Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · 25d

On the positive side, if you're nearsighted, like I am, your distance vision starts to correct with advanced age. Silver linings. (No pun intended.)

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Sep 5

Napa, California

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Rick Lane @ricklane.bsky.social · Aug 19

Every tech update now is like: "Great news, the word processor you've relied on for twenty years has learned to juggle! Is it good at it? No! Does it help in any way? Of course not! Has it made it insufferable to use? Oh, absolutely."

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Aug 17

Thank you for the kind words, Katie. Of course I remember your viva! I hope the editors select your commentary. This paper was led by my wife, Kim Bard, and, of course, our co-author, Heidi Keller, has been addressing these issues for many years. It was a joy to work with those two.

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jul 20

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 🤣😂

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jul 13

Another one of my terrific former students:
tinyurl.com/Rey-Maktoufi

How Reyhaneh Maktoufi transforms science through story

Her research is helping build pathways between science and society.

tinyurl.com

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Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · Jul 10

Kristi Noem didn’t approve FEMA rescue teams for over 72 hours after the Texas floods, following a rule she imposed that required her personal sign-off on any operation over $100K.

This is inexcusable. She should resign.

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Jul 9

If any vaguely traditional media outlet had done what Grok did today it would be all over. Regulators would come down like a hammer.

Somehow, Grok will end up getting a pass. But this is not a user misbehaving on a channel; it was configured to behave this way by the platform owner.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Jul 8

I'm not going to repost any of the insane antisemitic conspiracy bullshit that grok is spewing today, but it highlights how absolutely essentially is that we not let LLMs become a form of epistemic grounding for our society.

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Vesta Eleuteri @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social · Jul 9

🚨Second PhD chapter is out today! We show that elephants gesture intentionally to ask humans for food using many different gesture types!
Check it out 👉 tinyurl.com/elephant-int...
🧵TLDR 1/16

a baby elephant eating leaves from a tree with the word mealtime written below it

ALT: a baby elephant eating leaves from a tree with the word mealtime written below it

media.tenor.com

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jul 8

Hi Susana--evidently, the formal call for commentary proposals will go out, soon (possibly later this week), and the deadline will be part of that announcement.

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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · Jul 1

A 2% wealth tax on UK's richest could have raised £160 billion in 32 years: “The top 40 families in the UK now own more wealth than 50% of the population, meanwhile 14.3 million people - including 4.3 million children - are living in poverty in the UK"

www.kcl.ac.uk/news/wealth-...

A 2% wealth tax on UK's richest could have raised £160 billion in 32 years

Report is the first dynamic analysis of a wealth tax on the UK wealth distribution.

www.kcl.ac.uk

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jun 28

Hi Susana,
I don't know, but I will find out and get back to you. Probably be at least a couple of days.

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jun 28

Behavioral and Brain Sciences Call for Commentaries on Bard, Keller, and Leavens (2025)! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Call for Commentary Proposals - Let’s go WILD: Increasing Inclusivity in Theorie

Call for Commentary Proposals - Let’s go WILD: Increasing Inclusivity in Theories of Developmental Psychology

www.cambridge.org

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Brandon Moore, PhD @rando.insalubrio.us · Jun 27

The James Webb Space Telescope has achieved a significant milestone by directly imaging exoplanet TWA-7b, a cold gas giant located 111 light-years from Earth! 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The newly discovered exoplanet is highlighted with an orange arrow. The star it orbits is black in this image. The remaining two bodies to the left are both background galaxies.

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jun 27

Here we show that the skill of following pointing gestures was easily trained in 44 adult chimpanzees. We speculate that reports of apes' poor pointing comprehension likely stem from their inadequate learning histories, not their evolutionary histories.

dx.doi.org/10.1037/com0...

APA PsycNet

dx.doi.org

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Prof. Gillian Brown @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social · May 27

The new edition of 'Sense & Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour', co-authored with
@kevinlala.bsky.social , is available!

Get 30% off (promotion code ASPROMP8): global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Ebook is available on Kindle.

Thank you to Prof. Clark Barrett for the endorsement! 🧪

Image of cover of book called Sense and Nonsense: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behaviour, with a quote beside it saying, "Sense and Nonsense is the ultimate insider's guide to the history of one of our most ambitious attempts to understand ourselves" from Clark Barrett, University of California, LA.

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · Jun 15

One of my favorite authors went to the military parade in Washington, DC.

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · Jun 14

You all never going to guess where I’m at.

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George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · Jun 13

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мɑгκ @drumrollplease.bsky.social · Jun 11

𝗜𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝗶𝘀 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼, 𝘄𝗮𝘁𝗰𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀. ✊🏻

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Dave Leavens @daveleavens.bsky.social · May 23

The indefatigable Kim Bard, Heidi Keller, and I wrote a critique and remedy for Western-oriented developmental psychology. Call for Commentary Proposals will likely be out soon.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Let’s go WILD: Increasing Inclusivity in Theories of Developmental Psychology | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Let’s go WILD: Increasing Inclusivity in Theories of Developmental Psychology

www.cambridge.org

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Cat Hobaiter @nakedprimate.bsky.social · May 9

TLDR: new paper headed up by @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social
& with an awesome team, incl @andrearavignani.bsky.social , showing chimps have rhythm in their drumming & differences b/w east & west drum rhythms!

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

But didn’t we know this already you ask? Well… 🧵1/16

Chimpanzee drumming shows rhythmicity and subspecies variation

Chimpanzees drum on the buttress roots of trees for communication. Eleuteri et al. investigate the presence of key elements of musical rhythm and of regional variation in chimpanzee buttress drumming....

www.cell.com

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Nick Jourjine @nickjourjine.bsky.social · May 10

Great thread here on an important new #bioacoustics study

Cat Hobaiter @nakedprimate.bsky.social · May 9

TLDR: new paper headed up by @vestaeleuteri.bsky.social
& with an awesome team, incl @andrearavignani.bsky.social , showing chimps have rhythm in their drumming & differences b/w east & west drum rhythms!

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

But didn’t we know this already you ask? Well… 🧵1/16

Chimpanzee drumming shows rhythmicity and subspecies variation

Chimpanzees drum on the buttress roots of trees for communication. Eleuteri et al. investigate the presence of key elements of musical rhythm and of regional variation in chimpanzee buttress drumming....

www.cell.com

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John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · May 8

'Covid data indicating low levels across the UK.
...
In England, the Covid test positivity rate continued to increase slightly but remains at low levels. Meanwhile, hospital admissions for Covid decreased and are at low levels.'

@bob-hawkins.bsky.social

substack.com/home/post/p-...

Covid Situation Report: May 8, 2025

Update on Covid providing information on prevalence and hospital admissions for England and its regions. This post is best viewed using the browser or Substack app.

substack.com

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Mair @mair42.bsky.social · Apr 21

😂

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Adrian Soldati @adriansoldati.bsky.social · Apr 15

Our new paper is out! 🐒🔊
We compared two wild chimpanzee populations and found that individuals adjust pant hoot acoustics based on context (feeding vs. travelling). Most patterns are shared, but subtle community differences may hint at a small role for vocal usage learning.
doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

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