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Dr Lia Betti

@liabetti.bsky.social
852 followers 372 following 65 posts

Lecturer in Quantitative Anthropology at UCL. Research interests in human diversity, health inequalities, bioarchaeology, and the evolution of the pelvis and childbirth.

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Reposted by Dr Lia Betti
Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 20h
She wrote all that code by hand and it landed on the moon. Such an iconic photo. Here’s to Margaret Hamilton (1936–2026). What an incredible and pioneering woman for science. An inspiration to us all. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Margaret Hamilton, whose software helped land Apollo 11 on the moon, dies at 90
Pioneering computer scientist led the development of the software for Nasa's Apollo mission and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Come and join our team at UCL Anthropology! Part-time (80%) fixed-term teaching post in Environmental Anthropology, December 2026-March 2028. Deadline 7 October!
ucl.ac.uk
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
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Reposted by Dr Lia Betti
Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Sign the thank-you letter to RNLI for rescuing people at sea. act.38degrees.org.uk/act/rnli-tha...
act.38degrees.org.uk
An open letter in support of the volunteers and staff at the RNLI
This is a disgrace. Brave RNLI volunteers being called scum for risking their lives to save others at sea is just plain wrong. So I've signed an open letter of thanks for the RNLI letting them know th...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
'The need to outsource services following redundancy programmes may be increasing universities’ costs rather than lowering them, as well as impacting staff productivity, a report warns.'
timeshighereducation.com
Restructuring ‘too often adding cost rather than removing it’
Universities are ‘underestimating’ the challenges caused by outsourcing services amid major professional services staff redundancies, report warns
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Leonie V. Hicks @lvhicks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Yesterday @artefactual.eurosky.social asked 'Who were the Normans?' particularly with regard to the norsemen myths taught in primary school. So here's a thread to address this question. First off 'Norman' = North man, i.e. man from the North 1/
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Caroleeena @caroleeena.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
The order to stop teaching about human-caused climate change came at a Sept 2025 meeting of the geography program. Faculty were told to “remove all mention of human causes of climate change from their courses.” & warned if they went to press or politicians, the entire dept would likely be dissolved.
joemygod.com
Lawsuit: West Point Professor Was Forced Out For Objecting To Order To Stop Teaching Climate Change - Joe.My.God.
Gothamist reports: A former tenured professor at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point says the school ordered faculty to stop teaching about anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change, then pus...
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
'Allegations that Cofnas was not qualified for his research role and would cause a “negative impact” by promoting racial pseudoscience were made to university leaders months before Arday died, the Guardian understands.' 1/2
theguardian.com
Ghent professors challenged expertise of Jason Arday’s plagiarism accuser
Allegations Nathan Cofnas was unqualified for Ghent role and would cause ‘negative impact’ made to senior leaders months ago
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Prof. Rhiannon Stevens @nannonstevens.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Cuts to NERC isotope funding to disproportionately affect archaeological science. Rather than spread the load across all subject, archaeological science will no longer be supported. This is terrible for our research community and is short-sighted. www.isotopesuk.org/announcement...
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HUMAN ORIGINS - Cluster of Excellence @humanorigins.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Yet ANOTHER great opportunity at our cluster HUMAN ORIGINS: ❗️ We‘re looking for a Independent Junior Research Group Leader in the field of hominin postcranial evolution ❗️ Apply here till October 15th: uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit... #Paleosky
uni-tuebingen.de
Independent Junior Research Group Leader (m/f/d, E14 TV-L, 100%)
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HUMAN ORIGINS - Cluster of Excellence @humanorigins.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
New opportunity: fully funded PhD position within the Cluster of Excellence HUMAN ORIGINS Investigate experimentally the evolutionary significance of transformative Stone Age techniques in this project on cognitive demands, and explore the probability of their success. Deadline: 15 September 2026.
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HUMAN ORIGINS - Cluster of Excellence @humanorigins.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
‼️ Fantastic new opportunity within our Cluster HUMAN ORIGINS ‼️ Full Professorship Early Prehistory at the Department of Geosciences of the University of Tübingen! Deadline for applications: 2nd October 2026. More info: uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...
uni-tuebingen.de
W3-Professorship in Early Prehistory
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
"We cannot expect future workers to critically assess AI-generated content without first acquiring knowledge and skills of their own" "the teaching of context-specific and very likely short-lived AI-related skills would shift the cost of corporate training on to students and public institutions."
timeshighereducation.com
Reshaping universities to suit the untested AI economy is wrong
Rush to integrate artificial intelligence indiscriminately across the curriculum ignores the true purpose of higher education, say Jelena Belic and Kritika Maheshwari
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Janet @janetsouthcoast.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Surely the bigger question is how an academic with such race questioning views had a position of trust/airtime. How did it feel for colleagues, students from minority backgrounds, or was it fear of OFS Freedom of Speech protocols that gave him licence? And this bsky.app/profile/byli...
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Jonathan A. Michaels @jonathanamichaels.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
These days I like to think of my models as “cartoons”. Realistic enough to capture the core patterns we’re interested in, but simple enough to be meaningfully understood.
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Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 04/08/2026
Sepia-toned photo of a tree-lined street with a Victorian statue and lamppost, overlaid with a teal location-pin icon and the text: 'WALKING TOURS. Follow in the footsteps of history's greatest humanists and freethinkers. Humanist Heritage
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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I recall we had a period of time where the response of Starmer and Cooper to concerns about these groups was ‘I like flags’
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Charles Mullon @charlesmullon.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Looking for an Associate Prof position? Interested in behavioural ecology & cultural evolution? Come join us at the Dpt of Ecology and Evolution in Lausanne🇨🇭 @dee-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social! Great department & great place to live. Pls RP. Apply here: wwwfbm.unil.ch/releve/appli...
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
@paleonicole.bsky.social and I have written a short piece on why a tight fit at birth is not unique to humans. Some other primates have it much worse, but seem to have adapted to their obstetrical dilemma in different ways.
theconversation.com
Why some primates have even tougher births than humans
Tamarins and squirrel monkeys have babies with unspeakably large heads compared to their mother’s birth canal.
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drphilcox.bsky.social @drphilcox.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Just two weeks left to apply for this exciting position in the @ucl-c4ia.bsky.social
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Paddy Tkaczynski @paddytkaczynski.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
🚨🐵 Paid primate work: We are seeking a new camp and research coordinator for the Born To Be Wild Project; Tazekka National Park, Morocco: Details here (sadly due to funding constraints only available for EU, and potentially UK applicants at a push): groups.google.com/a/g-groups.w...
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Amélie Beaudet @ameliebeaudet.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
🚨 PhD opportunity 🚨 Join @palevoprim.bsky.social as part of the #ReVol project (@cnrs.fr & Wits Joint PhD Programme)! Spend 3 years investigating the southern African fossil cercopithecoids to reconstruct past ecology and behavior through skeletal morphology and dental microwear.
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Chase Brownstein @chasedbrownstein.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
1/12 🚨🚨 I am so excited to share chapter 1 of my dissertation, now preprinted here: biorxiv.org/content/10.6... We ask if are their fundamental, shared mechanisms that stop us from inferring the relationship of species and their timescale of divergence #biology #science
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Catherine Clarke @cathamclarke.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
In the queue for #BayeuxTapestry tix? How about some light reading? theconversation.com/the-bayeux-t...
theconversation.com
The Bayeux Tapestry tells only the winner’s story – but the other side can be found in old English texts
The story of the losers is full of meaningful silences and William of Normandy’s terror.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Hard to measure it, of course, but after watching several videos of births in primates I would say they also find it painful. We hope to look into birth behaviour soon
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Reposted by Dr Lia Betti
EFP2026 @efp2026.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
For today's plenary at #EFP2026, we're really pleased to welcome Christine Webb from New York University! She'll present her work on how the myth of human exceptionalism shapes animal science.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Having created this thread quickly in my hotel room before now hurrying to present this research at the @efp2026.bsky.social I can see the figures are a mess, but hey! Hopefully they'll look better in the presentation this morning! 😅
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
This study took many years, several grants (and grant rejections) and a LOT of processing of pelvic scans. Most of it achieved by @paleonicole.bsky.social! But it was proper team work, and what a team! I wish more of us were on Bluesky, but check out the paper for the full list (8/8)
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
The pubic bones fuse in adulthood in many primates, but in some species with high CPP females keep and open pelvis throughout life, so that the bones can expand during birth. We showed this in a paper last year onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/... (7/8)
The pelvis girdle in a female bushbaby, showing a wide open gap at the pubis.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
In some species, though, CPP is so high that the fetal head is larger than the canal even in face presentation. This only occurs in small monkeys and bushbabies. Other adaptations need to be in place (6/8)
A diagram showing cephalopelvic fit in American monkeys, lemurs and lorises, showing some species with impossible fits.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
We found that other primates also have a fairly round birth canal, instead of Schultz's erroneously log one, and that face presentation (occiput in humans) reduces CPP in app species and is likely an adaptation for birth in species with a tight fit (5/8)
A redrawing of Schultz's original diagram using our new measures of cephalopelvic fit, with the baby in vault-first and face-first presentation
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
We used species-specific pelvic morphology to redefine the obstetric space in the pelvic canal and re-estimate cephalopelvic proportions (CPP). We did so using both Schultz' original fetal position (vault-first) and the face-first position that has been observed in many primate birth (4/8)
Two drawings showing neonatal engagement in a sinciput positions (vault first) or face position
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
BUT...Schultz used human standard measurements of the birth canal that do not actually work in other species (blue lines). Our pelvis changed a lot with bipedal locomotion. The sacrum forms the back wall of the canal in humans, but only partially so in other apes and monkeys (3/8)
A diagram showing Schultz's original measure of the antero-posterior diameter of the birth canal in blue, and a more realistic obstetric diameter in orange
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Our idea that humans have an unusually hard time at birth partly stem from Schultz's work in the 1940s, when he compared cephalopelvic proportions (head-pelvis fit) in humans and some apes and monkeys. We stood out! We had a rounder a smaller canal that other apes (2/8)
An open oval representing the maternal birth canal containing a filled oval representing the fetal head, visualising cephalopelvic fit in humans and other apes
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Very, very happy that our paper is finally out! We look at how tight a fit primates experience at birth, and found really cool results. It has been a long journey from collecting the first data seven years ago! A brief thread (1/8) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Comparative primate analysis shows that humans are not unique in having a tight cephalopelvic fit at birth - Nature Ecology & Evolution
Analysing cephalopelvic proportions among 29 extant primate species, the authors show that a tight cephalopelvic fit is not unique to humans, with comparable or tighter fits occurring in several non-h...
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UCL Centre for Integrative Anatomy @ucl-c4ia.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
We're hiring. We’re excited to be recruiting for a Lecturer / Associate Professor in Primate or Human Evolutionary Anatomy to join the Centre for Integrative Anatomy at UCL. 📅Closing date: 20 July 2026 Apply here: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRZ412/l...
jobs.ac.uk
Lecturer / Associate Professor in Primate or Human Evolutionary Anatomy at UCL
Apply for the Lecturer / Associate Professor in Primate or Human Evolutionary Anatomy role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.
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Humanists UK @humanists.uk · 24/06/2026
Follow the podcast and join our Chief Executive @andrewcopson.bsky.social and humanist historian @madeleineog.bsky.social – along with expert guests – as they uncover the hidden stories behind the people, movements, and ideas that influenced humanism, secularism, and British society.
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Tom Phillips @tom-phillips.com · 19/06/2026
In accordance with ancient tradition, our next Prime Minister is announced to the nation while standing between a furry and a man with a bin on his head.
A victorious Andy Burnham MP (24,937 votes), as the result of the Makerfield by-election is announced, flanked by defeated candidates Count Binface (a bloke in a vaguely sci-fi costume with a large bin for a helmet; 95 votes) and Robert Pownall (who is in a full body fox costume, holding a sign reading "Protect British Wildlife"; 18 votes). There are some other candidates there just out of shot but that's not important right now.

Photo: Jon Super/AP
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Torsten Günther @trstngnthr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
I am recruiting a PhD student (fully funded, 4yrs) to analyze modern 🧬 and ancient 🦴 genomic data from humans and domestic animals 🐑 Please share, I am happy to chat at #ICP2026 or #SMBE2026 this summer www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...
uu.se
PhD student position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University
PhD student position in Population Genomics , Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
ourworldindata.org/where-do-mig...
ourworldindata.org
Where do migrants live, and where were they born?
An interactive tool that helps us see where migrants were born, and where they live now.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
I love Our World in Data! I've been playing around with immigration data in UK, France and Italy. Three different pictures. In Italy immigration has more than quadrupled since 1990 (when it was very small) and now looks more similar to France and UK, while emigration has slightly decreased.
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MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
An excellent postdoc opportunity at @cenieh.bsky.social🏺🧪
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
"In the past ten or fifteen years even cash-strapped universities seem to have found the resources to build shiny new monuments to ancillary services while cutting back on the defining activities of teaching and research."
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Great postdoc opportunity for folk into morphology, biomechanics and human/primate evolution: pliodis.github.io/opportunitie...
pliodis.github.io
PDRA Opportunity: Modelling the functional adaptations of the primate masticatory apparatus at VUB
2-year renewable Post-doctoral Fellowship at Archaeology, Environmental Changes & Geo-Chemistry Research Group, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium to study the functional adaptations of the prima...
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Prof Christina Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
🧵A Covid thread - but a good news one! I’m barely writing about Covid anymore because there is barely any Covid to write about. I thought it was worth celebrating this in this thread. 1/7
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Shakespeare and Company @shakespeareandcompany.com · 04/06/2026
"My book came out, and they were talking about this false naive style of drawing. There was nothing false about the naivety of my style. I couldn't draw better. This is it." What a star Marjane was...
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Alexandre Klein @alexandreklein.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
(Call for applications) Lecturer in Global History of Science histoiresante.blogspot.com/2026/05/post... #histSTM
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
This is basically harassment of scholars willing to question the Trump administration’s targeting of Chinese colleagues. Innes already had the FBI investigate his lab and was given the all clear. Now USDA is shutting down the Lab, which focuses on making fungus-resistant plants.
IU plant microbiologist Roger Innes says the move Thursday evening is the latest instance of retaliation for a letter he wrote last fall on behalf of Yunqing Jian, a plant scientist postdoc at the University of Michigan who had pled guilty to smuggling biological material and making false statements. The letter to Jian's attorney, intended to be used at her sentencing, argued that what the Chinese postdoc had transported was not dangerous, but she was still ultimately deported.
Her conviction triggered an investigation of Youhuang Xiang, a Chinese postdoc in Innes' lab, that led to Xiang also pleading guilty last month to smuggling loops of DNA known as plasmids. He was also deported.
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Except the dataset was made up with identical responses for the two countries. Scary stuff!
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Dr Sam Leggett @samleggs22.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Interested in people who lived through the Norman Conquest? We have a new pre-print out about the aDNA of a rural community in Surrey who did just that! With more bioarch to come on this amazing site: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... @liabetti.bsky.social @cegamorim.bsky.social & others not on 🦋
biorxiv.org
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Dr Lia Betti @liabetti.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Windsor Great Park is stunning at this time of the year
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