Andrew Jackson
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yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson
@yodacomplex.bsky.social
950 followers 210 following 99 posts

Professor. #Zoology, Theoretical #Ecology & #Evolution, Trinity College Dublin.

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Environmental science 56%
Geography 14%
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yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 3d
Except on Ash Wednesday. That could get you disappeared in any self-respecting Christian country.

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 3d
What precisely are these “Christian values” they so vigorously defend that other religions and non—religions do not hold?… eating bacon is one them.

Reposted by Patrick Dunleavy, Andrew L. Jackson

ottoenglish.bsky.social
Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 3d
Senior Reform candidate writes:

"People from other religions should eat bacon for a month to prove their Christian sincerity and credentials."

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Reform candidate slammed over 'bacon' religion comment as Farage faces pressure
A senior Reform UK candidate faces fresh criticism over 'unacceptable' comments suggesting non-Christians should eat 'bacon' to prove their sincerity to the religion
www.mirror.co.uk

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

nhm-london.bsky.social
Natural History Museum, London @nhm-london.bsky.social · 15d
Robins became the iconic bird of Christmas in the Victorian era, when postmen were nicknamed robins due to their red waistcoats!

Over time, robins began to appear on Christmas cards to represent the postmen who delivered them. 📮

Learn more about this feathered festive favourite: brnw.ch/21wYfin
A red-breasted robin perched on top of a birdhouse in the shape of a red postbox marked "Letters only".

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 17d
I hope they didn’t pay him for that talk. I hate to think what his fees are.

Reposted by Colin Murray, Chris Hanretty, Andrew L. Jackson , and 1 more

jennanewman.bsky.social
jenna newman phd @jennanewman.bsky.social · 22d
“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47% drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, & critical reasoning.

Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage.”🧪
“When participants used ChatGPT to draft essays, brain scans revealed a 47 percent drop in neural connectivity across regions associated with memory, language, and critical reasoning. Their brains worked less, but they felt just as engaged—a kind of metacognitive mirage. Eighty-three percent of heavy Al users couldn't recall key points from what they'd "written, compared to only 10 percent of those who composed unaided. Neutral reviewers described the Al-assisted writing as "soulless, empty, lacking individuality." Most alarmingly, after four months of reliance on Chat GPT, participants wrote worse once it was removed than those who had never used it at all. The study warns that when writing is delegated to Al, the way people learn fundamentally changes.”

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

moonjam.com
AJ Jefferies @moonjam.com · 22d
All of the companies that make the software I use are increasing their prices, to account for an "investment" in AI.

I'm sat here imagining how my clients would feel if I added 30% to each invoice, because I "really got into gambling".

Reposted by John R. Hutchinson, Andrew L. Jackson, Rebecca Williams , and 1 more

richardjbutler.bsky.social
Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 23d
Curatorial job with significant geological and palaeontological collections at Warwick Museums.

www.wmjobs.co.uk/job/250490/c...
Curator of Natural Sciences - Warwick,Warwickshire job with Warwickshire County Council | 250490
About Heritage and Culture Warwickshire Heritage and Culture Warwickshire (HCW) provide a wide range of services that help local communities and ...
www.wmjobs.co.uk

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 24d
Im going to bravely put my hand up and claim that among biologists, ecologists probably have the best appreciation of non-RCD epidemiology studies. And would be reasonably well able to appreciate the complexities. So hire ecologists in public health is my plea! Its ecology all the way down!

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 25d
shoot me now: "We came across your paper [...] and applied custom AI models on it, which generated 5 new extensions. Our pilot study indicates that up to 60% of scientists found the proposed extensions both thought-provoking and actionable."

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 25d
agree. This is very well put.
bmhughes.bsky.social Brian Hughes @bmhughes.bsky.social · 25d
This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

johnnyakatura.bsky.social
John Nyakatura @johnnyakatura.bsky.social · 25d
More info on our recent paper in this interview in Science...

Why does biology keep building things out of tiles? | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...
Why does biology keep building things out of tiles?
Science talks with two scientists about finding the beauty in nature’s mosaics
www.science.org

Reposted by Cas Mudde, Anna O. Law, Kim L. Scheppele , and 18 more

bmhughes.bsky.social
Brian Hughes @bmhughes.bsky.social · 25d
This is actually quite brilliant, up to and including the final sentence 🔥

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 25d
Well now.. thats quite the offer of a Monday morning.
A screenshot of an email. A person called Denise writes they are "ready to see your insect tissue..."

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 25d
Strong vibes i.redd.it/tgsxs3711i18...
A scene from the “polymorph” in Red Dwarf. As an idea to deal with a murderous space alien, Rimmer suggests “Gentlemen, I propose we hit it hard with a major, and I mean major… leaflet campaign”

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

nessocon.bsky.social
Nessa O'Connor @nessocon.bsky.social · 27d
It’s Trinity Open Day and one of the most common questions I get asked is ‘what kind of jobs do zoologists do?’ - so we asked our alumni… youtu.be/lJr4AsZ_rLc?...
Zoology Alumni
YouTube video by Trinity College Dublin
youtu.be

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

evoldir.bsky.social
EvolDir @evoldir.bsky.social · 28d
Open postdoc position in Theoretical Evolutionary Biology at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, focusing on mathematical models of social traits. Details: https://tinyurl.com/37uhtbne #postdoc

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 28d
all three things can* be true

*are

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 28d
Amidst all the deep thinking of all things science, it is still the childlike wonder of new discoveries that makes my day
A giant cornflake in my hand, found this morning in my cereal. It is approximately 5x4cm in size.

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · 29d
I cannot think of a single ethical or moral argument for Generative AI and this isn’t helping
kenwhite.bsky.social Your Last Merry Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Nov 26
James Bond supervillains threaten to blow up the world with their big laser unless you pay them a trillion dollars.

Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans.

Reposted by Steve Peers, Andrew L. Jackson, Greg Linden , and 2 more

kenwhite.bsky.social
Your Last Merry Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · Nov 26
James Bond supervillains threaten to blow up the world with their big laser unless you pay them a trillion dollars.

Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans.

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Nov 23
Quite the thread!
davidlambertart.bsky.social Westerns & the Old West @davidlambertart.bsky.social · Dec 3
On May 11, 1950, while working on the Rawlins National Bank in Wyoming, a construction crew unearthed a whiskey barrel that contained a human skeleton with its skull cap sawed off & an odd pair of shoes. Dr. Lillian Heath, now in her 80s, was asked if she knew anything about it...🧵

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Nov 15
And even then, we already know that people will wilfully ignore their and their family’s ancestry to further their political ambitions. I suspect we have learned nothing of any academic value from this project.

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Nov 15
While there _might_ be some value in using these tools to answer specific questions, maybe such as to verify his ancestry, there is absolutely no value in a tabloid style National Enquirer type “exposé”.

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Nov 15
This whole project is grotesque and a classic case of just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Prof King’s justification of: well someone was going to do it eventually it might as well be me is lame in the extreme www.bbc.com/news/article...
Should Hitler's DNA have been studied?
Ground-breaking research has made some fascinating discoveries on the dictator, from his ancestry to possible neurological disorders.
www.bbc.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, Andrew L. Jackson

statsepi.bsky.social
Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · Nov 14
Valuable reporting here from @cathleenogrady.bsky.social for @science.org, adding context and other important voices to our perspective piece (linked further below, with @wiringthebrain.bsky.social and @deevybee.bsky.social)

www.science.org/content/arti...

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Nov 14
I saw this on LinkedIn yesterday in support of GAMs.
Someone did crimes against maths and statistics. A straight line is fitted to a sine wave as a way to show that GAMs are superior. For good measure they also fitted a neural network model to show that it overfits.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

eldarrak.bsky.social
Eldar Rakhimberdiev @eldarrak.bsky.social · Nov 4
Want your modelling to save birds? PhD with me at UvA (Amsterdam): build spatial integrated population model for black-tailed godwits with world-class dataset and strong team here & @birdeyes-gfn.bsky.social/RUG). werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies... Apply by 1 Dec 2025: #Ecology #Bayesian #Conservation
a couple of individually marked godwits. Photo by J. Seenstra

yodacomplex.bsky.social
Andrew Jackson @yodacomplex.bsky.social · Oct 23
And our paper is out! One curve to rule them all: a simple universal thermal performance curve for ectotherms that explains at least 2700 datasets across 39 phyla and myriad measures of performance. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Biological performance across the tree of life collapses onto the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC). Shown are approx. 30,000 performance measurements derived from seven kingdoms, 39 phyla, and 2,710 experiments. Performance is represented by diverse rates including metabolism, individual growth, foraging intensity, voluntary activity, and population growth (see SI Appendix for data grouped by phylum and performance metric). Data are presented on both axes relative to the parameters (Topt, Tc and Pfmax ) estimated by fitting the UTPC equation to each of the 2,710 experiments; the UTPC is overlaid as a yellow line and fits the rescaled data extremely well. Data are colored by the relative density of neighboring points showing very high density of points close to the line and relatively few datapoints further from the line. Data collapse, and models converge, onto a Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC), which only requires optimal and critical temperatures as parameters. Top panels show empirical data on thermal performance encompassing (A) specific growth rate of proteobacteria (), (B) biochemical rates of photosynthesis in plants (), (C) running speeds of lizards (), and (D) population growth in insects (). Lower panels (E–H) showcase the rescaled data from the processes exposed on top, along with their corresponding alignment to the Universal Thermal Performance Curve (UTPC) equation. Datasets are from Kontopoulos et al. (21) for proteobacteria and from Rezende and Bozinovic (6) for other groups. The upper panels of the raw data show substantial variation in the shape and location of the thermal performance curves. The lower row shows that rescaling the data using the simple model results in the data conforming to a single underlying curve with very little variation from the model.

Reposted by Andrew L. Jackson

science.org
Science Magazine @science.org · Oct 21
Static electricity may be key to helping a tiny roundworm latch onto its insect hosts.

Like a heat-seeking missile, the parasite zooms up to 10 millimeters in the air before getting yanked toward its target by nothing more than the electrostatic charge of its host. https://scim.ag/3WKFVjZ