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michael chimento

@mchimento.bsky.social
1.4K followers 433 following 129 posts

postdoc at Uni Zurich studying social learning, social networks and animal culture in birds 🐦 and agent-based models 🤖 michaelchimento.github.io soundcloud.com/tek_cashay

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Reposted by michael chimento
Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 13h
Why care about weird animal behaviors? Just out as an advanced publication, my contribution to the next Frans de Waal special issue in Behaviour @degruyterbrill.bsky.social. Unusual behaviors are a recurring theme in my career, and I much enjoyed writing this perspective! doi.org/10.1163/1568...
doi.org
The science of the unusual: how rare observations reveal the diversity of animal behaviour
Abstract Behavioural biology often focuses on identifying general patterns, yet unusual or rare behaviours at both the population and individual level can provide insight into animal behaviour. Here, ...
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
first good news i've seen in a minute. now do universities pls
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Ralf Kurvers @ralfkurvers.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Proud of the whole team, esp of @alexschakowski.bsky.social for putting together this review: Toward a psychology of real-life decision-making. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... @mpib-berlin.bsky.social @scioi.bsky.social @arc-mpib.bsky.social
sciencedirect.com
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The Dissenter @thedissenteryt.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
New episode (1289), with Dr. Wataru Toyokawa (@watarutoyokawa.bsky.social). We talk about social learning, collective decision-making, and the wisdom/madness of crowds. #CognitiveScience #Science YouTube: youtu.be/e6IhPGl0BBw Podcast: bit.ly/3RDehXr
youtu.be
#1289 Wataru Toyokawa: Social Learning, Collective Decision-Making, and the Wisdom/Madness of Crowds
YouTube video by The Dissenter
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
more p5 sketches i should have put online ages ago: this is an interactive viz of the nbda+ewa model with @bjjbarrett.bsky.social Anne Kandler and @lucymaplin.bsky.social. michaelchimento.github.io/p5_githubpag...
michaelchimento.github.io
EWA-NBDA
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Gustavo Alarcón-Nieto @galarconnieto.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Oilbird movement strategies and differences in flight effort. Happy to share the first publication on the oilbird project: link.springer.com/article/10.1... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @kamransafi.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social
link.springer.com
Oilbirds performing non-seasonal intra-tropical migrations reduce flight effort compared to individuals that frequently return to the colony roost - Movement Ecology
Individual behavioural variation is a driver of population dynamics and key for the adaptation and persistence of species. In colonial species, individuals share the same ecological niche and aggregat...
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
nearly 5 years later, i've finally gotten around to cleaning up the p5.js version of this sim and putting an interactive version online for scicomm reasons. increase trails for a trippier educational experience. michaelchimento.github.io/p5_githubpag...
michaelchimento.github.io
Cultural diffusion simulator
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Alex South @amsouth.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
It's great to see The Biology of Music - Interdisciplinary Insights edited by @andrearavignani.bsky.social out in the wild! I have a co-authored chapter in there on #animalmusicking, with @emilydoolittle.bsky.social and Pralle Kriengwatana. academic.oup.com/book/63102.
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Rob Calver @robcalver.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
I am giving away a free copy of the #BayesianWorkflow book by @statmodeling.bsky.social, @avehtari.bsky.social, @rmcelreath.bsky.social et al!! Please like, repost, and follow to enter. I will randomly draw the winner next Weds July 8. 😀 routledge.com/9780367490140 #RStats #DataScience #Bayesian
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Sholto David @sholtodavid.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
This is a ridiculous paper in the category of "computational bestiary" but Fig. 1 is wonderful: fcampelo.github.io/EC-Bestiary/
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Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
📣 I'm hiring! Two positions (PhD student & Postdoc) in my ERC project Macroevolution of European Literature. Let's study the cultural evolution of literature using massive data 📚📈 📍Frankfurt | Apply by August 15 Details: www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo... Please repost to help spread the word!
Job announcement of two positions at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics in Frankfurt: postdoc (Macroevolution of European Literature) and PhD student (Computational Literary Studies). Successful candidates will be affiliated with the research group Cultural Evolution of the Arts.
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Brendan Barrett @bjjbarrett.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
excited about this one: using longitudinal movement data and dyadic models, we show that orangutan moms adjust their ranging patterns so their kids can play with age-mates independent of kinship, at personal costs. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Mothers with similarly aged offspring share more space, and their offspring play more.
Posterior effect sizes from social relations models (SRMs) of (a, b) infant-infant play scans (n = 996
infant-dyad-years across 79 mother dyads) and (c) mother-mother home-range overlap (Bhattacharyya coefficient; n
= 282 mother-dyad years across 71 mother dyads). Panel (a) shows the hurdle component (probability of play
occurrence), sign-flipped so positive values indicate higher probability of play occurrence; panel (b) shows the count
component (play frequency). Points and thick and thin lines show posterior medians with 66% and 89% credible
intervals, respectively. (d) Counterfactual home-range overlap for each dyad when offspring are the same age versus
6 years apart. Points show posterior medians across all mother-mother dyads (one horizontal bar per dyad);
background densities show population-level predictions. (e) Offspring age-difference effect on home-range overlap
versus intersection area. (f) Posterior difference between the two effects (BC overlap minus intersection area).
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
enough changes have accumulated that I've decided to make a new release of STbayes 🥳 Bunch of improvements, and I've dumped quite a few hours into implementing a relatively painless leave-future-out cross validation (LFO-CV) procedure for model comparison (michaelchimento.github.io/STbayes/news...)
michaelchimento.github.io
Changelog
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Looking forward to giving an online workshop this coming Thursday on using STbayes to model social transmission. I'll be walking through simulating data, fitting, interpreting and comparing models. Big up to the ESLR for organizing this series!
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Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Both @nilomr.bsky.social & @andreaestandia.bsky.social have a superb eye for design of data visualisation coupled with cutting-edge bioinformatic, ML & Bayesian statistical analysis - have a look at their new company website sedum.studio
sedum.studio
Sedum Studio | Data Science, Visualization & ML Consulting
Data science, machine learning, and interactive visualization studio. Oxford-based researchers turn complex data into compelling insight. Remote & worldwide.
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
my favorite bit of criticism from grant reviews this year, "applicant weakness: development impacted by PhD supervisor". is there someone who hasn't been? what's the alternative meant to be? "applicant mercifully unmolested by previous supervisory attempts"
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Charley Wu @thecharleywu.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
At #CES2026 @mchimento.bsky.social presenting exciting new methods for modeling the visual field of birds to study cultural diffusion in naturalistic settings
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Rob Salguero-Gómez @robsalgo.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Hiring 3 postdocs in ecological resilience @biology.ox.ac.uk for my @erc.europa.eu CoG ResIntegrate project. Deadline May 29th. Details below. Pls share @salgoteam.bsky.social @evoldir.bsky.social @britishecologicalsociety.org @ecologicalsociety.bsky.social @ecolsocaus.bsky.social
jobs.ac.uk
Postdoctoral Research Associate in Ecology at University of Oxford
An academic position as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Ecology is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.
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PLOS Biology @plosbiology.org · 01/05/2026
What is the role of social learning in adopting novel food? Study of urban #cockatoos by @julia-penndorf.bsky.social @clevercockierp.bsky.social &co shows that they rapidly adopt novel food via #SocialLearning, with juveniles showing conformist preferences @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/4uq6NVq
A sulphur-crested cockatoo foraging on a novel food item (coloured shelled almond). Image credit: Julia Penndorf
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Wataru Toyokawa @watarutoyokawa.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Phil Trans Roy Soc B theme issue ‘The evolution of collective intelligence’ is out! royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...
royalsocietypublishing.org
Volume 381 Issue 1948 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | The Royal Society
Influential themed journal issues across the life sciences.
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
this could be partially addressed by solving of the perennial absurdities of academia: the blatant double dipping by publishers. they get paid to publish content, and again by institutions to access that content. if this model were broken, it would free up funds for other costs, indirect & otherwise
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
for my followers who hold EU citizenship (and a conscience) to consider signing. "Democratic" isn't really the first adjective that comes to mind when I think of the EU, but this is one of the few democratic levers that we can pull to effect change. eci.ec.europa.eu/055/public/#...
eci.ec.europa.eu
European Citizens' Initiative
Give your support !
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Whenever someone says "there are no civilians in [country]," they are making an argument for genocide.
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Alex Chan @alexhhchan.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
New preprint alert!! Accepted to CVPR 2026, we present the CHIRP dataset, a task-diverse computer vision dataset on Siberian jays. arxiv.org/abs/2603.25524 @cbehav.bsky.social
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🍁 Alex Smith 🍁 @alexsmithants.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
🧪 Under CoPilot settings -> Privacy -> Disable Allow #GitHub to collect and use my Inputs, Outputs, and associated context to train and improve AI models Disable.
screen grab from GitHub reading, "Allow GitHub to use my data for AI model training
Allow GitHub to collect and use my Inputs, Outputs, and associated context to train and improve AI models. Read more in the Privacy Statement."
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Danai Papageorgiou @danaipapageorgiou.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Workshop on Animal Social Evolution! July 13th-15th, Heraklion (Greece) We are inviting early-career researchers from Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean to a hands-on, three-day workshop dedicated to methods and tools in social behaviour and evolution marinapapa.github.io/TRASEworksho...
marinapapa.github.io
TRASE Workshop 2026
July 13th-15th, Heraklion (Greece)
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
The same technological pinpoint accuracy that was used to slaughter children in Gaza now being used to slaughter children in Iran.
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Culture Conference @cultconf.bsky.social · 02/03/2026
What a pre-conference workshop on Bayesian statistical methods—a powerful toolkit for our community! 📊 Many thanks to Daniel Redhead and Ramona Roller for guiding us through STRAND and to Michael Chimento for the introduction to STbayes. And thank you to all participants for their energy! 🙌
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Five iPads @tomorrowarchive.com · 22/02/2026
due to a frustration at a lack of what could be described as a "bodybuilding forum for information science professionals" i decided to make a discord. then everyone clowned on me and told me to make an oldschool bbs. so i did. presenting scope and content: scopeandcontent.com/forum/ join + share!
scopeandcontent.com
Scope and Content - Index page
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Matthew Silk @mattjsilk.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
Just over a week left to apply for this PhD project (unfortunately UK students only). If you're interested then please get in touch!
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
soundcloud.com/tek_cashay/c... deep cutz for a lazy saturday
soundcloud.com
cats LOVE this mix | jazzy house and breaks
jazzy house and breaks track ids: JB Riddim - Bakey Amazon Adventure - Azymuth Steeze Flex - Breaka Rezin - Sultan and the greek Stifle - Pearson Sound Good life - Kaori Juno Cafe - Footshooter Lazy
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Alexander Schakowski @alexschakowski.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Very happy to see our ice-fishing paper on the cover of @science.org this week! 🎣🎉 We tracked large groups of Finnish competitive ice-fishers to study how social foragers use social information when searching for resources. 🐟 Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... (contact me for open access)
science.org
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Culture Conference @cultconf.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Want to gain hands-on experience using STBayes? Join our pre-conference workshop on 25/02, led by @mchimento.bsky.social 🤩
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Methods in Ecology and Evolution @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social · 29/01/2026
New blog post!!🚨 Michael Chimento gives an overview of the new R package STbayes, designed for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission 🌍 🧪 Read the blog here 👇
buff.ly
Studying social transmission using STbayes
Post provided by Michael Chimento. When studying animal culture, it’s important to establish whether novel behaviours or information have spread through social contact, or are rather innovated or p…
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Elena Miu @elenamiu.bsky.social · 22/01/2026
"The relationship between childhood exploration and population-level innovation in cultural evolution" with @ndersen.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @felixthehauskat.bsky.social out in Proc B royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org
The relationship between childhood exploration and population-level innovation in cultural evolution
Abstract. The societal effects of children’s learning in cultural evolution have been underexplored. Here, we investigate using agent-based models how a pr
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Culture Conference @cultconf.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
Want to socialise ahead of the conference? Join the Early Career Researchers drinks on the evening of 25th/02! 🍻 An excellent opportunity to meet fellow researchers in a relaxed way. Contact us to join. Reminder: conference and workshop registration is still open (forms on our website) 🔎
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Alizée Vernouillet @vernouilleta.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
There is still some time to submit for our Special Collection on social cognition and anthropogenic environments! We are looking forward to hear from you! link.springer.com/collections/... Please do get in touch if you have any questions. #openaccess #socialcognition
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Culture Conference @cultconf.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
Happy New Year from the Culture Conference organisers 🎉 We wish you a year filled with kindness, curiosity, and fruitful research. We still have a few spots available for presentations. Feel free to send us your abstract if you’d like to share your work with us in February!
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Methods in Ecology and Evolution @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
📖Published! STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission This framework can be used to infer complex transmission rules🖥️ 🧪 Read more:
buff.ly
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Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · 02/01/2026
Happy new year! I wanted to share my new Python package called chatter that streamlines the process of applying AI/ML models to animal communication 🦜🦇🐋🐵👨‍🌾 masonyoungblood.github.io/chatter/
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
🎉🍾 very excited to see this out before 2025 ends doi.org/10.1111/2041... with Will Hoppitt in @methodsinecoevol.bsky.social. This paper is an overview of our new R package STbayes, a user-friendly toolkit for performing Bayesian NBDA analyses. @cbehav.bsky.social @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social
doi.org
STbayes: An R package for creating, fitting and understanding Bayesian models of social transmission
A critical consequence of joining social groups is the possibility of social transmission of information related to novel behaviours or resources. Network-based diffusion analysis (NBDA) has emerg...
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Andrea Estandía @andreaestandia.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
Great to see this one published in Molecular Ecology 🐦 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... with @sheldonbirds.bsky.social @nilomr.bsky.social @jon-slate.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
The Genetic Consequences of Dispersal and Immigration in a Wild Great Tit Population
Understanding how dispersal impacts the genetic makeup of populations is essential for predicting their responses to environmental change. Gene flow—via within-population dispersal and external immig...
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Edwin Dalmaijer @dalmaijer.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Quick post on @jonaspotthoff.bsky.social new paper! We found people looked more at novel foods at an experimental buffet, including insects that they find gross! People suppress disgust avoidance when making foraging decisions. Blog: www.dalmaijer.org/2025/12/fora... Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.fo...
A three by four grid of example stimuli found in the experimental buffet. The first column shows edible insects: meal worms, crickets, and buffalo worms. The second column shows novel savoury snacks for participants in the UK and Austria: Haldiram's Mullu Murukku, roasted broad beans, and Wah-Yuen fried dough. The third column shows common savoury snacks for the same participants: tortilla chips, crisps, and peanuts. The last column shows visually matched non-foods: Lego, wooden buttons, and wooden clothes pegs.Figure with four panels. In each panel, the x-axis depicts the four types of stimuli: insect snacks, novel snacks, familiar snacks, and non-food. The top two panels show total dwell time across the experiment and average fixation duration. Overall, participants looked at the insects and novel snacks more than at the familiar snacks and non-food. The bottom panels show disgust and desire-to-eat ratings. Insects are scored as much higher on disgust and much lower on desire to eat compared to novel and familiar foods (both of which are rated low on disgust and relatively high on desire to eat).
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Royal Society Publishing @royalsocietypublishing.org · 11/12/2025
This new issue of #PhilTransB expands the field of cultural #evolution and shows why it matters for today’s biggest challenges. It highlights research funded by the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social's Transformation Fund, which focused on #DEI: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...
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Lisa Messeri @lmesseri.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
if you need more frameworks for fighting this good fight, @mjcrockett.bsky.social and I have you covered: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Artificial intelligence and illusions of understanding in scientific research - Nature
The proliferation of artificial intelligence tools in scientific research risks creating illusions of understanding, where scientists believe they understand more about the world than they actual...
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Culture Conference @cultconf.bsky.social · 10/12/2025
Registrations are now open 📢 Want to join the conference and/or the workshop? Head to our website: culture-conference.com/registration/ As every year, attendance at the conference is free 🎉 (the workshop has a small fee). Reminder: Abstract submission closes soon—submit yours before Monday!
culture-conference.com
Registration
Registrations for the conference and the pre-conference workshop are now OPEN! Register for the conference (26-27/02): Culture Conference 2026 – Registration form Register for the workshop (2…
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
New paper out today w @dalmaijer.bsky.social @barbaraklump.bsky.social and @lucymaplin.bsky.social as part of the Phil Trans special issue doi.org/10.1098/rstb.... Over 2 years, we studied a population of cockatoos thought to be the source of the innovation of bin-opening.
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michael chimento @mchimento.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
V proud to have worked on the editorial team for this special issue, out today 🥳 Many interesting CE papers and perspectives inside, incl. our new study on human-wildlife conflict between sulphur-crested cockatoos and residents of Sydney stemming from the bin-opening behaviour of SCC. thread soon
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Edwin Dalmaijer @dalmaijer.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
The perceived embodiment of proper disgust is entirely different than that of “political disgust”, which actually closely overlaps with anger. Excellently timed preprint, with @disgust-nerds.bsky.social starting tomorrow. Hope someone brings this up in the “Is moral disgust really disgust?” debate!
Figure from the preprint with two rows of visualised perceived embodiment, one for the non-political and one for the political emotion. Disgust is perceived by participants to be embodied in the stomach, whereas political disgust was in the chest. This overlaps very closely with political anger, suggesting the two overlap. (And maybe that “political disgust” is not necessarily actual disgust!)
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