(Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
@kenziecromer.bsky.social
Duke Biology graduate student
NCSU alumna
Alberts Lab 🐒
NCSU alumna
Alberts Lab 🐒
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Happy to see this out in early view in Evolution! We tested the roles of signaling and camouflage in the evolution of iris color in Tyranni songbirds. Our findings suggest that bright irises are social/sexual signals mostly associated with species less vulnerable to predation
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Evaluating the roles of signaling and camouflage in the evolution of iris color in Tyranni passerines
Abstract. Iris color is a conspicuous and diverse trait across animals, but its evolutionary drivers are poorly understood. In over 1000 species of Tyranni
doi.org
November 10, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Happy to see this out in early view in Evolution! We tested the roles of signaling and camouflage in the evolution of iris color in Tyranni songbirds. Our findings suggest that bright irises are social/sexual signals mostly associated with species less vulnerable to predation
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
doi.org/10.1093/evol...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
🚨Who wants to work with Kalahari meerkats? A MSc project with @mathildemartin.bsky.social at the University of Zurich.
#bioacoustics 🧪
#bioacoustics 🧪
November 10, 2025 at 3:41 PM
🚨Who wants to work with Kalahari meerkats? A MSc project with @mathildemartin.bsky.social at the University of Zurich.
#bioacoustics 🧪
#bioacoustics 🧪
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social
November 10, 2025 at 10:57 AM
1/13 New paper out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social
Historical records across thousands of women showed that mothers with more children had shorter lifespans during a famine, fitting an evolutionary explanation for why we age
@hannahdugdale.bsky.social
@lummaalab.bsky.social
@erikpostma.bsky.social
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
As a neuroscientist, I’d suggest there is a profound disconnect between what *some* computer scientists think is representative of “intelligence”, cognitive ability, or descriptions of consciousness from some in AI work.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
November 6, 2025 at 5:19 PM
As a neuroscientist, I’d suggest there is a profound disconnect between what *some* computer scientists think is representative of “intelligence”, cognitive ability, or descriptions of consciousness from some in AI work.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
LLMs are not how neural systems process information, nor how brains function.
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
New research shows meerkat social group membership strongly shapes gut microbiomes and beneficial bacterial co-occurrence, beyond individual health or environmental exposure. ⬇️
buff.ly/neW6LHH
@krishsubramaniam.bsky.social
buff.ly/neW6LHH
@krishsubramaniam.bsky.social
November 6, 2025 at 2:01 PM
New research shows meerkat social group membership strongly shapes gut microbiomes and beneficial bacterial co-occurrence, beyond individual health or environmental exposure. ⬇️
buff.ly/neW6LHH
@krishsubramaniam.bsky.social
buff.ly/neW6LHH
@krishsubramaniam.bsky.social
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
October 20, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Interested in a PhD in ornithology? Funding available for projects at the interface of ecology, behaviour & evolution from Oct '26 working on long-term population studies of tits at Wytham, based in @biology.ox.ac.uk in the new Life & Mind Building in Oxford
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).
POSITIONS
default description
chickadeecognition.com
October 28, 2025 at 5:49 PM
I am looking for a postdoc to work in our long-term system of food-caching mountain chickadees in the Sierra Nevada mountains. The expected start is April 2026. Please see details here: chickadeecognition.com/positions
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).
If interested and qualified, please contact me directly (email on the website).
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
A ferocious paleontology debate -- over teenage T. rex vs. Nanotyrannus -- may finally be settled. @arctomet.bsky.social @stevebrusatte.bsky.social @jgn-paleo.bsky.social
As an editor of mine used to say... ain't no fight like a science fight. 🎁link: wapo.st/47D18l5
As an editor of mine used to say... ain't no fight like a science fight. 🎁link: wapo.st/47D18l5
A ferocious debate over teenage T. rex fossils may finally be settled
For decades, paleontologists debated whether fossils were of a young T. rex or a species called nanotyrannus. A new study settles it: Nanotyrannus is real.
wapo.st
October 30, 2025 at 4:31 PM
A ferocious paleontology debate -- over teenage T. rex vs. Nanotyrannus -- may finally be settled. @arctomet.bsky.social @stevebrusatte.bsky.social @jgn-paleo.bsky.social
As an editor of mine used to say... ain't no fight like a science fight. 🎁link: wapo.st/47D18l5
As an editor of mine used to say... ain't no fight like a science fight. 🎁link: wapo.st/47D18l5
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Hear from Dr. Lindsay Zanno, associate research professor at North Carolina State University, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and co-author of a new study published in Nature.
Nanotyrannus Confirmed: Dueling Dinosaurs Fossil Rewrites the Story of T. rex
YouTube video by North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences
www.youtube.com
October 30, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Hear from Dr. Lindsay Zanno, associate research professor at North Carolina State University, head of paleontology at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, and co-author of a new study published in Nature.
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
“Using a consistent cause-of-death classification from 1890-1949, we show infectious diseases—particularly tuberculosis & respiratory infections—accounted for 60–70% of the 25-year gain in life expectancy at age 1, with mortality reductions among children & young adults driving most improvement”
<em>Population and Development Review</em> | Population Council Journal | Wiley Online Library
Over the past two centuries, European metropolises have transformed from urban graveyards to healthy cocoons. Despite its critical role in the history of longevity, this evolution remains underexplor...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 30, 2025 at 9:42 PM
“Using a consistent cause-of-death classification from 1890-1949, we show infectious diseases—particularly tuberculosis & respiratory infections—accounted for 60–70% of the 25-year gain in life expectancy at age 1, with mortality reductions among children & young adults driving most improvement”
today’s photo: a cormorant attempting to die by fish. not sure how these birds are even real.
October 30, 2025 at 12:22 PM
today’s photo: a cormorant attempting to die by fish. not sure how these birds are even real.
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
🚨Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my group🚨
🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾
Find out by studying meerkats!
🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions
Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾
Find out by studying meerkats!
🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions
Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
October 17, 2025 at 9:12 AM
🚨Fully-funded PhD opportunity in my group🚨
🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾
Find out by studying meerkats!
🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions
Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
🧬How does parental ageing shape the next generation?🐾
Find out by studying meerkats!
🧪Epigenetic clocks
✨Bioinformatics
📊Long-term data
🌍Kalahari fieldwork
💡Big evolutionary questions
Get in touch or APPLY NOW
Please share!
www.uea.ac.uk/course/phd-d...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Post-doc position with James Higham at NYU looking at the effects that hurricanes have on aging and how sociality may mitigate these effects.
bioanth.org/jobs/post-do...
bioanth.org/jobs/post-do...
Post-Doctoral Associate - AABA
Note - while the position is available immediately, the start date is flexible. Interested applicants should just apply as soon as possible - we will evaluate applications on a rolling basis. Descri...
bioanth.org
October 24, 2025 at 1:50 PM
Post-doc position with James Higham at NYU looking at the effects that hurricanes have on aging and how sociality may mitigate these effects.
bioanth.org/jobs/post-do...
bioanth.org/jobs/post-do...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
People on twitter are losing their minds over this, including several scientists who I have to assume have either brain poisoned themselves or were always like this. People don't always cite what's best; they cite what they know & researchers from historically excluded communities get the short end.
October 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
People on twitter are losing their minds over this, including several scientists who I have to assume have either brain poisoned themselves or were always like this. People don't always cite what's best; they cite what they know & researchers from historically excluded communities get the short end.
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
For what seems like forever, I've wanted to know what benefits we get from our friends - or in other words, why these relationships evolved.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
Quality, quantity, and the adaptive function of social relationships
Affiliative social relationships have clear links to fitness in many species, yet
exactly why that is the case remains elusive. We unify theory from socioecology and
network science to set forth testa...
tinyurl.com
October 16, 2025 at 8:43 AM
For what seems like forever, I've wanted to know what benefits we get from our friends - or in other words, why these relationships evolved.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Also check out the great summary perspectives in @science.org by Lindsay Zanno featuring @nataliajagielska.bsky.social’s incredible illustration of the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
October 24, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Also check out the great summary perspectives in @science.org by Lindsay Zanno featuring @nataliajagielska.bsky.social’s incredible illustration of the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Postdoc position available at NYU Anthropology to work on topics related to longitudinal aging in the long-running (>80 years) study of rhesus macaque biology on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico 🧪 #primates #academicsky
apply.interfolio.com/173938
📷: davidraju, wikimedia commons
apply.interfolio.com/173938
📷: davidraju, wikimedia commons
October 23, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Postdoc position available at NYU Anthropology to work on topics related to longitudinal aging in the long-running (>80 years) study of rhesus macaque biology on Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico 🧪 #primates #academicsky
apply.interfolio.com/173938
📷: davidraju, wikimedia commons
apply.interfolio.com/173938
📷: davidraju, wikimedia commons
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Post-reproductive lifespan in wild mountain gorillas: "Almost one third of females in our study population (7/25) were “postreproductive” according to a commonly used criterion & lived more than a decade past their age of last reproduction, representing at least a fourth of their adult lifespan"
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
October 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Post-reproductive lifespan in wild mountain gorillas: "Almost one third of females in our study population (7/25) were “postreproductive” according to a commonly used criterion & lived more than a decade past their age of last reproduction, representing at least a fourth of their adult lifespan"
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork
👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🙏Share widely
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork
👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🙏Share widely
October 16, 2025 at 7:46 AM
❓ Want to join us?
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork
👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🙏Share widely
📢 Fully funded #PhD for UK-domiciled Black heritage candidates
🐵 Biological market monitoring & manipulation in social animals #mongooses #macaques #fieldwork
👥 With me, #LaurenBrent & #PatrickKennedy
🎓 @bristolbiosci.bsky.social
ℹ️ www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
🙏Share widely
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
New preprint! 🪶
We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️
With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️
With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
October 14, 2025 at 2:35 PM
New preprint! 🪶
We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️
With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
We analysed 60 years of data on 83,000+ great tits to show how extreme climate impacts on nestling growth and survival are stage-specific and context-dependent 🐣 🌍🔥❄️
With @davididiaquez.bsky.social @iremsepil.bsky.social @sheldonbirds.bsky.social
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
when Delphine shares a paper you know it’s gonna be great!! 🤩
Social relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*?
In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts.
tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
October 16, 2025 at 2:00 PM
when Delphine shares a paper you know it’s gonna be great!! 🤩
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
"Sexual selection and parental care shape lifespan differences" across mammals and birds
https://www.mpg.de/25470066/0926-evan-why-women-live-longer-than-men-150495-x?c=2249
https://www.mpg.de/25470066/0926-evan-why-women-live-longer-than-men-150495-x?c=2249
Why women live longer than men
Study traces the evolutionary roots of the lifespan gap between women and men
www.mpg.de
October 3, 2025 at 4:39 PM
"Sexual selection and parental care shape lifespan differences" across mammals and birds
https://www.mpg.de/25470066/0926-evan-why-women-live-longer-than-men-150495-x?c=2249
https://www.mpg.de/25470066/0926-evan-why-women-live-longer-than-men-150495-x?c=2249
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
Demographic, behavioral, and ecological data from a long-term field study of wild baboons in Amboseli, Kenya https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680086v1
October 4, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Demographic, behavioral, and ecological data from a long-term field study of wild baboons in Amboseli, Kenya https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.10.03.680086v1
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
World-renowned wildlife photographer against the algorithm. Tim Flach and the new challenges he's facing against AI.
www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
World-renowned wildlife photographer against the algorithm
Tech Now meets British wildlife photographer Tim Flach facing new challenges from AI mimicking his images.
www.bbc.com
October 4, 2025 at 5:05 AM
World-renowned wildlife photographer against the algorithm. Tim Flach and the new challenges he's facing against AI.
www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
www.bbc.com/reel/video/p...
Reposted by (Carmen) Kenzie Cromer
New today: We're petitioning NSF to revert GRFP eligibility criteria to last year's terms, to avoid pulling the rug out from under the earliest of early-career scientists who had every reason to think they'd be able to apply this year. Sign and spread the word!
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
September 29, 2025 at 6:36 PM
New today: We're petitioning NSF to revert GRFP eligibility criteria to last year's terms, to avoid pulling the rug out from under the earliest of early-career scientists who had every reason to think they'd be able to apply this year. Sign and spread the word!
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/
laurenkuehne.github.io/grfpChanges/