioacoustics
#neuroskyence
Two mice, Joris Hoefnagel, 1594 Hoefnagel made this drawing especially for his friend Johannes Muisenhol from Frankfurt. The image refers to his surname. The extinguished candle & eaten walnut represent the transience of life.