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Patrick Kennedy

@patrick-kennedy.bsky.social
214 followers 174 following 48 posts

Zoologist studying the evolution of cooperation and conflict, mainly with social wasps of Africa | Lecturer at University of Bristol, UK | main focus Cameroon, Kenya + South Africa tinyurl.com/SocialStrategyLab

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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Excellent resource - thanks for highlighting it!
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just refreshed my menu of essay themes for final-year Bristol biology @bristolbiosci.bsky.social students. Very much looking forward to seeing where they go with it.
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
theguardian.com
The Taliban have built a system for enslaving women in Afghanistan | Tala Elissa
Five years on, the regime’s chokehold has left Afghan women with almost nothing, but many are still bravely fighting for their freedom, writes Tala Elissa
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Congratulations to Ellie for winning the prize for the second best student poster 🎉
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Proud of fantastic students Ayla Webb, Ellie Trelfa-Stewart, and Dylan Thatcher for giving two great talks and one great (and wine-fuelled) poster at #IUSSI2026!
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Nadine Batchelor-Hunt @nadinebh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I've to put down some of my down to free up head space, feel free to read! "We must stop giving succour to those who do not care about evidence or data, and simply want to live in a world where they can grind their latest axe in a never ending culture war." nadinebh.substack.com/p/less-than-...
nadinebh.substack.com
Less than one per cent of Cambridge professors are black, but the columnist class wants to tell a different story
As an industry we must stop giving succour who do not care about evidence or data, and simply want to live in a world where they can grind their latest axe in a never ending culture war.
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Great! Will you be in Freiburg?
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Mark and I have just realised this - we didn’t mean to reinvent the wheel, sorry! Perhaps we can fuse the two?
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Lauren Sumner-Rooney @laurensr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Two weeks left to apply for our postdoc position on vision in trilobites! Come and explore the exciting world of reconstructing vision in the fossil record, using some of the most iconic extinct animals to grace our oceans! Please reach out + RT! (*Deadline in fact 23.59 BST on the 26th August!*)
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The Lord's Prayer sounds much better in Swahili than it did in sombre chants back at my English Catholic school... 🤣 www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFEx...
youtube.com
Baba Yetu - Gospel Choir in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
YouTube video by AfricanSolarRise
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Andy Radford @andyradford.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
The result of 10+ years of fieldwork & analysis of 1000s of data points is out now in @natecoevo.nature.com... and on the cover! Mongoose pre-emptive behaviour & intergroup conflict Congratulations @josharbon.bsky.social @juliekern.bsky.social #AmyMorris-Drake doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Cover of Nature Ecology & Evolution August 2026 issue featuring a dwarf mongoose
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is how I feel. Using AI to help you learn about something new (or perhaps as a sandpit to test out ideas) is acceptable. But using AI to write for you is an unforgivable sin, for which there is only one answer: firing squad at dawn.
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I have been tasked by @markjfbrown.bsky.social with making sure that all social insect groups go up on the map. If for some inexplicable reason you're not yet on the map, be warned - I might ambush you in the IUSSI poster session 🤣 #IUSSI2026
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
🐝 Are you advertising a job or PhD in social insect biology? Get the word out by adding it to the PhDs/jobs noticeboard on the main IUSSI website! www.socialinsects.org/positions @iussi-nwes.bsky.social @ceiussi.bsky.social @iussi-nas.bsky.social #IUSSI2026 #IUSSI
socialinsects.org
Student and Postdoc Positions in Social Insect Biology
PhD, masters, and postdoc positions in social insect biology.
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Are you part of a social insect lab group? Is your lab proudly displayed on our shiny new map of all the social insect labs around the world? If not, why not?! Add your lab here! www.socialinsects.org/map #IUSSI
socialinsects.org
Map | IUSSI
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Great - looking forward to learning about strepsiptera. Yes, see you in Freiburg!
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Sounds like a fascinating talk. Are you reprising it at the IUSSI in Freiburg?
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
(Celebration of the Feast of the Throne in Marrakesh, 1965)
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
“When I browse among my sixty-five albums of these selected photographs, my most cherished possession, I live once more in a vanished world.” - Wilfred Thesiger, ‘Visions of a Nomad’
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Currently taking Swahili lessons, but on the lookout for a more perfect word than “mihang’o” from Kikuyu, which a friend defines as “being busy in a useless way” 🤣
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Stephen Montgomery @ebablab.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
@crab-exeter.bsky.social are a fantastic group of researchers, and a real beacon of excellence for Exeter. What a huge and deeply sad act of self sabotage this would be. Please consider signing their open letter👇🏻
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Stephen Montgomery @ebablab.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
Very cool new pre-print from @rmash.bsky.social and team “…parental care shapes the storage, expression and release of genetic variation…” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
biorxiv.org
Parental care is a genetic capacitor
Parental care is widespread across the animal kingdom and plays a critical role in offspring development. Yet, its broader genetic and evolutionary impacts remain underexplored. Here, using the bipare...
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
“The very concept of an artificially generated video of wildlife is profane, operating on a level of self-interest that I struggle to comprehend. These videos make me fear the future”
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
I believe produced by @niqvassie.bsky.social?
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Just came across this a beautiful 20 minute film about fig wasps - apparently produced as an MSc project at the University of Leeds! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg73...
youtube.com
Incestuous fig wasps: death in paradise [HD]
YouTube video by Peter Chen 2.0
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
And amazing weather! (Sorry to the one group that had to collect crabs in the flash torrential downpour.)
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Great week with Bristol 2nd year biology students on our Animal Behaviour field course, Pembrokeshire coast. Anemones fighting, bats echolocating, puffins hunting, gannets plunging, barnacles hiding, and 420 million year old fossils - all going on! @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
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Stephanie L King @stephanielking.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
New paper in @pnas.org - using playback experiments we provide further evidence that bottlenose dolphins can use individual identity signals + social memory to guide decision-making. Female dolphins use individual vocal labels to track coercive males | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Deeply shocked not to see wasps at the top
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
There’s basically no public debate in the UK about how we have massively slashed aid, but it is really terrible. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
theguardian.com
Some of the world’s poorest countries to lose UK aid due to 56% budget cut
UK’s bilateral aid to African countries, which funds areas such as schools and clinics, to be cut by almost £900m by 2028-29
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Chris Jernigan @chrisjernigan.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
My lab is recruiting a #postdoc! Please share! See ad below. If interested please reach out to me via email. Deadline to apply is Sept. 1st, 2026. #wasplove
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Stephen Montgomery @ebablab.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
🚨Job claxon🚨 4-year #Postdoc available in our lab in @camzoology.bsky.social developing molecular and anatomical approaches to mapping evolutionary changes in the brain, using #Heliconiini butterflies. Come join us, we are nice. 🧪 www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...
An immunostaining section through a Heliconius brain. Staining and imaging by Dr Max Farnworth.
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Seirian Sumner @waspwoman.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
For #DavidAttenborough’s 100th birthday, new research on the Panamanian wasp stars of his series #LifeInTheUndergrowth! Co-wasped with: @andyradford.bsky.social, Chris Wyatt, Emily Bell, Daisy Taylor @ucllifesciences.bsky.social @bristoluni.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Happy 100th birthday to David Attenborough! 🐋 🦀 🐆 At the launch of @bristolbiosci.bsky.social, I fed mealworm brownies to him and the Lord Mayor (whilst randomly wearing a beekeeping suit). Here's him raving about my insect cooking on the radio 😆 So I hope he celebrates properly - mealworm cake?
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Fichtel-Kappeler-Lab @kirindy.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Seeking a motivated postdoc (2+3 yrs) to study links between cognition, behavior, and fitness in lemurs at our long-term field site in Kirindy Forest, Madagascar. Join an interdisciplinary team working on wild populations. @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Apply here: www.dpz.eu
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Definitely one to add to the “wasp or not?” game we play for school groups!
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Andy Radford @andyradford.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
🥇Poster prize awarded to #AylaWebb at @asab.org #ASABSpring2026 🐝Reproductive hierarchies & queen succession in paper #wasps 🌟CONGRATULATIONS Ayla 🎉 @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social #ProudSupervisors @bristolbiosci.bsky.social @asab-meetings.bsky.social #fieldwork #ECR #PhD #experiments #evolution
PhD student Ayla Webb presenting her prize-winning poster at the ASAB Spring Conference in Bristol in March 2026.
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Just wishing I was 36,000 ft lower down!
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
What causes these huge parallel dunes near the Chad border? 18° 0’ N 13° 48’ E
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Stunning ochre and red Martian smears in the Ténéré region 19° 31’ N 12° 30’ E
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Was baffled by these giant gridlines on the landscape in Algeria. Apparently for oil/mineral exploration?
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Immense! Northern Niger, 21° 26’ N 11° 16’ E
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Can any geologists explain why these clusters of dunes seem so evenly spaced? (Southern Algeria)
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Always get a thrill from flying over the (absolutely vast) Sahara!
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
What causes these huge parallel dunes near the Chad border? 18°00' N 13°48' E
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Stunning ochre and red Martian smears in the Ténéré region 19°31' N 12°30' E
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
Immense! Northern Niger, 21°26 N 11°16' E
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 06/02/2026
🔊 Calling UK early career researches in astro, particle & nuclear physics. Please sign this open response to the proposed cuts at STFC ⚛️🧪🔭 "Protecting the UK's reputation as a science superpower requires not only investment, but continuity, confidence, and people" ✍️ ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
@andyradford.bsky.social One for you!
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Patrick Kennedy @patrick-kennedy.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Spectacular quote!
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