Luke Rendell | Lightnews

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 3d

maybe the human hubris that surrounds so much of the hype yes; if 'AI' includes deep learning networks my students work on them so it's not Luddism but there work ain't clickbait bs about talking to whales...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 3d

see also share.google/poGwdTJMChIA...

Are we really about to talk to whales?

It’s certainly an exciting time to study communication in whales and dolphins.

share.google

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 3d

It would be, if it wasn't overhyped nonsense, at least partly inflated by those desperate for such a positive use case.... bsky.app/profile/lren...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 14

Don't just take my word for it ... @stephanielking.bsky.social and Denise Herzing provide insightful comments in this piece: www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-n...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 3d

and continuously reposting it doesn't change that...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 3d

Don't believe the hype - this study is egregiously oversold unfortunately... bsky.app/profile/lren...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 14

Don't just take my word for it ... @stephanielking.bsky.social and Denise Herzing provide insightful comments in this piece: www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-n...

Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 4d

"Behavioural scientists are increasingly calling for context as a key to addressing pressing problems caused by human behaviour. However, despite its powerful ability to generate contextual hypotheses on the basis of relatively simple rules, ecological thinking is rarely applied to human behaviour"

Behavioural sciences need behavioural ecology - Nature Human Behaviour

Behavioural scientists want to see more consideration of context — so why are they not using tools derived from ecology, the science of all life in context? We invite behavioural scientists to align t...

www.nature.com

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 12d

So chuffed for the newly minted Dr @eadinomahony.bsky.social who crushed their viva this week at @seamammalresearch.bsky.social and gave an awesome seminar to boot! Many thanks to @tangeolsen.bsky.social for years of support! 🐳🦑🧪

me Eadin Oscar Gaggioti and Morton Olsen toasting in front of the SOI Xmas tree

Eadin and I in front of the title slide of her seminar "From breath to whole genome"

Garry @thegmcconnachie.bsky.social · 16d

“I am so bored by AI. One of the things I love about the theatre is AI can’t do it.”

Ethan Hawke is a dude 👌🏻

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 21d

🐳

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 21d

A rare bright spot for whales: Decades of conservation pay off for endangered population in Canada news.mongabay.com/2025/12/a-ra... 🧪🦑🌎

A rare bright spot for whales: Decades of conservation pay off for endangered population in Canada

Populations of northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus), playful animals that resemble large dolphins, stretch across the Atlantic Ocean, with each group of whales living year-round in a…

news.mongabay.com

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 21d

A rare bright spot for whales: Decades of conservation pay off for endangered population in Canada news.mongabay.com/2025/12/a-ra... 🧪🦑🌎

A rare bright spot for whales: Decades of conservation pay off for endangered population in Canada

Populations of northern bottlenose whales (Hyperoodon ampullatus), playful animals that resemble large dolphins, stretch across the Atlantic Ocean, with each group of whales living year-round in a…

news.mongabay.com

Rachel Kendal @rachkendal.bsky.social · 22d

Today sees the publication of the Theme Issue featuring the CES Transformation Fund grant scheme. Enjoy! royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...
@durhamdcerc.bsky.social @durhamanthropology.bsky.social @cultevolfunding.bsky.social @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social

Picture of front cover of Theme Issue entitled "Transforming cultural evolution research and its application to global futures." The image on the front cover is of a Yao honey hunter in Mozambique holding retrieved honeycomb.

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 25d

i don't agree, but it's moot because they didn't even show that, they just found spectral peaks and then made a story which is wildly inconsistent with what we know about sperm whael sound production, so.... 🤷

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 25d

Physically, yes that's what it is. But many animals sounds have this feature. What makes a vowel is not the sound but the phonological role in speech as the peak of a syllable - there's no definition that doesn't include the assumption it's a part of speech - no evidence for that role in whales!

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 28d

Very cool to see this out, congratulations @alecburslem.bsky.social ! 🥳🐳🦑

Alec Burslem @alecburslem.bsky.social · 29d

New paper out today in @ecol-evol.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1002/ece3....

The total size of the body’s fat stores is a crucial factor in understanding animal health, life history and conservation biology, but no established method exists to measure it in large marine animals without capturing them.

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · 29d

Time to kick Ruzzia out of our politics. F**k Putin and his puppet Farage.

A yellow and blue banner with F*ck Putin written on it, the * being replaced by the Ukrainian trident

Alec Burslem @alecburslem.bsky.social · 29d

New paper out today in @ecol-evol.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1002/ece3....

The total size of the body’s fat stores is a crucial factor in understanding animal health, life history and conservation biology, but no established method exists to measure it in large marine animals without capturing them.

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 18

Yeah they did PR when they pre-printed it too, nothing's changed, just now they finally managed to get it into an allegedly peer reviewed journal - RIP that journal's reputation 🤣

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 18

Nice! I think it's always interesting to get a broader community response, thanks for sharing that...

Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · Nov 15

Make Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence Again!

(Just a thought for journal editors, peer reviewers, journalists... 😉)

Odd News @oddnewsnetwork.bsky.social · Nov 14

Marine biologists are locked in what observers describe as “an academic slap fight” over whether sperm whales communicate using vowel-like patterns or whether researchers just need better microphones. Read more below...

#linguistics #Research #spermwhale #vowels #whale #OddNews

AI Studying Whale Songs Says It Thinks Whale Language Might Have Vowels

Where linguists hear “vowels,” skeptics hear “clicks,” and whales hear… absolutely none of this nonsense.

oddnews.com

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 14

Don't just take my word for it ... @stephanielking.bsky.social and Denise Herzing provide insightful comments in this piece: www.sciencenews.org/article/ai-n...

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Nov 12

No, they really haven't. Calling spectral peaks vowels is as inane as saying that because my washing up gloves are also yellow, they have the same nutritional content as a banana. Zero evidence of vowel-like function. It's pure clickbait, and a new low in irresponsible claims from this group 🙄🐳🦑🧪

Project CETI @projectceti.bsky.social · Nov 12

CETI scientists have discovered vowel and diphthong-like patterns in sperm whale communication! Read: bit.ly/3WSn9rc

By: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva & Shane Gero.
@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, @umich.edu, @carleton.ca, @csail.mit.edu
Animation: Meghan Fenske

Project CETI @projectceti.bsky.social · Nov 12

CETI scientists have discovered vowel and diphthong-like patterns in sperm whale communication! Read: bit.ly/3WSn9rc

By: @begus.bsky.social, Ronald Sprouse, Andrej Leban, Miles Silva & Shane Gero.
@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social, @umich.edu, @carleton.ca, @csail.mit.edu
Animation: Meghan Fenske

ISBE2026 @isbe2026.bsky.social · Nov 6

Meet our plenary speaker Felicity Muth!

Assistant professor at the University of California Davis, her lab group are broadly interested in cognition, especially aspects of learning and memory that have a clear function in the natural world, focusing on captive and wild bumblebees.

Will Oestreich @will-oestreich.bsky.social · Nov 3

What role(s) can non-human animal culture play in conservation? Much has been written on this topic in recent years, but Dawn Barlow, Taylor Hersh, & I offer some new perspectives: "Integrating space, time, and culture in animal conservation practice" @behavecol.bsky.social
tinyurl.com/bdfe9k3j

Integrating space, time, and culture in animal conservation practice

Recent theoretical integration of the spatiotemporal and cultural elements of animal behavior has led to increasing calls to incorporate animal culture int

academic.oup.com

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Oct 30

Great albeit exhausting fun representing @seamammalresearch.bsky.social on the Developing Young Workforce/Hope the Whale roadshow this with colleagues from WDC. 3 days, 3 schools, ~900 students ... aaaaand breath...🤣🐳

me talking about SMRU research to a class of high school pupils

me standing in front of a life sized inflatable humpback whale called Hope

Luke Rendell @lrendell.bsky.social · Oct 21

Super chuffed that @mikemwebster.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social @nakedprimate.bsky.social and I had our course 'The question of culture in animals' among this list! 🐳🧪

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · Oct 10

We're pleased to announce and congratulate the winners of the Advancing Cultural Evolution Course Design Awards! This competition recognises leading educators in the field of cultural evolution and their existing efforts to advance its teaching.

We have 7 winners and 2 runners up (listed below):

anaeg.bsky.social @anaeg.bsky.social · Oct 21

Super happy to share our new preprint on inferring Galapagos sperm whale sex and age-class using drone photogrammetry 🐳 📏 along with the wonderful @cmk-clarke.bsky.social, David Gaspard, and Hal Whitehead www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Inferring sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) sex and developmental stage using aerial photogrammetry

Demographic data (i.e. sex and age) are fundamental for analyzing behaviour patterns and evaluating the reproductive potential of a population. However, determining these traits in the wild can be cha...

www.biorxiv.org

Cultural Evolution Society @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social · Oct 10

We're pleased to announce and congratulate the winners of the Advancing Cultural Evolution Course Design Awards! This competition recognises leading educators in the field of cultural evolution and their existing efforts to advance its teaching.

We have 7 winners and 2 runners up (listed below):

Melissa Ramsay @melissa-e-ramsay.bsky.social · Aug 28

After almost a year(!!) of my PhD, I am excited to start my 3-month placement at @rothamsted.bsky.social 🌱 I shall miss this lovely group at St Andrews @animalsdoingstuff.bsky.social @mikemwebster.bsky.social @lrendell.bsky.social but I'm sure I'll be back to the sea before I know it! 🌊🐟🦀

Five members of "team fish" in our waders and woolly hats in front of the main rockpool, with a grey sky behind us.

Three members of "team fish" wading into a large rockpool carrying rigs and floats for data collection, with a blue sky and fluffy white clouds

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