pfcook
- New article with some legendary marine mammal research vets - we make the case for opportunistic, developmental studies of naturally occurring maternal exposure to algal neurotoxins in sea lions. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- This one was a long time in the making! Written with my great colleagues Heidi Harley and Gordon Bauer, and a host of people game enough to engage with us on cognition and marine mammal conservation at a special 2022 Marine Mammal Society workshop. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
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- Reposted by pfcookCow Tools! We have lived alongside cows for nearly 10,000 years. We breed them and exploit them It is now, only now, that we have discovered THEY CAN USE TOOLS Here I describe our study (paper) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... in @currentbiology.bsky.social with @auersperga.bsky.social
- Here's a fun one - colleagues did formant analysis on a harbor seal before and after he learned to modify one of his vocalizations. A growing body of work suggests Phocinae seals really do have fairly high vocal production plasticity. Wonder why... link.springer.com/article/10.1...
- Reposted by pfcookNature research paper: Predictive coding of reward in the hippocampus go.nature.com/49mB13V
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- www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti... Salmon hats may be the closest thing to a non-human animal meme yet documented. Socially spread, no clear link to vital learned behaviors as with most animal play. The stuff about the paralimbic lobe though - we don’t know it’s function yet.
- Reposted by pfcook1/2 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.
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- www.theatlantic.com/science/2026... As a sea lion (cognitive) scientist (pinnipedlab.ucsc.edu/files/2020/0...), I've been thinking about these guys for years. Because sea lions are flexible resource finders but ruthless exploiters, they're hard to deter. A new sea lion is always showing up!
- Reposted by pfcookNorth Atlantic #Orca appear to be expanding from harassing #yachts to going after #commercialvessels North Atlantic warning: orcas now targeting commercial vessels in what experts call coordinated assaults share.google/kwy5wy9eIc33...
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- Reposted by pfcookHonoring James A. Estes, a pioneering ecologist whose research on sea otters in Alaska revealed how predators shape entire ecosystems. His work helped define the concept of trophic cascades and inspired generations of ecologists. Read the PNAS Retrospective: ow.ly/leKs50XrKBH
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- Was happy to write a commentary for this very cool opportunistic study of long-term neural effects of partner loss in coyotes (which are the rare sexually monogamous species). Naturalistic studies of non-model species are a great complement to lab models. authors.elsevier.com/a/1lkyT15hTu...
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- journals.plos.org/plosone/arti... New paper from my grad lab at New College's Marine Mammal Science Master's program - @marmamsci-ncf.bsky.social - Grad student Sophie Flem did heroic work examining ascending and descending auditory pathways in baleen and toothed whale brains.
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[Not loaded yet] - www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Love this - "soft assembly," that is, the ability for physical systems to organize/function in complex ways/based on physical structure and how it interacts with the environment, is understudied in neuroscience and biology and underused in robotics. Dynamic systems!
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