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Joan Silk

@jbsilk.bsky.social
1.5K followers 166 following 341 posts

Evolutionary anthropologist, primate behavioral ecologist.

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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
In case you need two reasons to vote in November: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/u...
nytimes.com
Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution Will Be Public and Streamed Live, Pentagon Says
If carried out, the public execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad set for Dec. 3 would be the first in modern U.S. history.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
In case you needed a reason to vote in November: www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagaz...
sciencemagazinedigital.org
Science Magazine - ‘Complete devastation’: How NSF gutted its social sciences directorate
The National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) awarded far fewer new awards than typical in fiscal year
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
If it's half as good as your stats class, it will be great.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
It takes a remarkable sustained effort to produce these kinds of data. Long-term observational studies of long-lived animals, like great apes, yield invaluable insights.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Interesting experimental evidence of tradeoffs between task difficulty, rank, and vigilance in vervet monkeys www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Henrich's report is compelling reading.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
I am so sad to hear this news. Nick was an admirable scholar and an incredibly kind person.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Why can't we all be more like raccoons?
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Yes, but is there anything cuter?
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
also doubtful about the value of the education.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
My bet, it's mostly about signaling and only weakly correlated with actual differences in ability/potential.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Academic inequity: "US tenure-track faculty hiring is dominated by a small minority of US universities that train a large majority of all faculty and sit atop steep hierarchies of prestige." www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Quantifying hierarchy and dynamics in US faculty hiring and retention - Nature
An analysis of the academic employment and doctoral education of faculty members at all PhD-granting US universities from 2011 to 2020 shows that a small minority of universities (20.4%) supply a...
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
#GreatAdaptations So, not only cats have nine lives
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
But not cultural anthropology?
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Science and art happily co-exist www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Dolly Parton dies aged 80 — researchers celebrate her contributions to science
The country singer was an advocate for vaccines, public health, literacy and marginalized communities.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
My daughter's favorite was Emmy Lou Harris' Diamond are a girls best friend and was oblivious to the message.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Social sciences are included in the list of fields that will be supported. Details about application process and review criteria here: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
nsf.gov
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Social scientists don't miss the last paragraph in this piece: we are being driven to extinction www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
We somehow expect students to learn how to write scientific papers by osmosis. But we can help students by steering them to useful papers like this one.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
People don't get enough credit for doing the right thing, so this is quite welcome news.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
What a tragedy.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Well, favs only sum up to 70. The rest must like rum and raisin
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Domestication has its discontents
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
True or False tests in nature: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/s...
nytimes.com
For Real, a Natural History of Misinformation
It’s not just humans who suffer from leading one another astray. So do fish, flies and even bacteria.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
And, Eduardo Fernandez-Duque and colleagues have shown that owl monkeys are also more active on nights when there is more moonlight.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I have a completely different take. This is exactly how we should be using technology --- to enhance our ability to do hard and useful things like recognizing individual monkeys, folding proteins, and solving difficult computational problems.
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Reposted by Joan Silk
Barbara J. King @bjking.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Oh no- save all the primates from AI?! #primates #primatology #Anthropology #animalcognition #AI
nytimes.com
In This Costa Rican Forest, Monkeys Come Face-to-Face With A.I.
CapuchinAI, a portable testing station equipped with a touch screen and facial recognition software, could help scientists study primate intelligence in the wild.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Congratulations on this new position and opportunity to do a lot of good things for ape conservation.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Yours or the sharks'?
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Now I see the thread. Nothing comes immediately to mind, but I'll ponder.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
I saw my name --- and curious about what 'this' refers to
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Sigh. Would like to know how this compared with journals that have adopted double blind reviewing practices.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Thanks for reminding me. Perhaps I will reconsider.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Richard Feynman said: "If you can't explain something to a child, you don't really understand it." And, this is the key to all good scientific writing.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I am deeply tempted.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Heritable variation in the lifetime fitness of female baboons; it's an amazing feat to document LRS in a long-lived animal like baboons, and even more amazing to estimate genetic heritability.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Coverage of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center reminds me of where we've been and where we can hope to return Presidents Line Up for Obama’s Long-Awaited Center in Chicago www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/u...
nytimes.com
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
okay, you are probably right. But still...
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Ok, maybe environmental sex determination is interesting. But what about those markings---the pink polka dots and pink nose are really quite lovely.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Is it ironic that this policy is being imposed by an administration that does not seem to understand the concept of conflict of interest?
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
#GreatAdaptations When life gives you lemons, make lemonade www.nytimes.com/2026/06/06/s...
nytimes.com
Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Work on ontogeny and context of peering in capuchin monkeys by Susan Perry (2020) also emphasizes its role in social learning.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Nice to know that all of those focal observations that I have asked/encouraged/pressured my colleagues and research assistants to do over the years were worthwhile.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Gender gap in authorship in high impact journals persists.
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Reposted by Joan Silk
Michael D. Green, PhD @michaeldgreen.phd · 28/05/2026
President of MIT not mincing words today in @statnews.com www.statnews.com/2026/05/27/s...
So let me say it as clearly as I can: Without basic scientific research, supported by the kind of farsighted public investment that allows large-scale, undirected, curiosity-driven inquiry, the scientific pipeline will run dry.
In daily life, people may not feel the effects right away, or even in 10 years. But we will feel it. And when someone we love needs therapies that could have emerged but didn't or when other countries now
investing in science can launch new science-based industries or run their societies on vast resources of fusion energy or reap the benefits of quantum computing power or advanced medical breakthroughs, America will wish it sustained its leadership in scientific research here and now.
Sally Kornbluth is the president of MIT.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Not even 2 minutes. This is the most useful thing that you will do today.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Follow the links to donate to a fund to help widows and children of slain rangers.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
HiveMind: I am teaching a graduate proposal writing seminar, and would appreciate suggestions for syllabi, readings, etc about how to write a good research proposal.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
We are well beyond rational choices.
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Joan Silk @jbsilk.bsky.social · 13/05/2026
#GreatAdaptations. Two points for ingenuity, no points for neighborliness. Building Nests Is Hard. That’s Why Some Birds Steal. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/s...
nytimes.com
Building Nests Is Hard. That’s Why Some Birds Steal.
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