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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · Jul 30

New bird tree who dis.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

a figure from the linked paper, showing extremely high rates of species diversification in the higher latitudes, higher diversification in the passerines (and in the early history of the oscines), and a marked (but unevenly distributed) uptick in diversification towards the present day

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Galway Advertiser @galwayadvertiser.bsky.social · Jul 17

Proponents of the Galway City Ring Road (GCRR) have argued that moving some of the city traffic away from the centre and onto a by-pass will reduce congestion and free up space for alternatives to the car such as bus and cycle lanes. But will it? www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Will the Ring Road free up space in the city?

This argument is dubious at best, and simply not supported by the data in the GCRR submission, which is currently before An Coimisiún Pleanála (formerly An Bord Pleanála ).

www.advertiser.ie

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · Jul 10

It's @besmacro.bsky.social meeting time! Follow #BESMacro2025 for updates on big ecology today and tomorrow 🌏🌐

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Jun 30

New paper: in which we get grumpy with GenAI / LLMs polluting the human corpora of text rendering many cultural analyses void. Open access with @healyke.bsky.social @adamdkane.bsky.social @rcorreia.bsky.social doi.org/10.1007/s442... ping @edzitron.com might be of interest?

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society

The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

doi.org

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · Jun 26

In our latest commentary piece we highlight that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🌐 @yodacomplex.bsky.social

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society

The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

link.springer.com

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · Jun 26

Just out our latest commentary piece highlighting that AI has likely already poisoned the well of online data used in culturomic studies that aim to understand shifts in the cultural zeitgeist link.springer.com/article/10.1... #AcademicSky #🌐

Generative AI - Signal to Noise - Digital Society

The sudden deployment of large language models (LLMs) has been a seismic event for science, with professional scientists, including biologists, struggling to work out how to fit this new technology in...

link.springer.com

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Catherine Sheard @sheardcat.bsky.social · May 30

It's the last day to apply for #BESMacro2025 ! Come join us in beautiful York for two days of awesome macro-scale science (plus an optional pre-conference workshop on scientific storytelling)

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

BES Macro 2025

A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers in macroecology and/or macroevolution at any academic career stage.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Mel Pardi @drpardi.bsky.social · May 27

🐶 Animal #666 🐈
I figured it out in 3 guesses!
🟧🟨🟩
🔥 1 | Avg. Guesses: 5.7

metazooa.com
#metazooa

Metazooa

Become an evolutionary detective to find the Mystery Animal!

metazooa.com

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Cosáin Climate @cosaingalway.bsky.social · May 22

City Council officials emphatically declared several years ago that implementation of the "€200-million 10-year" #GalwayTransportStrategy was proceeding in parallel with the ring road project, and was not waiting for it.

All lies.

Is anybody surprised?

www.advertiser.ie/galway/artic...

Transport policy paused until Ring Road decision

The National Transport Authority has decided to pause developing Galway city’s transport strategy until a decision is made for or against the N6 Ring Road.

www.advertiser.ie

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Josef Uyeda @pseudacris.bsky.social · May 21

Unsolicited listicle: My list of the most criminally underused/underappreciated phylogenetic comparative methods. Note, I am not involved in ANY of these methods; but I see them as things people are often asking of comparative data but have been surprised at how infrequently they have been cited.

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Dr Keith Lyons @keithlnotions.bsky.social · May 21

Doi for our manuscript can be found in CASSYNI alongside our seminar, using the doi link above.

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Dr Keith Lyons @keithlnotions.bsky.social · May 21

Along with our research on spider venom potency published in Biology Letters, we were kindly asked to prepare a seminar discussing the manuscript for @royalsocietypublishing.org/@cassyni.bsky.social's "Ecology and Evolution Seminar Series" doi.org/10.52843/cassyni.slp5xv. It's free to watch! Enjoy!

Cassyni | Science starts with a seminar

Seamlessly organise, run and publish academic research seminars. Get started in minutes.

doi.org

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Dr Keith Lyons @keithlnotions.bsky.social · May 21

Our latest research on the factors influencing spider venom potency has been published in Biology Letters! doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... Big thank you to my supervisors Dr @healyke.bsky.social and Dr Michel Dugon
along with the media team @uniofgalway.bsky.social
for spreading the word!

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters

Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity...

doi.org

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · May 21

Finally we tested how venom yield changed with body size finding allometric scaling close to 0.75 suggesting that metabolic costs are one of the main drivers of venom production, similar to what we found previously in snakes (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...).

Snake venom potency and yield are associated with prey‐evolution, predator metabolism and habitat structure

Snake venom is well known for its ability to incapacitate and kill prey. Yet, potency and the amount of venom available varies greatly across species, ranging from the seemingly harmless to those cap....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · May 21

We also tested for evolutionary trade-offs between venom potency and silk use in prey capture but find no relationship. This was surprising as we previously found such a trade off between scorpion pincer size and potency but this does not seem to be the case for spiders. www.mdpi.com/2072-6651/14...

Plot showing decreased venom potency with increased pincer size in scorpions.

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · May 21

By comparing over 70 species we show that spider venoms have evolved to be prey-specific. We show this by testing how venom potency changed when tested on animals closely related to a spideres diet compared to when tested on species more distantly related to thier diet.

#AcademicSky

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Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · May 21

Delighted to see our latest paper on the macroecology of spider venoms led by @keithlnotions.bsky.social published today in Biology letters. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10....

Spider venom potency exhibits phylogenetic prey specificity but does not trade-off with body size or silk use in prey capture | Biology Letters

Spiders employ a diverse range of predator traits, including potent venoms, complex silk-hunting strategies and mechanical strength coupled with larger body sizes to capture prey. This trait diversity, along with the quantifiable nature of venom potency, ...

royalsocietypublishing.org

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

The Journal @thejournal.ie · May 21

A new study from the University of Galway’s School of Natural Sciences has revealed why some spiders possess venom that is far more potent than others. http://jrnl.ie/6709955

Galway researchers have discovered why some spiders are more venomous than others

The researchers analysed venom from more than 70 different spider species, to see what could explain the wide variation in venom strength.

jrnl.ie

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · May 2

The Green Party don’t get as much media coverage as Reform because the continuation of civilised human life on the planet isn’t as interesting as cunts.

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IrishCycle.com @irishcycle.com · Apr 24

Galway deserves a chance to breathe, but emotive arguments cannot brush away the fact a second ring road will suffocate the city in traffic irishcycle.com/2025/04/24/g...

Galway deserves a chance to breathe, but emotive arguments cannot brush away the fact a second ring road will suffocate the city in traffic

Comment & Analysis / Long Read: It’s a seductive claim that building a second ring road in Galway will let the city and county breathe, but all the evidence we have — including from…

irishcycle.com

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Galway Cycling Campaign - Feachtas Rothaíochta na Gaillimhe @galwaycycling.bsky.social · Apr 14

Why have we not made progress on this in Galway yet?

Combining a bicycle with the light rail stops allows a greater catchment area for that last mile of travel. Light rail would also free up roadspace in our city so that any cars bypassing the city could use the orbital route effectively.

RTÉ News @news.rte.ie · Apr 14

A preferred 18km route has been selected for a new Luas service in Cork, and a public consultation on the project launched this morning

Preferred 18km route launched for new Cork Luas service

A preferred 18km route has been selected for a new Luas service in Cork, and a public consultation on the project launched this morning.

www.rte.ie

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

BES Macro @besmacro.bsky.social · Feb 28

You: hey, is #BESMacro open for registration?
Us: yes, it is!

Main deadline May 31, apply for the student plenary by May 2. Come join us in York for great talks, posters, workshops, and macro-scale fun!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bes-macro-...

BES Macro 2025

A British Ecological Society specialist group conference for researchers in macroecology and/or macroevolution at any academic career stage.

www.eventbrite.co.uk

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Reposted by Kevin Healy

Benjamin Rosenbaum @benrosenbaum.bsky.social · Feb 28

I completely re-worked my course "Introduction to Bayesian statistics with brms" and taught it for the 1st time this week. It is meant as a tutorial for ecologists, but should be general enough for other sciences as well
github.com/benjamin-ros...
#stats #Rstats #brms #Stan #Bayesian

GitHub - benjamin-rosenbaum/bayesian-intro: Introduction to Bayesian statistics

Introduction to Bayesian statistics. Contribute to benjamin-rosenbaum/bayesian-intro development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

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Darren O'Connell @daroconnell.bsky.social · Feb 24

Check out our new blog summarising recent meta-analysis assessing treatments for the Varroa mite #pathogen of honey bees!
This #invasive #parasite has huge impacts on crops from lost
#pollination 🧪

@ucddublin.bsky.social @healyke.bsky.social @cristinabotias.bsky.social

www.ucd.ie/earth/news-o...

24 February tackling varroa mite

www.ucd.ie

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Susan Canavan @scanavan.bsky.social · Feb 20

Check out our new-ish paper. This paper pushed me to become a @wikipedia.org editor so I could create and update pages for endangered or invasive species. Updating wiki not only helps share conservation information with a wider audience, but also helps our work break out of the academic bubble 🐢

Kevin Healy @healyke.bsky.social · Nov 6

Not sure if this helps brighten your feed today but we have just released our paper showing that, based on online behavior, we do care when species go extinct.
zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

When species go extinct, online interest spikes but often fades quickly. We analysed how online attention shifts before and after extinction announcements of eight species and found that there are br....

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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