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Steven Phelps

@evolbrain.bsky.social
1.4K followers 755 following 123 posts

Biology of intimacy: Evolutionary, neural & genomic studies of sexuality & social bonds (in weird rodents, mostly). Write a bit on biology & culture. First-gen. 🏳️‍🌈 Austin, TX. phelpslab.net

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Reposted by Steven Phelps
Bryan Behar @bryanbehar.bsky.social · 17h
Is there anything more MAGA than the smug arrogance of someone who’s dead wrong but doesn’t realize it yet?
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Philip Bump @pbump.com · 21/09/2026
ICE shot a DoorDash delivery guy.
statesman.com
Attorney: Austin man shot by ICE agent was making DoorDash delivery
A Venezuelan man shot by an ICE agent in Austin was making a DoorDash delivery, his attorney said. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, 28, was later released from the hospital into ICE custody.
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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
If Trump wanted to crown himself emperor in the national cathedral alito and thomas would support it
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Make a band edible: The Rolling Scones
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Neuroendocrinology and Behavior lab at UCLA @alwardlab-ucla.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I’m looking to hire a postdoc to join our lab at UCLA! We study the genes, hormones, and cells that regulate social behavior in the African cichlid Astatotilapia burtoni (in a separate post we’re looking for a PhD student) @sbn-bsky.bsky.social 1/3
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Quentin Bacquelé @quentinbacquele.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
1/ The world's songbirds sing in just 8 basic sounds. And where a bird lives decides which ones it uses. My first PhD paper is out now in @science.org (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aee6239) Here is what we found:
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Science friends! This fall I'm teaching a class on "Scientists as Writers" and looking for model papers. What is a scientific paper you love for the quality of its writing? Maybe something you have used as a model in your own work? What do you love about it?
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Science friends! This fall I'm teaching a class on "Scientists as Writers" and looking for model papers. What is a scientific paper you love for the quality of its writing? Maybe something you have used as a model in your own work? What do you love about it?
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Mark Harris @markharris.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
45 years ago today. Buried on page 20 on a holiday Friday just like this one, news that changed the world. www.nytimes.com/1981/07/03/u...
nytimes.com
RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS (Published 1981)
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
In case you missed this 2024 story: Scientists are building FROG SAUNAS, and it's letting one species of endangered frogs rid themselves of a deadly fungal pathogen. Also, they appear to just, like, enjoy it. Frog sauna. Or 'frauna'. Or, alternatively, 'hopspital'.
theguardian.com
‘Frog saunas’ could save species from deadly fungal disease, study finds
Australian scientists create brick refuges in greenhouses to help green and golden bell frogs survive infection
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Arkarup Banerjee @arkarupbanerjee.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
How did singing mouse evolve its song? Two research manuscripts published today shed light on peripheral and central circuit modifications underlying this novel vocal capacity.
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Distinct brain regions map olfactory and visual spaces (and hippocampus integrates them) www.cell.com/neuron/abstr...
cell.com
Distinct brain regions map olfactory and visual spaces
The neural circuitry underlying multisensory integration for navigation and spatial memory is poorly understood. Here, Davoudi et al. discover modality-specific maps in different divisions of the ento...
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Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 31/03/2026
I hope all those people who said the US had done no planning for war in Iran will now apologise. www.ft.com/content/744e...
ft.com
Pete Hegseth’s broker looked to buy defence fund before Iran attack
Morgan Stanley wealth manager approached BlackRock about multimillion-dollar investment for US defence secretary
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Liam U. Taylor @liamtaylor.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Now with pages @systbiol.bsky.social ! "Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds" with @pseudacris.bsky.social and Rick Prum Some comparative support for the hypothesis that the evolution of complex social contexts restructure life histories doi.org/10.1093/sysb...
doi.org
Social Environment and the Evolution of Delayed Reproduction in Birds
Abstract. One puzzling feature of avian life histories is that individuals in many different lineages delay reproduction for several years after they finis
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
ORIGINAL SIN reviewed in Science (@science.org)! "... an ambitious, compact, and often moving contribution to the literature at the intersection of genetics and ethics."
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Rebecca Watson @skepchick.org · 03/03/2026
I saved this to watch whenever I got a little overwhelmed today. I made it to 10am. I may need to watch it several times www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AVY...
youtube.com
De La Soul: Tiny Desk Concert
YouTube video by NPR Music
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 07/02/2026
Best television shows to abandon after 1 season? I'll start: 1. Westworld 2. Your Honor 3. Hightown
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Alfons López Tena @alfonslopeztena.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
El miedo de los científicos en USA ha llevado a 'maquillar' proyectos para sobrevivir a la censura y los conflictos ideológicos. Investigadores extranjeros temen perder el estatus legal, no poder regresar al país tras estancias de campo, y deportaciones www.elperiodico.com/es/sociedad/...
elperiodico.com
Dos paleontólogos de prestigio de EEUU ya trabajan en Catalunya: 'Con Trump, estudiar la evolución humana se ha vuelto tabú'
Los investigadores, anteriormente afincados en Nueva York, son los primeros en incorporarse al ecosistema científico catalán gracias a las becas ICREA y al programa de captación Catalunya Talent Bridg...
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
The warmongering & global destabilization - NATO, Greenland, Panama, Ukraine - aims to precipitate the suspension of law. Vance, Musk, Thiel et al see the advantages of an authoritarian regime as exemplified by China & think they can do it better. They imagine we'll be better for it. Trump agrees.
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
The secret to happiness.
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Brian Goldstone @brian-goldstone.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Tonight was the final broadcast of PBS News Weekend due to federal cuts. Appearing on the show in November was a highlight of my year. The team was incredible to work with, and I was deeply grateful they covered this issue with the care it deserves. Public media at its best. Very sad to see it go.
pbs.org
Millions of full-time workers are struggling to afford a place to live. Here’s why
The skyrocketing cost of living has left millions of people struggling to afford a place to live despite working at full-time jobs or a number of part-time jobs. Journalist Brian Goldstone, author of ...
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Moudhy Al-Rashid (she/her) @moudhy.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
“Do not bend your neck for that which cuts necks.” A Sumerian proverb, as relevant today as it was thousands of years ago.
Photo of a fragment of a clay tablet shaped a bit like a diamond. Although it is only a fragment, the cuneiform text on it is well-preserved. There is a vertical line down the centre which indicates it once had at least two columns. The colour is reddish brown
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Kathryn Paige Harden @kph3k.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
I wrote about Nucleus Genomics' "Have your best baby" ad campaign and Kris Jenner's "best version of myself" facelift, the parallels between embryo selection and cosmetic surgery, and competing definitions of "eugenics" kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com/p/have-your-...
kathrynpaigeharden.substack.com
"Have Your Best Baby"
Four parallels between cosmetic surgery and polygenic embryo selection, two competing definitions of "eugenics," and one short excerpt from my forthcoming book
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Joseph M. Adelman @jmadelman.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Magic Johnson was the grand marshal of the Rose Parade today, and as someone who remembers his November 1991 HIV announcement: if you had told anybody that day that he would be alive and healthy 34+ years later, I don't think they would have believed you. Medicine and research—they work.
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Drew Harwell @drewharwell.com · 31/12/2025
New: We got an internal ICE document revealing its $100 million ad plan to bring in 14,000 new hires: deals with "tactical" influencers; ads to gun & military buffs; and geo-targeting phones around NASCAR races and gun shows. A "wartime recruitment" mode with paramilitary branding: wapo.st/44QrP5j
wapo.st
ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires
An internal ICE document shared among immigration officials details plans to use influencers and geo-targeted ads to rapidly hire thousands of deportation officers.
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Earth Species Project (ESP) @earthspecies.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
🐦‍⬛ New paper in Animal Cognition covering our carrion crow project with partners at @Univeristy of Leon. 52 mini-biologgers were deployed on wild carrion crows in Spain — capturing 127K+ vocalizations. 🔗: www.earthspecies.org/blog/unlocki... (1/4)
earthspecies.org
Unlocking Avian Secrets: How Tiny Biologgers Are Revealing the Hidden Communication of Carrion Crows - Earth Species Project
Lightweight biologgers and ESP's machine learning tools reveal the hidden vocal world of wild carrion crows, capturing over 127,000 calls from quiet murmurs to long-distance signals.
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Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
I cannot tell you how angry I am right now. I can tell you that I tried to turn that anger into some constructive use. A Pox on Fools is intended to give the rest of us ammunition with which to counter the tsunami of bullshit that is MAHA. www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/808113...
penguinrandomhouse.com
A Pox on Fools by Thomas Levenson: 9798217155002 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
An urgent and profound history of vaccine skepticism, seeking to understand how our three most common fears about vaccines hardened into a lethal ideology—from a leading science writer Since the...
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🗽LOLGOP🗽 @lolgop.bsky.social · 21/12/2025
The faction of the GOP that pretends to like Jews to send them to hell is at war with the faction that wants to skip the "pretends to like" part.
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Ehud @duhe.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
I sat on this draft for three months and sent it out to my coauthors yesterday who for some reason still haven't returned it.
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Waldo Jaquith @waldo.net · 08/12/2025
We're half a decade into studies finding that improving airflow in classrooms will reduce disease transmission enormously, and that bleaching surfaces etc. does very little. And yet nothing changes. Waves of flu and colds wash over schools, and the schools pretend it's an act of God.
nature.com
The relative contribution of close-proximity contacts, shared classroom exposure and indoor air quality to respiratory virus transmission in schools - Nature Communications
The relative importance of close-proximity interactions, shared space and air quality to the transmission of respiratory viruses is not well understood. Here, the authors investigate this question by ...
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Ben Fletcher-Watson @bfletcherwatson.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
"Years and years ago, there was a production of The Tempest, out of doors, at an Oxford college on a lawn, which was the stage, and the lawn went back towards the lake in the grounds of the college, and the play began in natural light. But as it developed, and as it became time for Ariel to say his farewell to the world of The Tempest, the evening had started to close in and there was some artificial lighting coming on. And as Ariel uttered his last speech, he turned and he ran across the grass, and he got to the edge of the lake and he just kept running across the top of the water — the producer having thoughtfully provided a kind of walkway an inch beneath the water. And you could see and you could hear the plish, plash as he ran away from you across the top of the lake, until the gloom enveloped him and he disappeared from your view.
And as he did so, from the further shore, a firework rocket was ignited, and it went whoosh into the air, and high up there it burst into lots of sparks, and all the sparks went out, and he had gone.

"When you look up the stage directions, it says, 'Exit Ariel.”
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Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Advances in genomics are giving exciting new perspectives on biology of speech, language & reading. My latest peer-reviewed paper is a tutorial, guiding readers from different backgrounds through the history of the field, current state-of-the-art, & where we’re heading. A taster in this thread.🧪 1/n
pubs.asha.org
Genomic Investigations of Spoken and Written Language Abilities: A Guide to Advances in Approaches, Technologies, and Discovery
Purpose: The aim of this tutorial is to show how the rise of molecular technologies and analytical methods in human genetics yields exciting new ...
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Julian Catchen @jcatchen.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
I am recruiting graduate students to my genomics-focused lab in EEB at Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Please spread the word if you know any students with an interest in a computational focus to genomics research! evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldi...
evol.mcmaster.ca
https://evol.mcmaster.ca/brian/evoldir/GradStudentPositions//UIllinois.EEB.Genomics
The Catchen Lab (https://catchenlab.life.illinois.edu/), in the Department of Evolution, Ecology, and Behavior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is recruiting graduate students to join...
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 17/11/2025
Brunel's press release about our (@hggaddy.bsky.social @anthrolog.bsky.social) recent publication, showing that high levels of polygyny don't necessarily lock men out of the marriage market www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-eve...
brunel.ac.uk
Data questions myths about multiple wife marriages, men and violence
A new study analyzing 84 million census records reveals that polygyny does not increase the number of unmarried men. In many societies where polygyny is common, men are actually more likely to be marr...
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Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
I will be pinch hitting for Adi Nair at this awesome social neuro minisymposium today. Come say hi! #sfn2025
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Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
“Someone with a 1-hr car commute needs to earn 40% more to be as happy as someone with a short walk to work. On the other hand, if someone shifts from a long commute to a walk, their happiness increases as much as if they’d fallen in love.” #CityMakingMath 50 reasons to want more walkable cities.
fastcompany.com
50 Reasons Why Everyone Should Want More Walkable Streets
From making you live longer to making cities more resilient: If you want a reason to make your city more walkable, it's in here.
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Heritability found? Time to update my lectures on heritability, GWAS & polygenic scores. Anyone have good recommendations on an up to date overview of missing h2? www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Estimation and mapping of the missing heritability of human phenotypes - Nature
WGS data were used from 347,630 individuals with European ancestry in the UK Biobank to obtain high-precision estimates of coding and non-coding rare variant heritability for 34 co...
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Stopped by the always amazing @texasbookfest.bsky.social and ran into @michaelerard.bsky.social, whose new book I've been dying read.
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Clare Fieseler, PhD @fieseler.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
PLEASE AMPLIFY 🔈 I hear that some staffers at Interior Department and NOAA are being called back to the office from furlough for "administration priorities." I'm on Signal if this includes you or you have more information: @clare.14
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Goodbye plural data. I know your new life is singular - I just need some time to grieve.
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Goodbye plural data. I know your new life is singular - I just need some time to grieve.
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David W Lawson @davidwlawson.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
New paper out today with Zhian Chen. We argue that modern intensive parenting is not only exhausting for parents, but in some cases disrupts healthy child development. What is 'overparenting'? And can evolutionary theory help us understand how we got here? academic.oup.com/emph/advance...
academic.oup.com
When parental care hurts: Extended parental care and the evolution of overparenting
Abstract. In recent years, childrearing in high-income countries has become described as ‘relentless’ in its demands on parents. In response to growing del
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Kelsey Tyssowski @kelseytea.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵
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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Tried to sneak a photo of a cute doggo and accidentally had long exposure on and I believe I have created man’s greatest expression of art
A white poodle leans out an suv with neon light streaks flashing across the surface of the car
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
EXTREMELY COOL BAT STUFF: A study out in Science today found that the greater noctule bat, Europe's largest, hunts and catches *migrating birds* while in flight. In at least one case, a bat climbed to more than 1200 feet, then chased a robin downward FAST until it caught it near the ground.
science.org
Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight
Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...
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Pontus Skoglund @pontus-skoglund.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
PhD-opening in our ancient genomics lab this year, apply below! We work on: 📜 Genetic history integrated with archaeology and history 📈 Natural selection and trait genetics 🐺 Evolutionary genomics of dogs and wolves 🦠 Ancient pathogen genomics 💀 Hominin evolution and ancient proteomics
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Steven Phelps @evolbrain.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
The secret to happiness.
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Richard Sever @richardsever.bsky.social · 18/09/2025
bioRxiv partners with Dryad to enable easier, better linking to curated datasets connect.biorxiv.org/news/2025/09...
connect.biorxiv.org
Dryad partnership brings easier data sharing to bioRxiv
bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution
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Tom Baden @neurofishh.bsky.social · 12/09/2025
Very excited about our new preprint, led by @gkafetzis.bsky.social /w @mikebok.bsky.social & @denilsson.bsky.social. We suggest that the vertebrate 'duplex' retina emerged from interconnecting two ancient median-eye microcircuits. Say goodbye to the 'simplex' retina - it probably never existed!
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Adam Parkhomenko @adamparkhomenko.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
Holy shit…You can’t make this up: a plane is circling Soldier Field before the Bears home opener with a banner that reads— “HEY ICE, MASKS ARE FOR CUCKS.” Also the trolling is incredible for those that told us to stop wearing masks during the pandemic.
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