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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

Ari Strandburg-Peshkin @arispeshkin.bsky.social · 5d

⭐PhD position available!⭐
Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets
imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...

Analysis of communication and collective behavior in animal groups

imprs-qbee.mpg.de

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 23d

A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offer insights to transform urban planning and pest control

New York City’s Rats Have a Secret Nightlife—And a Language Humans Can’t Hear

A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offe...

www.scientificamerican.com

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · 23d

🌆🐀Scientific American article about the project we're starting on NYC rats!! scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

w/ Emily Mackevicius, Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, @basisresearch.bsky.social

Seeking collaborators and funders 🐀🌆

New York City’s Rats Have a Secret Nightlife—And a Language Humans Can’t Hear

A new preprint field study reveals that New York City’s rats aren’t just survivors—they’re talkative city dwellers with their own hidden nightlife. Mapping their movements and conversations could offe...

scientificamerican.com

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

Felix W. Moll @mollfw.bsky.social · 27d

New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇

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

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

Ann Kennedy @antihebbiann.bsky.social · Aug 22

Can't wait to read this preprint from Misha Ahrens and team. Calcium imaging in larval zebrafish, in every cell in the body! Amazing.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Aug 19

What do neuroscience labs and the streets of New York City have in common? They are both commonly home to rats, a feature this research team is leveraging to study rat social cognition in the wild.

By @martajhill.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/social-cogni...

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

Nick Audette (He/His) @njaudette.bsky.social · Aug 1

The lab is growing! Our team is seeking talented scientists to study flexible sensory processing. We design freely-moving and head-fixed acoustic behaviors alongside acute and wireless neural recordings. PD and grad roles available

Please help spread the word 🙏🧠🎵🐭

neurojobs.sfn.org/job/38911/po...

Postdoctoral Neuroscience Researcher - Storrs Mansfield, Connecticut job with Audette Lab, University of Connecticut | 38911

Fully funded postdoctoral research position studying context-dependent sensory processing in the mouse motor and auditory thalamus and cortex.

neurojobs.sfn.org

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 27

Thank you Jonny! Nice to see you back on here, I hope all is well.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 27

Thanks! We use an AudioMoth and have really liked the quality/ease of use.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 27

lol…loved the big rat appearance, very topical

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 26

Thank you! Some interesting vocalization observations…

bsky.app/profile/ralp...

Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

Finally, we used a wireless ultrasonic mic to record vocalizations. We observed an amazing diversity of calls which have acoustic features that lay outside of the standard distribution reported in the lab. Also, we see interesting usage of the classically negative affect 22 kHz call during foraging.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 26

Thank you!

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 26

Thank you! We are hosting someone on sabbatical now, so yes!

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 26

Thank you John!

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 26

Exactly.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

We are piloting V2 of this work and would be excited to brainstorm next directions. Please be in touch if you have comments, questions, or would like to collaborate!

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

This is probably also a good time to announce that I have parlayed this literal PhD moonlight project into a postdoc at @basisresearch.bsky.social, where I am working on Collaborative Intelligent Systems (biological and artificial) with Emily Mackevicius.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

Together, we show that it's possible to make high-resolution behavioral measurements of rats in their natural urban envt and apply modern ML tools for behavior + envt quant. We are working on more methods to map the sensory world and frameworks for inferring cognitive strategies within these worlds.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

Finally, we used a wireless ultrasonic mic to record vocalizations. We observed an amazing diversity of calls which have acoustic features that lay outside of the standard distribution reported in the lab. Also, we see interesting usage of the classically negative affect 22 kHz call during foraging.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

It's hard to interpret observations like this because in the field we cannot control environmental factors that might be causing movement. Instead, we built 3D reconstructions of the environment using gaussian splatting with the goal of building causal models that can link environment + behavior.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

We noticed periods of coordinated collective movement where some, but not all, animals appeared to participate. We implemented multi-animal tracking and a size-estimation model to show that larger rats move faster and are more likely to participate in collective bursts than smaller animals.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

Thermal imaging worked great at our sites. High SNR and able to see through vegetation in parks.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

We mined NYC311 reports of rat sightings to pick a time and place to perform the field studies. We settled on 3 recording locations in distinct environments (subway, park, sidewalk): Union Square Station, Central Park (Ramble), and W 125th St.

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Ralph Emilio Peterson @ralphpeterson.bsky.social · Jul 25

New preprint!  

tl;dr — We ran around late at night to record wild rats in NYC and figured out how to quantify their behavior and environment. 🧵

w/ Dima Batenkov, @zamakany.bsky.social, Emily Mackevicius

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Computational Urban Ecology of New York City Rats

Urban rats are highly adaptable, thriving in the dynamic and often inhospitable conditions of modern cities. Despite substantial mitigation efforts, they remain an enduring presence in urban environme...

www.biorxiv.org

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Reposted by Ralph Emilio Peterson

John Pearson @jmxpearson.bsky.social · Jul 24

Ok, reinforcement learning fans: RL is great, but what do we do when there's no obvious reward from the environment? What about perfecting a golf swing or a foxtrot or a musical performance? We may have an answer. A tale of 🐦 🎶 + 🧠. 🧵1/ #bioacoustics #prattle 💬 #neuroai #compneuro

Ziyi Gong @gongziyida.bsky.social · Jul 24

I am happy to share our new preprint! In this work, we proposed a theory about how zebra finches bootstrap their error signals for self-guided RL via predictive coding 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Correctness is its own reward: bootstrapping error signals in self-guided reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning (RL) offers a compelling account of how agents learn complex behaviors by trial and error, yet RL is predicated on the existence of a reward function provided by the agent's env...

www.biorxiv.org

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