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Stuart K Watson

@chimpsahoi

Postdoc at University of Zurich. Working on fuzzy insights into fluffy minds. He/him

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19.09.2023
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Latest posts by Stuart K Watson @chimpsahoi

Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution Postdoc position -- Social Learning and Cultural Evolution posted on March 2, 2026 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual...

πŸš€ Postdoc Alert! Are you passionate about social learning & cultural evolution? @dominikdeffner.bsky.social & I have a 3-year position with freedom to develop your research and work on cutting-edge multiplayer and immersive experiments. Apply by March 30! hmc-lab.com/SocialLearni... Pls share πŸ™

02.03.2026 10:45 πŸ‘ 59 πŸ” 62 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3
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About the Program (Standard)|Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan|Postdoctoral Fellowships for Research in Japan Official Website of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

From Apr 1, 2026, I’ll launch my own lab at Tohoku University as an Assistant Professor!
I’m happy to host applicants for the JSPS International Postdoc Fellowships.
If you’re interested in mathematical models of human history, feel free to DM me!

02.03.2026 06:01 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 3 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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🦎 Funded 4-year PhD position on Lizard Evolutionary Ecology in our lab at UCLouvain (Belgium)! Apply before 9 March! jobs.uclouvain.be/Personnelsci...

03.02.2026 13:50 πŸ‘ 28 πŸ” 46 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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Clicking the "no response" option caused my brain to hard crash into system reboot, do not recommend

26.02.2026 18:18 πŸ‘ 3 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Humbled by Evolution Understanding the history and diversity of life inspires awe and wonder.

1. I’m quite happy with this popular piece that Lee Dugatkin and I wrote recently. For the next two weeks it’s free to read on the American Scientist website.

17.02.2026 19:25 πŸ‘ 195 πŸ” 75 πŸ’¬ 5 πŸ“Œ 6
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We’re hiring a Field Project Manager with the Moyen Bafing Chimpanzee Project!

Help run a growing wild chimpanzee research & conservation project in West Africa 🐡

Apply by 24 Feb (open until filled). More info via QR code in the image. Note: Right to work in the EU required. #job #conservation

28.01.2026 08:59 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 5
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If anyone is wondering what to get me for christmas, I would mostly enjoy...4 citations. Nudge me over my 2020 peak! I'm so close to feeling alive again.

19.12.2025 11:09 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 0
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International Master of Bioacoustics Home page of the International Master of Bioacoustics

Admissions to the International Master of Bioacoustics for the 26-27 academic year are now open. Please spread the word!
More info here πŸ‘‡ www.masterofbioacoustics.com?lang=fr

#bioacoustics

19.12.2025 06:56 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 7 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
https://nodglobal.com/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bee-part-1/

https://nodglobal.com/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bee-part-1/

1/12 Consciousness and attention in honeybees

This study provides evidence of consciousness-like states in bees, revealing strong and fascinating parallels with vertebrate awareness. I will try to explain it in a few "tweets".

(paper) www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
by @catherinemacri.bsky.social

17.12.2025 19:24 πŸ‘ 43 πŸ” 18 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 1
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Herding as an emergent behaviour in harem groups of feral Garrano ponies: doi.org/10.1098/rsif... #JRSocInterface #bioinformatics

19.12.2025 10:00 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0

Congratulations Dr Nielsen! We didn't even get a hat at St Andrews. Waste of time.

18.12.2025 16:50 πŸ‘ 1 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
Screenshot of a paper entry:
Fictional Failures and Real-World Lessons: Ethical Speculation Through Design Fiction on Emotional Support Conversational AI
Authors: Faye Kollig, Jessica Pater, Fayika Farhat Nova, Casey Fiesler
(There are tabs with "abstract" and "summary" and "summary" is selected.)

Screenshot of a paper entry: Fictional Failures and Real-World Lessons: Ethical Speculation Through Design Fiction on Emotional Support Conversational AI Authors: Faye Kollig, Jessica Pater, Fayika Farhat Nova, Casey Fiesler (There are tabs with "abstract" and "summary" and "summary" is selected.)

The ACM Digital Library, where a LOT of computing-related research is published (I'd say at least 75% of my own publications), is now not only providing (without consent of the authors and without opt-in by readers) AI-generated summaries of papers, but they appear as the *default* over abstracts.

16.12.2025 23:31 πŸ‘ 646 πŸ” 335 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 90
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Iain Douglas-Hamilton, pioneering elephant conservationist, dies aged 83 His groundbreaking field research was instrumental in banning the international ivory trade and protecting elephants from poachers.

Iain Douglas-Hamilton was a champion for elephants 🐘 & one of the inspirations for my own research. He was among the 1st to study ele social behaviour & it was his life's work to protect them

Sending my condolences to all the friends & family during this sad time

www.bbc.com/news/article...

11.12.2025 09:38 πŸ‘ 7 πŸ” 5 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
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Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social.
We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures.

All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit...
Please share / apply!πŸ™

13.11.2025 08:33 πŸ‘ 61 πŸ” 84 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 2
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Registration Registrations for the conference and the pre-conference workshop are now OPEN! Register for the conference (26-27/02):Β Culture Conference 2026 – Registration form Register for the workshop (2…

Registrations are now open πŸ“’ Want to join the conference and/or the workshop? Head to our website: culture-conference.com/registration/

As every year, attendance at the conference is free πŸŽ‰ (the workshop has a small fee).

Reminder: Abstract submission closes soonβ€”submit yours before Monday!

10.12.2025 08:07 πŸ‘ 8 πŸ” 11 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0
screenshot of my post

screenshot of my post

Big new blogpost!

My guide to data visualization, which includes a very long table of contents, tons of charts, and more.

--> Why data visualization matters and how to make charts more effective, clear, transparent, and sometimes, beautiful.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/salonis-gu...

09.12.2025 20:28 πŸ‘ 799 πŸ” 316 πŸ’¬ 22 πŸ“Œ 50
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AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.

I finally got around to reading this. You should read it too.

"We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learningβ€”the slow work of wrestling with ideas, the enduring of discomfort, doubt and confusion, the struggle of finding one’s own voice."

www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

04.12.2025 13:52 πŸ‘ 640 πŸ” 225 πŸ’¬ 10 πŸ“Œ 43

β€œWhen participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning.

Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engagedβ€”a kind of metacognitive mirage.”πŸ§ͺ

04.12.2025 14:12 πŸ‘ 1680 πŸ” 902 πŸ’¬ 30 πŸ“Œ 83
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Abstract Submission The call for abstracts for Culture Conference 2026 is NOW OPEN! We call for submissions of abstracts of no more than 250 words, summarising the background, aims, methods and results of your work.&n…

The Culture Conference is (once again) indulging in that grand old tradition of EXTENDING the submission deadline‼️

The new deadline for abstract submissions is December 15th.

Registration will open very soonβ€”stay tuned!

culture-conference.com/abstract-sub...

05.12.2025 08:03 πŸ‘ 5 πŸ” 4 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1

Feel good movie of the year

04.12.2025 16:00 πŸ‘ 71 πŸ” 14 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0

Be nice if you could put like "Hi reviewers, we could go with Figure format A or B here. What do you reckon is best?" into your manuscript but noooo I have to be brave

03.12.2025 16:15 πŸ‘ 9 πŸ” 0 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. 
CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber

Jolie, an adult female chimpanzee of the Ngogo community in Kibale National Park, Uganda, with sleeping infant son, Zawinul. CREDIT: Kevin Langergraber

After the Ngogo chimpanzee group killed 21 members of neighboring groups and expanded their territory by 22%, female birth rates more than doubled and infant survival increased sharplyβ€”showing clear fitness benefits from intergroup killing. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/TKmf50XuPjY

22.11.2025 00:00 πŸ‘ 39 πŸ” 29 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 1
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Sequence organization of mother–infant interactions in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the wild | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Sequence organization is a fundamental feature of human communication, shaping our interactions. This organization underlies interactions with and without language, appears early in human development ...

New Paper out in Proceedings of the Royal Society B! πŸŽ‰ Sequence organization of mother–infant interactions in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) in the wild. See the thread below for a quick explanation, and check out the paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

26.11.2025 13:13 πŸ‘ 17 πŸ” 6 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Harmony in the hive? Think again! πŸβš”οΈ

Insect societies are famous for cooperation, but beneath the surface lies a brutal conflict over who gets to wear the crown!

Our new review in Biological Reviews explores the evolutionary battleground caused by such caste fate conflict. 🧡

24.11.2025 13:08 πŸ‘ 52 πŸ” 23 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials - Nature Human Behaviour Howard-Spink et al. develop an empirically based model of orangutan diet development, which suggests that social learning is vital for orangutans to acquire varied diets.

Our New Paper is out in Nature Human Behaviour: 🚨 Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials! 🦧 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... See 🧡

24.11.2025 11:05 πŸ‘ 81 πŸ” 31 πŸ’¬ 3 πŸ“Œ 9

Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.

Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq

21.11.2025 11:48 πŸ‘ 3287 πŸ” 1252 πŸ’¬ 79 πŸ“Œ 382

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 πŸ™„πŸ³πŸ¦‘πŸ§ͺ

12.11.2025 16:55 πŸ‘ 40 πŸ” 10 πŸ’¬ 2 πŸ“Œ 3

Nice piece from @hollyasmith.bsky.social on this from @thecowbirdlab.bsky.social et al. in @natecoevo.nature.com

🐦 Did learned vocal signals evolve from innate?
🐦 Authors study this in 21 avian hosts of brood parasites

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

#prattle πŸ’¬
#bioacoustics

1/2

15.10.2025 13:19 πŸ‘ 19 πŸ” 8 πŸ’¬ 1 πŸ“Œ 0
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The Elder Apes of Bwindi How Post-Reproductive Female Gorillas Redefine Life, Death, and Social Balance in the Forest

Female mountain gorillas in Bwindi live for years after their last birth, reshaping group life and stability. A study finds they may hold the evolutionary key to post-reproductive survival. #Primatology #BehavioralEcology #Gorillas #Evolution www.primatology.net/p/the-elder-...

14.10.2025 16:33 πŸ‘ 2 πŸ” 2 πŸ’¬ 0 πŸ“Œ 0