iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Café Autistique 3 December 2025 💜 ♾️ Autism research in a sensory friendly neuro-affirming space. We learned about the experiences of trans and non-binary autistic people as well as teachers supporting the mental health of autistic students. Thank you Autism At Manchester

Alexandra Sturrock standing on a small stage in front of the same Café Autistique projector slide. She gestures while speaking. A laptop sits on a table beside her. The room is dark with spot lighting and scattered round tables in the foreground.
“A community of academics, students, professionals, autistic people, family members, and other stakeholders.” It includes contact details: the website (autism.manchester.ac.uk), email (autism@manchester.ac.uk), and social media handles (@AutismAtMCR, @AutismManchester). A laptop is on a table beside her, with black chairs and round tables in the dim room.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Brucks, D., Krasheninnikova, A., von Bayern, A. M. P., & Bugnyar, T. (2020). Parrots voluntarily help each other to obtain food rewards. Current Biology, 30(2), 292–297.e5. doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Alt text:
Two African grey parrots sit in adjacent metal cages. One has a pile of metal rings, the other has a single walnut. Between them is a small hole in the divider. The image illustrates a study where parrots passed rings through the hole so their partners could trade them for treats.

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Scientists taught African grey parrots to swap metal rings for treats. Then they paired birds so one had ten rings and the other had none. The ring-rich parrots started passing rings through a hole so partners could “buy” walnuts — even with no reward for themselves.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

This adorable story shows how an experiment can seem to work but measure the wrong thing! A child tested if bird seeds grow birds, and birds appeared, confirming the idea. But the seeds *attracted* birds. In science that’s a threat to construct validity, and it happens to the best of scientists!

Screenshot of a tweet from user @_grimm (@ExileGrimm). It reads: “What’s the dumbest beliefs you had as a child? When I was 4–5 I swore that bird seeds grew birds, thus the name. When my parents asked me to prove it to them, I planted a pile of bird seeds. The next day there were loads of birds where I planted the seeds, showing I was right.”

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

Beauty is in the eye of the monotropic unicorn. #monotropism

Pink smiling unicorn t-shirt with real sunglasses hanging as if under its eyes, curly purple hair strands and a multi colour polka dot scarf. The unicorn is my embodied metaphor for Monotropism, the horn (attention tunnel) coming out of the prefrontal cortex and converving into a singular point of focus, which often feels ike magic.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

Hummingbird Hawk Moth in my garden this morning!

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

#glimmer my work kitchen has a beautiful bird tray and I'm so happy

Dish rack where a big white tray with colourful bird prints is sitting

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

#glimmer #glimmer Going home Without my sorrow Going home Sometime tomorrow Going home To where it’s better Than before Going home Without my burden Going home Behind the curtain Going home Without the costume That I wore (Leonard Cohen - Going Home)

Old English headstone with angel bas relief surrounded by autumnal rainy nature.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

"When autistic people are absorbed in their interests, alone or in the company of others who share them, that is when they feel autistically, magically alive" - NeuroClastic neuroclastic.com/a-productive...

Autistic person with sensory armour like headphones and golf cap standing peacefully with eyes closed and a smile against an old English brick wall. Above her head is a natural bouquet of bellflowers growing out of the wall. Used as metaphor for neurodivergent mental health and cognitive flourishing.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

A couple of days ago I returned to my previous school, Hallam University, to help staff bring the best out of their autistic students. It was a cathartic experience. My partner, Darren, helped me navigate the environment. We make a great team.

Beatrix in a modern goth Victorian outfit in front of Sheffield Hallam University.

Beatrix with sunglasses, black hat and long purple hair and her partner Darren, with sunglasses and medium light brown hair.

Beatrix presenting about monotropism through a whimsically colourful slide where the cockatoo gets the rainbow-coloired attention tunnel spotlight because it's the most interesting "actor" on stage while everyone else gets tuned out in a blur.

Beatrix presents a slide on accessibility solutions in the realm of autistic attention.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

This moment needs Instrument of Surrender by Sea Power. open.spotify.com/track/1PQW0o...

Top of bookcase with a brachiosaurus toy and some fake plants. A rectangular window-shaped light creeps through on the wall on top of the bookcase encasing a big verdant shadow of the plants.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Runner up at the TUoS School of Psychology PG Conference. Not bad. I was quite stressed in this picture, but talking about attention tunnels put me in my attention tunnel.

Beatrix in a lecture hall at the speaker station wearing sensory armour and a black galaxy shirt with the intro slide behind her saying Can I Have Your Attention: Developing an Experimental Measure of Monotropism. There's a big painted eye graphic with a pink heart in the pupil that gives birth to a rainbow beam of light in the dark. This is meant to show the interest-baded attention tunnel in Monotropism.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Monotropism @ Cafe Autistique, Manchester, 2025. Had so much fun with this one.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

Support monotropic minds by reducing sensory intensity in our environments.

4 panel comic. A school child is overwhelmed by the bell ringing, the background chatter and the scraping noises students make. His head is full of all this noise and can't focus on the math teacher's instructions. The last panel says, "it's not defiance, it's sensory overload". Below the comic says, "Some kids experience sensory overload in noisy environments. They're not ignoring you - they're overwhelmed. Calm, quiet, and understanding can help them feel safe."

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 07/06/2025

Severely sensitive autism researcher (me) explains monotropism & sensory issues while doing a magic trick. (Warning: loud parrots)

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Gave a talk about neuro-accessibility at the Sheffield Autism Festival on 17th April 2025. It was a privilege and I'm super glad people resonated. Q&A became a long and insightful brave-space.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 26/02/2025

Today I had the privilege to talk about my special interest for a whole hour to a cool audience courtesy of the national CONNECT dental researchers network.

Image depicts a first slide containing the title of the presentation: Neuroinclusion in Employment, Higher Education & Research.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Wait, I have just the response to this article

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

My tiny mushroom from Peak District 🍄. If you see this post something orange.

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Beatrix Butnicu 🦆🪻 @beatrixbird.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

My tiny mushroom from Peak District, UK

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