Gunnar De Winter
@gunnardewinter.bsky.social
Biologist and semi-philosopher | science (and fiction) writer | plays with words and ideas
🌍 Belgium (for now)
🙋♂️ gunnardewinter.com
🌍 Belgium (for now)
🙋♂️ gunnardewinter.com
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Liked this a lot when I first read it
- Child of the Mountain in @clarkesworldmagazine.com
Chime, the immortal child, takes care of the sisters' resurrections. Until she has an idea for herself...
Chime, the immortal child, takes care of the sisters' resurrections. Until she has an idea for herself...
Child of the Mountain by Gunnar De Winter
Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.
clarkesworldmagazine.com
November 15, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Liked this a lot when I first read it
If anyone is reading for Hugo/Nebula/Locus Awards and wants a Belgian on the ballot (how could I resist that alliteration?), here are two stories I'm proud of. One is my fiction debut in Clarkesworld, the other won a prize.
👇
#writing #fiction #sciencefiction #sff #writingcommunity
👇
#writing #fiction #sciencefiction #sff #writingcommunity
November 14, 2025 at 7:24 PM
If anyone is reading for Hugo/Nebula/Locus Awards and wants a Belgian on the ballot (how could I resist that alliteration?), here are two stories I'm proud of. One is my fiction debut in Clarkesworld, the other won a prize.
👇
#writing #fiction #sciencefiction #sff #writingcommunity
👇
#writing #fiction #sciencefiction #sff #writingcommunity
Ceci n'est pas a spider.
Scientists observed a species of spider (B and E) build a large decoy spider (A,C, and D) from plant detritus and prey remains, possibly to misdirect or repel predatory attacks.
(Study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...)
#science #biology #animals
Scientists observed a species of spider (B and E) build a large decoy spider (A,C, and D) from plant detritus and prey remains, possibly to misdirect or repel predatory attacks.
(Study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...)
#science #biology #animals
November 13, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Ceci n'est pas a spider.
Scientists observed a species of spider (B and E) build a large decoy spider (A,C, and D) from plant detritus and prey remains, possibly to misdirect or repel predatory attacks.
(Study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...)
#science #biology #animals
Scientists observed a species of spider (B and E) build a large decoy spider (A,C, and D) from plant detritus and prey remains, possibly to misdirect or repel predatory attacks.
(Study: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...)
#science #biology #animals
"...Homo economicus, a notional figure governed by dispassionate self-interest. But while most people don’t embody this paradigm, we are in thrall to political structures and corporations created in that image, with Dark Triad personalities at the wheel."
Luke Kemp in @noemamag.com
#culture
Luke Kemp in @noemamag.com
#culture
Humanity’s Endgame | NOEMA
A new history of societal collapse by an expert in existential risk argues that our globalized society is edging toward the precipice.
www.noemamag.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:53 PM
"...Homo economicus, a notional figure governed by dispassionate self-interest. But while most people don’t embody this paradigm, we are in thrall to political structures and corporations created in that image, with Dark Triad personalities at the wheel."
Luke Kemp in @noemamag.com
#culture
Luke Kemp in @noemamag.com
#culture
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Ooh, I haven't published much fiction this year, but...
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
If you wrote an SF/F/H story that was published in 2025 (or read a story that you thought was great), tell me about it in this thread!
Authors, also send your story to me here: johnjosephadams.com/basff-submis... (Please read the guidelines before submitting.)
Authors, also send your story to me here: johnjosephadams.com/basff-submis... (Please read the guidelines before submitting.)
November 10, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Ooh, I haven't published much fiction this year, but...
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
Ooh, I haven't published much fiction this year, but...
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
If you wrote an SF/F/H story that was published in 2025 (or read a story that you thought was great), tell me about it in this thread!
Authors, also send your story to me here: johnjosephadams.com/basff-submis... (Please read the guidelines before submitting.)
Authors, also send your story to me here: johnjosephadams.com/basff-submis... (Please read the guidelines before submitting.)
November 10, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Ooh, I haven't published much fiction this year, but...
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
- Clarkesworld fiction debut! (clarkesworldmagazine.com/dewinter_01_...)
- First prize-winning story in Tractor Beam! (www.tractorbeam.earth/story/desert...)
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
This reminds me of a paper this year on how congenitally blind people can talk about colour in detail (wonder if relevant to Molyneaux problem too):
Liu, Van Paridon, and Lupyan. 2025. ‘Learning about Color from Language’. Communications Psychology 3 (1): 60. doi.org/10.1038/s442...
Liu, Van Paridon, and Lupyan. 2025. ‘Learning about Color from Language’. Communications Psychology 3 (1): 60. doi.org/10.1038/s442...
Learning about color from language - Communications Psychology
Blind people show similar associations between adjectives (e.g. cold) and colours (e.g. blue) as sighted people; word embedding models trained on corpora of written and spoken language learn these ass...
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:17 AM
This reminds me of a paper this year on how congenitally blind people can talk about colour in detail (wonder if relevant to Molyneaux problem too):
Liu, Van Paridon, and Lupyan. 2025. ‘Learning about Color from Language’. Communications Psychology 3 (1): 60. doi.org/10.1038/s442...
Liu, Van Paridon, and Lupyan. 2025. ‘Learning about Color from Language’. Communications Psychology 3 (1): 60. doi.org/10.1038/s442...
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Much of the empirical & theoretical landscape on #behaviouralmodernity has changed, and many think it’s high time we ditched the concept altogether. Here’s a minority voice in the choir: I’m skeptical that eliminativism is the panacea it’s often made out to be. 🔜 in Biol Theory
#philsky #evosky🧪🏺
#philsky #evosky🧪🏺
The Fate of Behavioral Modernity - PhilSci-Archive
philsci-archive.pitt.edu
November 8, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Much of the empirical & theoretical landscape on #behaviouralmodernity has changed, and many think it’s high time we ditched the concept altogether. Here’s a minority voice in the choir: I’m skeptical that eliminativism is the panacea it’s often made out to be. 🔜 in Biol Theory
#philsky #evosky🧪🏺
#philsky #evosky🧪🏺
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Unveiled by the buzzy startup Deep, Vanguard will let teams of scientists live and work on the seabed for a week at a time.
The first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch
Unveiled by the buzzy startup Deep, Vanguard will let teams of scientists live and work on the seabed for a week at a time.
www.technologyreview.com
November 7, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Unveiled by the buzzy startup Deep, Vanguard will let teams of scientists live and work on the seabed for a week at a time.
Spider Megacity just dropped.
In Sulfur Cave, on the border between Albania and Greece, researchers have found the largest spiderweb in the world. At over 1,000 square feet, it houses over 100,000 individual spiders, mostly of two species.
#science #biology
subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...
In Sulfur Cave, on the border between Albania and Greece, researchers have found the largest spiderweb in the world. At over 1,000 square feet, it houses over 100,000 individual spiders, mostly of two species.
#science #biology
subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...
November 7, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Spider Megacity just dropped.
In Sulfur Cave, on the border between Albania and Greece, researchers have found the largest spiderweb in the world. At over 1,000 square feet, it houses over 100,000 individual spiders, mostly of two species.
#science #biology
subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...
In Sulfur Cave, on the border between Albania and Greece, researchers have found the largest spiderweb in the world. At over 1,000 square feet, it houses over 100,000 individual spiders, mostly of two species.
#science #biology
subtbiol.pensoft.net/article/1623...
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Work published today in @natbiotech.nature.com from Arc’s Luke Gilbert and Patrick Hsu labs presents a new way to insert large DNA sequences into the genome using engineered recombinases that don’t require DNA cutting or rely on the cell's repair machinery.
November 6, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Work published today in @natbiotech.nature.com from Arc’s Luke Gilbert and Patrick Hsu labs presents a new way to insert large DNA sequences into the genome using engineered recombinases that don’t require DNA cutting or rely on the cell's repair machinery.
Great whites: “We are the scourge of the oceans. Fear us, ye humble sea creatures.”
Killer whales: *chuckle
“... indicating efficient ability by the mammals in attempting to induce tonic immobility in the prey and allow uninterrupted access to the liver for consumption.“
#science 🧪 #biology 🦈
Killer whales: *chuckle
“... indicating efficient ability by the mammals in attempting to induce tonic immobility in the prey and allow uninterrupted access to the liver for consumption.“
#science 🧪 #biology 🦈
Frontiers | Novel evidence of interaction between killer whales (Orcinus orca) and juvenile white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) in the Gulf of California, Mexico
White sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), have only one known natural predator in the ocean, the orca or killer whale (Orcinus orca). While interactions between...
www.frontiersin.org
November 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
2025 spirit animal: the upside-down jellyfish
🪼🙃
Find out about their amazing biology here👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
by Noémie Buratto& @elisjthore.bsky.social
🪼🙃
Find out about their amazing biology here👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
by Noémie Buratto& @elisjthore.bsky.social
Upside-down jellyfish
Noémie Buratto and Eli Thoré introduce Cassiopea, a genus of jellyfish living invertedly
on the sea floor.
www.cell.com
November 4, 2025 at 11:57 AM
2025 spirit animal: the upside-down jellyfish
🪼🙃
Find out about their amazing biology here👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
by Noémie Buratto& @elisjthore.bsky.social
🪼🙃
Find out about their amazing biology here👇
www.cell.com/current-biol...
by Noémie Buratto& @elisjthore.bsky.social
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Oocyte-like mouse cells made from stem cells even without the guiding signals from ovarian cells. Another step towards in vitro gametes.
www.cell.com/developmenta...
www.cell.com/developmenta...
In vitro oogenesis breaks free of the ovary
In this issue of Developmental Cell, Nosaka et al. differentiate mouse pluripotent
stem cells to large germinal vesicle-stage oocyte-like cells in the absence of ovarian
somatic cells. Their paradigm ...
www.cell.com
November 3, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Oocyte-like mouse cells made from stem cells even without the guiding signals from ovarian cells. Another step towards in vitro gametes.
www.cell.com/developmenta...
www.cell.com/developmenta...
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
not syndrome. imposter celebration. enjoying every day they don't kick you out and you get to mess around.
September 24, 2025 at 7:37 PM
not syndrome. imposter celebration. enjoying every day they don't kick you out and you get to mess around.
LLMs get brain rot from social media and content mills...
"... continual exposure to junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in large language models (LLMs)."
#science #technology #LLM
"... continual exposure to junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in large language models (LLMs)."
#science #technology #LLM
LLMs Can Get "Brain Rot"!
We propose and test the LLM Brain Rot Hypothesis: continual exposure to junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in large language models (LLMs). To causally isolate data quality, we run contro...
www.arxiv.org
November 1, 2025 at 5:33 PM
LLMs get brain rot from social media and content mills...
"... continual exposure to junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in large language models (LLMs)."
#science #technology #LLM
"... continual exposure to junk web text induces lasting cognitive decline in large language models (LLMs)."
#science #technology #LLM
My brain needs to make up its mind.
October 31, 2025 at 8:04 PM
My brain needs to make up its mind.
If humans could photosynthesize, we’d probably still forget to go outside enough to do it.
October 31, 2025 at 3:21 PM
If humans could photosynthesize, we’d probably still forget to go outside enough to do it.
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
What Everyone Should Know About Fungi by Age 15
7️⃣ Mycorrhizal fungi help clean polluted soils by breaking down or immobilizing harmful substances. They act as filters, protecting groundwater & supporting healthier ecosystems.
See the top 10 list (buff.ly/33Ov3UD) and follow for new fungal facts.
7️⃣ Mycorrhizal fungi help clean polluted soils by breaking down or immobilizing harmful substances. They act as filters, protecting groundwater & supporting healthier ecosystems.
See the top 10 list (buff.ly/33Ov3UD) and follow for new fungal facts.
October 31, 2025 at 3:13 PM
What Everyone Should Know About Fungi by Age 15
7️⃣ Mycorrhizal fungi help clean polluted soils by breaking down or immobilizing harmful substances. They act as filters, protecting groundwater & supporting healthier ecosystems.
See the top 10 list (buff.ly/33Ov3UD) and follow for new fungal facts.
7️⃣ Mycorrhizal fungi help clean polluted soils by breaking down or immobilizing harmful substances. They act as filters, protecting groundwater & supporting healthier ecosystems.
See the top 10 list (buff.ly/33Ov3UD) and follow for new fungal facts.
Time for some cool research.
It's a Fungi World, Sycophantic AI, the Secret of the Bowhead Whale, and More
#science #biology #technology
It's a Fungi World, Sycophantic AI, the Secret of the Bowhead Whale, and More
#science #biology #technology
It's a Fungi World, Sycophantic AI, the Secret of the Bowhead Whale, and More
A research roundup - biology, technology, and all things in between
subtlesparks.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Time for some cool research.
It's a Fungi World, Sycophantic AI, the Secret of the Bowhead Whale, and More
#science #biology #technology
It's a Fungi World, Sycophantic AI, the Secret of the Bowhead Whale, and More
#science #biology #technology
Are we surprised?
"... when generating and evaluating resumes, ChatGPT assumes that women are younger and less experienced, rating older male applicants as of higher quality. "
#science #technology
"... when generating and evaluating resumes, ChatGPT assumes that women are younger and less experienced, rating older male applicants as of higher quality. "
#science #technology
Age and gender distortion in online media and large language models - Nature
Stereotypes of age-related gender bias are socially distorted, as evidenced by the age gap in the representations of women and men across various media and algorithms, despite no systematic age differ...
www.nature.com
October 30, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Are we surprised?
"... when generating and evaluating resumes, ChatGPT assumes that women are younger and less experienced, rating older male applicants as of higher quality. "
#science #technology
"... when generating and evaluating resumes, ChatGPT assumes that women are younger and less experienced, rating older male applicants as of higher quality. "
#science #technology
Reposted by Gunnar De Winter
Nature research paper: Evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead whale
go.nature.com/4oNJSAG
go.nature.com/4oNJSAG
Evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead whale - Nature
Analysis of the longest-lived mammal, the bowhead whale, reveals an improved ability to repair DNA breaks, mediated by high levels of cold-inducible RNA-binding protein.
go.nature.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Nature research paper: Evidence for improved DNA repair in long-lived bowhead whale
go.nature.com/4oNJSAG
go.nature.com/4oNJSAG
This is an excellent, thought-provoking read
Plague, leprosy, smallpox and other diseases didn't jump from animals to humans when we thought. Ancient DNA is revealing where they come from and how they changed history
How a surge in ancient plagues 5000 years ago shaped humanity
Plague, leprosy, smallpox and other diseases didn't jump from animals to humans when we thought. Ancient DNA is revealing where they come from and how they changed history
www.newscientist.com
October 30, 2025 at 8:18 AM
This is an excellent, thought-provoking read
