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William Russell

@robotowilliam.bsky.social

420 followers 300 following 2.5K posts

He/him | 38 | Lifelong explorer and learner | 🦋Reylo | ⏹️Stop AI MSc Animal Behaviour (Queen's University Belfast) interested in animal cognition and social behaviours https://linktr.ee/robotowilliam

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · Nov 17

淀川の北側から

Reposted by William Russell

Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 4d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

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Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 12h

My boss: so how's our fourth quarter looking?

Me, the sales manager at the company that makes inflatable frog suits: well, you're never going to believe this, but

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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 17h

THIS!! 👇👇

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Seth Rudy @sethrudy.bsky.social · 18h

Meanwhile in #Portland

Kermit faces off with Hopper in The Muppet Movie

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 10h

Awesome! Interesting to hear his take on Finn.

Did you get to ask questions?

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 14h

Curious where that thumbnail image came from. It's not in the paper? And looks AI-generated? Did the authors create it or was it done automatically somehow by the journal?

Reposted by William Russell

Dr Manu Saunders @manusaunders.bsky.social · 20h

Rearing insects in class is an excellent science education tool, but using non-native insects can lead to ethical and environmental issues. Native insects should be prioritised! Great paper exploring this overlooked issue #RESInsectConsDiv 🌏🧪
resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Native insect species should be selected for classroom rearings

Rearing insects in the school classroom can build positive attitudes towards insects among schoolchildren, which is becoming increasingly important as insect populations decline. Identified frequent...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Reposted by William Russell

Gustavo Rinaldi @gusrinaldi.bsky.social · 17h

☁️🐉 (reprise)

#illustration #BRArt #kidlitart #fantasyart

Drawing of a sleepy dragon nested in the middle of a cumulonimbus cloud with their head and tail poking out.

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Reposted by William Russell

Kim Rosvall @rosvall-lab.bsky.social · 16h

This is an incredibly cool way to learn about behavior

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 1d

Scientists suspected that Europe’s largest bats snack on migrating songbirds when they can, but a stunning newly published observation proves it

Bat vs. Robin—Scientists Capture Real-Life Audio of Midair Hunt

Scientists suspected that Europe’s largest bats snack on migrating songbirds when they can, but a stunning newly published observation proves it

www.scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by William Russell

Astrid (yeehaw) 🤠🌈 ✨ @ansitru.bsky.social · 1d

I'm just saying, we could settle this with swords, instead of 30+ emails. 🤺

#artWIP

A WIP embroidery piece, with a sword and mace chzrm, spikes and letter beads.

The beads read "this email could have been a duel | fight me"

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Jean-François Cudennec @jfcudennec.bsky.social · 22h

Just sayin

Chart comparing the number of camera, the number of giant squid footages and the number of bigfoot footages.

Number of giant squids rises as the number of camera increase, but not the number of bigfoot.

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 20h

😆

Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 21h

All my comics have happy endings!

William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 21h

The results of my study were not definitive, so unfortunately I can't tell you if crabs are sentient. This method might require a larger sample size, or perhaps there are too many other variables. It was worth a try though! I learned a lot about behavioural experimentation and data collection.

William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 21h

A shell contest I recorded during the study. A natural behaviour they engage in regularly in the wild. It's highly ritualised as both crabs want to avoid getting hurt by really fighting each other.

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 21h

My method: see if winning or losing a shell contest changes their mood. Tested that using the cognitive bias method from the rat study, watching to see if the crabs would react after the contest to a new empty shell optimistically or pessimistically

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 21h

Some background to my method, a study seeing if rats would react optimistically or pessimistically to an ambiguous stimulus, depending on what mood they were in

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 22h

The big question: do animals have feelings?

A slide showing an image of a reversible soft toy octopus with a happy and grump face, with various questions relating to animal feelings and suffering

William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 22h

Some slides

Presentation title slide showing a clipart image of a hermit crab and the title "Conscious Crabs? Investigating affective state following shell contests in hermit crabs 'Pagurus berhardus'"

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William Russell @robotowilliam.bsky.social · 22h

Presented my Master's thesis at a conference this morning. My first scientific conference talk! Many more to come hopefully 😊

Thanks to the German Zoological Society for organising the conference and the University of Leipzig for hosting! Wish I could have made it over there in person.

DZG section Behavioural Biology @dzg-behaviour.bsky.social · 23h

Kicking off day 3 of #GradMeet25 with more talks on sociality — linking it to dispersal, cognition, and endocrinology! From social dispersal in burying beetles to hormonal changes in cheetahs 🐘🐅🦀🪲

@paulhuber.bsky.social @carolin-schlarb.bsky.social @robotowilliam.bsky.social

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Reposted by William Russell

Bryan Young @swankmotron.com · 1d

I need @rianjohnson.bsky.social’s next Star Wars trilogy in my veins.

Yennefer 🦋 @lyricalriot.bsky.social · 1d

I GOT IT! I needed the Big Internet for it. Anywhere, here is the full 9 minutes. The sound is not good, their mics were muddy sounding, but hopefully you can still understand enough of it!

(Also I missed the first 30 seconds but basically he was asked how he got handed TLJ)

youtu.be/Pm7gR8MQxKA