Weronika Sójka

7 basic science discoveries that changed the world Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government.

Ozempic, MRI machines and flat screen televisions all emerged out of fundamental research decades earlier — the very types of study being slashed by the US government

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Highlight of the night: an audience question — “I want to know, what do animals think of humans?” 🤔

So happy to visit the Long Night of Museums in Munich last weekend! Fantastic outreach by @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social showcasing fieldwork on great apes and other species.

I’m very glad for events like #SNS2025, which serve as reminders of groundbreaking neuroscientific research, with Tübingen as an important hub. See you next year!

Second (second day) talk session of #SNS2025

#neuroskyence #systemneuroscience

Jane Goodall, famed primatologist and conservationist, dies at 91 Jane Goodall, the most prolific primatologist of a generation, has died. She was 91 years old.

Jane Goodall, the famed primatologist, anthropologist and conservationist, has died, according to the institute she founded. She was 91 years old.

This is such a loss everyone and everything on this earth. abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

An illustration of a man walking out of a dark, paper-filled world into a bright, colorful one, with text: I thought science hinged on prestige. Moving abroad made me reassess my priorities

"I was thrilled to be on an exchange semester overseas, but I saw it as just a detour from my imagined career path. I didn’t realize I was already pedaling toward a different life—one that would make me reassess how to achieve a fulfilling research career." https://scim.ag/46EZ2kj

A super interesting talk by Hugo Spiers on navigation beyond cities, featuring lots of interesting research questions and fascinating examples. Definitely worth watching! 👀

Great paper showing tool use in carrion crows! Congrats Felix!! @mollfw.bsky.social

A neuronal correlate for time interval estimation in the crow’s telencephalon - Nature Communications It is unknown how birds estimate time using brains organized differently from mammals. Here, the authors show that neurons in the crow NCL encode duration categories, supporting abstract, cue-independ...

I'm usually not very active here, but good news:
Together with @milliejohnston.bsky.social, our paper on time estimation in #crows got published in @natcomms.nature.com today!
We found crow neurons track time like a stopwatch — without a cortex! 🐦⏱️🧠
#SciComm #Science 🧪
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Do You See the Same Colors That I Do?

Excited about our new study out in @sfnjournals.bsky.social !
See our lab for detailed thread at @vision-cognition.bsky.social

New York Times piece about it:
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/08/s...

Rendering of ancient amphibian Stenokranio Boldi. It looks funny: has a flat, rounded head, with a huge smiley mouth.

To brighten up your Sunday, let me introduce you to Stenokranio Boldi, an early amphibian recently discovered in Germany. This is the only image we have to know what it looked like:

Anderson Feijó examining rodents in the collections of the Field Museum. CREDIT: Field Museum

Thumbs are cool and all, but have you ever thought about how important thumbnails are? They just might have been the key to rodents' evolutionary success. That and more of the best from @science.org and science in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

Ant queens produce sons of two distinct species The discovery of an unusual reproductive system for one ant species solves a long-standing puzzle about a missing population of another ant species.

The discovery of an unusual reproductive system for one ant species solves a long-standing puzzle

go.nature.com/47mxGkM

Rare seasonal brain shrinkage in shrews is driven by water loss, not cell death Common shrews are one of only a handful of mammals known to flexibly shrink and regrow their brains. This rare seasonal cycle, known as Dehnel’s phenomenon, has puzzled scientists for decades. A study...

Scientists discover the secret behind the shrew’s amazing ability to shrink their brains 🧠

The clever trick sheds unwanted weight without compromising too much on cognition.

Find the 5-letter word 👇

Study by @cecibaldoni.bsky.social Dechmann Lab #shrewcrew et al

www.ab.mpg.de/743885/news_...

Arches national park, a full moon shines through the opening of red rock like the iris of an eye.

Mother Earth is watching. Don't be complicit.

Bright city lights make birds around the world sing longer Big-eyed species are especially vulnerable to the effects of light pollution, a citizen-science effort shows.

Big-eyed species are especially vulnerable to the effects of light pollution, a citizen-science effort shows

go.nature.com/4mXMkTX

“You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.” 🚲🧪
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...

@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter

Smart! Raven loves winning Tic Tac Toe.

A neural manifold view of the brain - Nature Neuroscience Recent advances in neuroscience have revealed how neural population activity underlying behavior can be well described by topological objects called neural manifolds. Understanding how nature, nurture...

Check out our new review/perspective (w/ @juangallego.bsky.social & Devika Narain) on neural manifolds in the brain! It was a lot of fun to think through these ideas over the past couple of years, and I'm excited it's finally out in the world!

🔗: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
📄: rdcu.be/ex8hW

📢 Exciting News!

Tübingen Systems Neuroscience Symposium #SNS2025 will happen on 6️⃣-7️⃣ October! 🎉

Plenary lectures, poster sessions and social events with leading experts in the field 🧠

registration 👉 meg.medizin.uni-tuebingen.de/sns_2025

See you there! 👋

Thank you for your engagement Ghazaleh Tabatabai 🙏 #aufstehenfuerdemokratie

MacaqueNet, a global community and FAIR database, is now also a @animalecology.bsky.social paper!

Decades of research by 100+ ppl, 5yrs of data cleaning & standardizing, 2 workshops (+1 upcoming Kolkata '25), 4 active projects and counting.

Contibute data, follow the newsletter, make a request!

Exploring Anatomical Links Between the Crow's Nidopallium Caudolaterale and Its Song System The crow's nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL) projects densely to the dorsal intermediate arcopallium (AID) and the striatum, paralleling important song system pathways. Connections from the magnocellul...

Now published in JCN: "Exploring Anatomical Links Between the Crow's Nidopallium Caudolaterale and Its Song System"

In crows (which are songbirds!), we show that the song system is paralleled by the 'general motor system' (cf. Feenders, 2008; Farries, 2001).

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

An eastern gray kangaroo (Macropus giganteus) grazes in Yuraygir National Park, New South Wales, Australia. It has long been thought that short-faced kangaroos became extinct in the late Pleistocene because they were specialist browsers, in contrast to long-faced grazing kangaroos, which still thrive today. However, dental microwear patterns show that most Pleistocene kangaroos actually had broad diets—an adaptation to climate-driven fluctuations in vegetation.

Much can be said about what a species ate based on the form of their teeth.

Using a tooth microwear approach, researchers in Science find that a narrow diet was not responsible for the extinction of short-faced kangaroos.

Learn more in this week's issue: https://scim.ag/4aiqdCQ