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Ben de Bivort

@debivort.bsky.social
2K followers 775 following 943 posts

Drosophila neurobiologist. We study insect behavior and individuality using the tools of computational neuroethology. Harvard Organismic and Evolutionary Biology (co-chair) & Center for Brain Science debivortlab.org

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Reposted by Ben de Bivort
Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 6h
As scientists we don’t often consider or lean on how our humanity gives us skin in the game, and what value that provides to the public. We can face professional consequences for cheating or getting it wrong; it’s that skin in the game that breeds trust. LLM Prof Theseus doesn’t have that.
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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 6h
The late mathematician Ronald Graham was also a skilled juggler. Fifty-five years ago, he posed a question that may have stemmed from the hobby. This year, it was finally solved. www.quantamagazine.org/mathematicia…
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 7h
🙄
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Tessa Montague @tessamontague.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I'm excited to share our new preprint: Generation of a transgenic cephalopod tinyurl.com/pc86jxz8 Cephalopods (cuttlefish, octopus & squid) are crazy critters that dynamically camouflage to their surroundings by changing the color, pattern, & texture of their skin, which they control w their brain.
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Ammon Perkes @alltheperkes.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🐟🚨 Fish paper alert! 🚨🐟 You might already know that individuals are unique, even when they’re genetically identical clones raised in identical environments. But what about groups? Groups of clones are distinct from birth, but (unlike individuals) those differences do not predict later behavior!
authors.elsevier.com
Group-level phenotypes are idiosyncratic yet unpredictable over development in a clonal fish
Behavioral differences among groups can have profound impacts on individual fitness,1 yet how group-level phenotypes arise and change during developme…
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Venki Murthy @neurovenki.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Signal boost to our tenure track faculty search in "AI in Life Sciences". Broadly construed, so PLEASE apply!!
mcb.harvard.edu
Tenure-Track Professor in Life Science and AI - Harvard University - Department of Molecular & Cellular Biology
The Life Sciences Departments in Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences seek to recruit a tenure-track professor whose research is at the interface of AI and life sciences, […]
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Félicie Dhellemmes @felicie-dhellemmes.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Proud to present our latest work "Tracking human foragers and their prey reveals adaptive predator-prey dynamics", now hosted on BioRxiv! 🧵 doi.org/10.64898/202... @ralfkurvers.bsky.social @scioi.bsky.social @arc-mpib.bsky.social @alexschakowski.bsky.social @dominikdeffner.bsky.social
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Kate Laskowski @katelaskowski.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Okay this is just wildly cool - they tracked human ice-fishers *and* the fish they're hunting. Even though humans can't see the fish *at all* the humans are still surprising good at zero-ing on their prey. Probably the most complete picture of predator AND prey movement together. 🤯🎣
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Pookleblinky @pookleblinky.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Reminder that in Canada upon becoming an engineer you get an iron ring made of a collapsed bridge, purposely designed to be uncomfortable, to remind you that your ethics demand you give a fuck even about the boring grudgework of such as double-checking your math. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring
en.wikipedia.org
Iron Ring - Wikipedia
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Brittney Elizabeth Stoneburg @brittandbone.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I've worked for a natural history museum for 11 years at this point (man, yikes) and while it is sad, it isn't surprising to see two major institutions facing closure this year.
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Portugues Lab @portugueslab.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
The Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at Cornell University is hiring! Come and do cutting edge research on the neural basis of natural behaviors at NBB (nbb.cornell.edu). No animal too small, no behavior too strange! Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/32592
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
We are hoping that word of this search goes far and that we draw a wide and diverse pool of applicants. Please take a look and share if you're inclined. 5 departments involved! • Organismic & Evol Bio • Mol & Cell Bio • Stem Cells & Regen Bio • Earth & Planetary Sci • Human Evolutionary Bio
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Ann Clemens @annmclemens.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
if you're in Edinburgh and looking for research experience 👩‍🔬 🧑‍🔬 we're offering opportunities to join our work on **the sticky sense** in humans and rodents with potential for field research 🫎 🔭 get in touch 💻 📫 📞 @sidb-edinburgh.bsky.social @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social @edinunineuro.bsky.social
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hello friends, the Harvard Life Science departments have banded together to hire a new colleague working at the intersection of Life Sciences and AI. Could be primarily an experimentalist, or could be primarily a compute/theorist. academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/16773
academicpositions.harvard.edu
Tenure-Track Professor in Life Science and AI
The Life Sciences Departments in Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences seek to recruit a tenure-track professor whose research is at the interface of AI and life sciences, from methodological developme...
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BeijingPalmer @beijingpalmer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
bit weird given the play is written in early modern English but I'd pay to hear Ēalā Rōmēo, Rōmēo, for hwȳ eart þū Rōmēo? Wiðsace þīnum fæder and forsac þīnne naman; oþþe, gif þū nelt, swere mē þæt þū mīn lēofa sīe, and ne bēo iċ nā lenġ Capulēting.
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hello friends, the Harvard Life Science departments have banded together to hire a new colleague working at the intersection of Life Sciences and AI. Could be primarily an experimentalist, or could be primarily a compute/theorist. academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/16773
academicpositions.harvard.edu
Tenure-Track Professor in Life Science and AI
The Life Sciences Departments in Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences seek to recruit a tenure-track professor whose research is at the interface of AI and life sciences, from methodological developme...
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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Preprint time! This is a cool one. Complex systems, be they neural nets, interacting genes, or power grids, can produce diverse dynamics-- things like point attractors, limit cycles, and chaos. The dynamic landscape you get depends on how elements interact. But those interactions can also change!
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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 22/09/2026
NEW PAPER: In a new paper, jointly published in @agu.org Earth's Future & @ametsoc.org BAMS, and co-led by Melissa Kenney, @costasamaras.com and me, 175 authors outline priorities to guide the future of scientific assessments of climate change in the United States. 🧵
doi.org
Research Priorities for Robust Climate Assessments in the United States
A network of climate assessments plays a critical role in synthesizing the state of science to support evidence-based decision-making To support future U.S. and sub-national climate assessments, ...
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Kirsten Sheehy @ksheehy.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
📣 New paper! 📣 ❓Do clonal fish and their sexually reproducing heterospecifics differ in parasite load? 🤒 We found that clonal Amazon mollies were more likely to be infected than Sailfin mollies, but parasite loads were largely the same. 🤔 Could behavior have something to do with this pattern? 1/3
doi.org
Differences in Parasite Infection Status and Behavior Between a Clonal Fish and Her Sexually Reproducing Heterospecifics
We found that Amazons and Sailfins differed in their qualitative, but not quantitative, resistance to parasites. Amazons had worse qualitative resistance (i.e., were more likely to be infected with a...
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Chris Schnaitmann @cschnaitmann.eurosky.social · 20/09/2026
Exciting PhD and Postdoc positions at Straw Lab, UniFreiburg to study mushroom body function and how honey bees navigate: combine insect VR, reinforcement learning, and two-photon imaging! #Neuroscience #PhD #Postdoc
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Davi Bock @dddavi.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This stuff may be fun, but sorry to say, it is thin soup, scientifically. See: www.thetransmitter.org/systems-neur... for a readable description of the issue.
thetransmitter.org
‘Digital sphinx’ raises questions about connectome models
The sphinx, with a worm’s brain and a fly’s body, illustrates the potential pitfalls of using deep-learning techniques to model biological processes.
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Sven Dorkenwald @sdorkenw.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Applications are now open for the San Juan Winter School 2027 on Connectomics and Brain Simulation! Join us to learn how to analyze and simulate connectomes. sjcabs.com
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Elisabetta Versace @elisabettaversace.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Enhancing dance learning by optimising instructional perspective: A preregistered study on the effect of dancers’ viewing perspective, cognitive load and expertise" journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... : our new study on dance larning and cognitive load, supported by www.wemovetogether.uk 1/n
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Alex Schier @schierlab.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The first Danionella paper from the lab. Danionella cerebrum is transparent, so you can see all of the internal organs. But what sensory information are the organs sending to the brain? In our new preprint, Emily Bayer wanted to find out. 1/4 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
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Sweta Agrawal @hokuba.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The Agrawal lab has published its first paper! "Sticking the landing: leg mechanosensory feedback coordinates the transition from flight to landing" www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... This project was led by a technician in the lab, Tse-Wei (Wayne) Kuo. Brief 🧵on what we found
agrawal-lab-workspace.slack.com
Slack
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ACLU @aclu.org · 16/09/2026
BREAKING: We're suing Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the National Institutes of Health Director for their ideologically-driven termination and censorship of biomedical research grants. Targeting views the government disagrees with for not aligning with a political agenda is unconstitutional.
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
SLR people — how do you set the focus of a lens to optical infinity at night for astro shots? I wish the focus rings would stop at inf.
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Corinna Gebehart @corinnagebehart.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This article is so frustrating to read. First, this is not just “google’s brain” - there has been so much effort made by scientists around the world to get these connectomes to where they are today, and none of that is recognized here, instead it’s all turned into “big tech company 👍🏻”. And second -
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flymuscles @flymuscles.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I am very happy to share our new preprint on #Drosophila muscles. @tiaramuld.bsky.social discovered flies have a tremendous ability to remodel their muscles after massive damage. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Evidence of complete myofibril remodeling after severe damage in adult Drosophila.
Muscle function depends on the ability of myofibrils to withstand and repair mechanical damage, yet how adult muscles remodel damaged myofibrils remains poorly understood. Here, we establish a Drosoph...
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Patrick Mineault @patrickmineault.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Are virtual flies playing Beat Saber? SM64? Doom? No. The new fly connectome is an incredible achievement! Less is going on in the sim videos than it seems. I'm stoked to see people engage with neuroscience though. My breakdown: www.neuroai.science/p/are-flies-...
neuroai.science
Are flies playing Beat Saber?
What a time to be alive!
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Drug Monkey @drugmonkey.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
You know who else is evolving into the presence of families generationally called to sacrifice in the service of our national interests? Scientists.
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Anita Devineni @anitadevineni.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
My department (Biology at Emory) is hiring for a teaching track position! These are stable, well-respected, long-term positions with a path to promotion and ppl often staying for decades. The dept is wonderfully supportive and filled with amazing humans (faculty + staff) apply.interfolio.com/191814
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Andres Bendesky @bendeskylab.com · 11/09/2026
We have a tenure-track faculty position in Evolutionary Biology in Columbia's E3B Department. Application deadline is October 15. Come be our colleague. Please RT! apply.interfolio.com/193016
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
"Attempted murder" is a thing. "Conspiracy to commit a crime" is a thing. We have a confession that people are building something that may destroy humanity. Whether you believe that or not, you could just round those people up. I don't think we need new liability laws for that.
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Riddha Manna @riddhamanna.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
elifesciences.org/articles/112...
elifesciences.org
Environmental Learning: How experience shapes individuality
Behavioural diversity across fruit flies changes with individual learning, even when genetic, past and momentary environmental factors are held constant.
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 11/09/2026
CO2 is an important cue used by #mosquitoes when searching for a human blood meal. @darbly.bsky.social @megyounger.bsky.social &co show that the wiring of #neurons that sense CO2 differs from that in #Drosophila, allowing robust detection of this key host cue @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4cFCPpV
Feedforward connectivity of maxillary palp glomeruli. Top left: Schematic with feedforward OSN-to-PN connections highlighted. Top right: Dendrograms (flattened 2D representations of the 3D dendritic arbor preserving distance information) of uPNs and their incoming feedforward synapses from OSNs. * denotes branch leading to soma, and arrow denotes branch leading to the inner antennocerebral tract (iACT). (top) uPN cable length, glomerular volume, and cable density. Scale bar 100 µm. Bottom left: Coronal view of uPN reconstructions. Scale bar 25 µm. Bottom right: Axograms (flattened 2D representations of the 3D axonal arbor preserving distance information) of representative OSNs with their feedforward synapses to uPNs shown as colored dots. Scale bar 25 µm.
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Caroline Bartman @cbartman.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Excited to share the first published paper from my lab! Postdoc Helen Jordan led this study on 1) how metabolites change differently in inflammation in tissues versus in cells in a dish and 2) the role of one of the most-increased metabolites, soluble sialic acid www.jbc.org/article/S002...
jbc.org
Metabolomics of in vivo inflammation identifies soluble sialic acid as a conserved myeloid-cell metabolite
During an immune response, metabolism changes dramatically. Metabolites are oxidized to power immune cell functions, serve as building blocks for proliferation, and act as effectors to regulate pathog...
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 11/09/2026
This is the founder of Silk Road – which enabled international drugs trafficking on an industrial scale, among other things – speaking at President Trump's midterm convention (after getting a pardon from him), because lol nothing matters.
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Vikram Chandra @vchandra.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I am excited to announce that I will start the Brain Origins Lab at the Crick in March 2027! Using acoels as a model system, the lab will study how animal brains evolve, and how innovations in brain organisation enable new computational abilities and the evolution of complex behaviour.
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Hey CsChrimson users — are you having difficulty purchasing ATR?
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john-pool.bsky.social @john-pool.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Bet you didn't have "John Pool starts youtube channel" on your 2026 bingo card! Emphasis on native landscaping / sustainability, & evolution/genetics for a general audience. If you watch, please let it play through (else youtube thinks it's bad). Feel free to share! www.youtube.com/channel/UCj8...
youtube.com
Life On Earth
In "Life On Earth", Professor John Pool delves into topics ranging from the natural world to life in general. He shares his iconic Wisconsin prairie style home, his native landscaping efforts, and hi...
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Ashley Juavinett, PhD @ashleyjuavinett.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
If there are any PhD hopefuls on here, I wanted to share a few thoughts on your timeline for the upcoming admissions cycle, with apps due starting mid-November. What should you be doing right now? ✔️ Generating a list of schools ✔️ Reaching out to possible recommenders 🧵!
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Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 06/09/2026
Presidents are hired & evaluated by their boards, who predominantly prioritize fundraising & avoiding challenging the powerful—not teaching, research or service. To change the presidents’ behaviors, you need to change the boards. Which among other things means you need strong faculty unions.
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Ben de Bivort @debivort.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Outlook webmail experience: • can't get rid of UI prompts to use AI • can't reliably download attachments
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Computational Cosmetologist @dferrer.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Every single Claude Code session on one machine for the last few weeks had developed a strange obsession with mentioning the bathroom in code comments (“this is the lock on the bathroom door for the model”) and naming things “privy” or “privi”. Thought I was going insane. Kept happening.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
fun part if you ask me: higher ed institutions in secular democracies are the closest approximation of a 'marketplace of ideas' as you are likely to find this side of a global revolution and a lot of people who claim to like that idea do not seem to love its results
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Andrew Straw @andrewstraw.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
We are hiring! Come join us in the Straw Lab at the @biologyunifreiburg.bsky.social . Seeking a scientist to work on the neural and computational mechanisms of visual navigation in honey bees. uni-freiburg.de/en/job/00005...
Bee trajectories in agricultural landscape and two photon microscope for in-vivo calcium activity imaging.
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jacob galapagos @jacobgalapagos.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
It’s think for yourself thursday
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