Drew Altschul
Lecturer in Psychology @ Newcastle University. Studying the evolution of hierarchies and hierarchical thinking, mostly in primates. Open science, BTS, ManyPrimates/ManyManys. Living organism. Psoriatic arthritic. Age dyschronic. Writer. Buddhist.
- Cute and funny dog video, but... is the dog doing behavioral imitation?? www.instagram.com/reel/DTM_yNR... Weigh in for me CE folks...
- Reposted by Drew AltschulPeriodic reminder that without biodiversity, we’re all doomed. Let’s not brush it aside and focus solely on carbon (obviously critical). Focusing on carbon while sidelining biodiversity is a catastrophic mistake. Biodiversity isn’t optional. It’s fundamental to our very existence.
- Reposted by Drew Altschul1/2 Ai, the chimpanzee who revolutionized science from Kyoto, has died at the age of 49. She was the first chimpanzee to learn Arabic numerals. Here you can see her in action in Tetsuro Matsuzawa's laboratory.
- Reposted by Drew Altschul99% of cakes are far too sweet to be genuinely delicious
- Reposted by Drew Altschul“Auld Land Syne” on a Stylophone. #NewYearsEve
- Reposted by Drew Altschul🚨 Our new paper is out!! A call for CARE in animal behaviour: an holistic ethical research framework 🐾💚 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Cripes. They're using Cohen's outdated effect size standards, too. Should be using the revised versions, ala Funder and Ozer. >0.3 is a large effect size. >0.4 is huge, and these are the levels they're reporting at. This should not be downplayed, these are BIG effects.
- 1/3 Short video social media and mental health This meta-analysis of 71 studies (n 98,299) found a correlation between the use of short video-based social media (TikTok, Instagram, etc.) and poorer mental health and cognition. (paper) psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
- And it seems pretty unlikely that you'd get effects that big when there isn't a substantial causal influence. Particularly when there are null findings coming out of the same data to contrast with (e.g. body image)!
- A story in logic: 'Are Lovecrafting Horrors really on the same level as AI slop?' 'Lovecraft's Cthulhu-esque creations are twisted, but in a biological way, as depicted in modern media. Like cancer.' ...... 'Is current generative AI a cancer?' ...... 'But then, a cancer of what?'
- From Moloch to Azathoth
- The Emperor of All Molochs
- Reposted by Drew Altschul
- Reposted by Drew Altschul📢 New article out in PLOS BIology! It was truly a pleasure and honour be a part of the core team members to lead this study and work alongside 129 collaborators from 82 institutions across 24 countries - the largest ever comparative study of neophobia in 🐦! 🥰
- 🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology: “A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.” Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍 🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @themanybirds.bsky.social
- This is so cool. Thanks for watching!
- We received this dispatch from a @uop-ccep.bsky.social @uopcidd.bsky.social BTSCON viewing party. Look at all the Big Team Science FUN they're having! WE LOVE TO SEE IT!! (👀 @dremalt.bsky.social @manyprimates.bsky.social)
- Reposted by Drew AltschulWe received this dispatch from a @uop-ccep.bsky.social @uopcidd.bsky.social BTSCON viewing party. Look at all the Big Team Science FUN they're having! WE LOVE TO SEE IT!! (👀 @dremalt.bsky.social @manyprimates.bsky.social)
- Other minds are foreign countries
- 100 years? This might as well be a short story collection of speculative fiction. "This issue is about scientific foresight, not science fiction." Okay, I mean, good luck? I think it'd be more valuable *and* enjoyable to read something like David Eagleman's "Sum" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sum:_Fo...
- Most entertaining entry - "Cliodynamics 100 years on: Psychology's integral role in the study of predicting the future, in the future"
- Or maybe just an attempt to write Hari Seldon's seminal paper on Psychohistory, in a grounded, non-fictional way
- Such a loss. Hard to understate how much Jane Goodall did for the field of primatology, and probably all of comparative psychology, animal cognition, animal behaviour... We are very much in her debt. And its also just great that still to this day she would describe herself as an ethologist.
- Recently I spoke about @manyprimates.bsky.social for @liftcostaction.bsky.social about distributed research projects and teams in animal sciences! www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKrA... If you're interested in BTS projects, comparative cognition etc, have a watch
- Thanks to Liza Muscovice & @goatswhostare.bsky.social for organizing, and to my co-presenter @bernhardvoelkl.bsky.social
- Reposted by Drew AltschulAcademic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:
- Bringing in new reviewers after the first back-and-forth has got to be one of the biggest misuses of everybody's time
- Reposted by Drew Altschul📣 New paper out (and my first one on ravens)! ❤️ "Startling ravens Corvux corax at foraging: Differences in anti-predator behaviour can be explained by age rather than personality" by Janina Weißenborn, @pesumas.bsky.social, Thomas Bugnyar and myself, out now in Journal of Avian Biology! ✨️😊
- Do ravens have personalities? We tested how free-flying ravens respond to predator calls & gunshots. No consistent boldness across individuals, but: 🖤 Juveniles fed sooner than adults 🦅 All reacted more cautiously to raptors than gunshots doi.org/10.1002/jav.... @avianbiology.bsky.social #univienna
- Reposted by Drew AltschulToday, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community. reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...
- Reposted by Drew AltschulRichard Wollheim on Bertrand Russell.
- Reposted by Drew AltschulWe are currently testing highly underrated and understudied colobus monkeys for @manyprimates.bsky.social at Zoo Krefeld. It's a start - but ManyPrimates needs more colobines (and gibbons) for fair representation!
- Reposted by Drew Altschul1/3 First evidence of anxiety in snails They exhibit fear responses hours after the source of their anxiety is removed. These responses can be reduced with an anxiolytic, such as alprazolam. They have also demonstrated high-level learning. (paper) www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Reposted by Drew AltschulOur letter is out in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social We argue against a recent claim that animals cannot make mental simulations because they supposedly do not reliably memorize sequences. The evidence for model-based animal cognition is too overwhelming. 🧪 authors.elsevier.com/a/1lKMt_V1r-...
- Reposted by Drew AltschulTo be clear: I'm not sure what exactly this is and it deserves further study. But if something analogous would happen in primates/corvids/dolphins someone would publish a high-profile anecdotal report about it, celebrating it as a hallmark of advanced cognition in large-brained vertebrates ...
- Reposted by Drew AltschulNormalise writing a nice quick note to scholars literally every time you read and like their work. Our world is small and getting smaller. We need encouragement.
- When you're stuck in a nightmare that you can't get your contact lenses out
- Observe the wild Brown Dog, thermoregulating so good in the little hole he dug for himself in the cool dirt in the shade
- according to genetic testing, he really is part "wild canid"
- ...2%
- Just another day walking by a herd of cows on my way home through central Newcastle
- Reposted by Drew AltschulWhat are common characteristics of #power & #dominance in humans?!? 🧔🤺 ➡️ it's different in non-humans 🐒 🐦! Drew Altschul finds convergence among psyc measures - there is a general assertative factor which is stable! @dremalt.bsky.social #ehbea2025 #status
- Reposted by Drew AltschulIf anyone has questions about @manyprimates.bsky.social or want to know how to get involved, I will be at #EHBEA2025 for the rest of the week 🐒🦍🦧
- #EHBEA2025 kicks off with pre-conference panel on large scale collaborations Great to hear about some of the often unspoken aspects of large-scale collaborations @ehbea2025.bsky.social @ehbea.bsky.social @thorabjorns.bsky.social @shona-d.bsky.social @amrotella.bsky.social
- Soula's feedback has been quite valuable today. She's very invested in the current project on dog personality. Brown, meanwhile, clearly phoning it in as a collaborator. He'll be getting last author.
- Reposted by Drew AltschulWhile this is not exactly what's going on in the article, I am reminded that we've had modern measurement theory for quite a while now, and that dismayingly few widely-used and socially important measures survive first contact with it.
- Sunny day friends
