Dr Urska Demsar

New paper with @beatezein.bsky.social & @jedalong.bsky.social: ⭐A new data-driven paradigm for the study of avian migratory navigation⭐ We propose how the multi-modal multi-scale nature of navigation could be studied w/ data mining, machine learning & AI. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

USC's Department of Urban Planning and Spatial Analysis is hiring 2 tenure-track assistant professors, 1 in transportation planning and 1 in environmental planning. More details...

Some of my thoughts about the surge in AI-generated papers, why this feels like a completely new kind of problem, and what this means for how we evaluate science in biology. Out now in PLOS Biology: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

I am recruiting for a 2-year postdoc position with our group at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior! Learn more & apply here: tinyurl.com/3n88uv2p Deadline: 20 Dec 2026 Start date: Flexible in 2027 @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social @carlzeissstiftung.bsky.social

Very excited to share our new paper, out now in Science. 17 years of biologging and radar data on 50 species of free-flying birds and bats revise the classic ranking of locomotion costs 🧵 doi.org/10.1126/scie... @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social @swanseauni.bsky.social @science.org 🎥 ©Bruno Osorio

Same weight, different energy bill. An Andean condor uses 79% less energy per kilometer than a trumpeter swan, even though both weigh roughly the same. Why? Find out in a new study in Science, which rewrites the costs of flight for wild birds and bats: doi.org/10.1126/scie... 1/3

Do animals remember after months of hibernation? In new research from #BiologyLetters, Columbian ground squirrels retained spatial memories after nine months of hibernation, outperforming inexperienced squirrels by 41–98% in their first maze trial after waking doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #Cognition

“The types of ideas AI tends to produce may dominate scientific production if we offload judgement to AI in both research generation and in peer review,” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We need your help - four of our satellite-tracked quail have gone missing in France! Any information would be interesting, e.g. if the signal comes from near a fox den, buzzard nest or hunting area 🦊🦅🔫 If you can recover the tag, we can re-use it - and you can name this quail 😉 Pls share widely 🇫🇷

Happy World Migratory Bird Day!🐦🧭 Every year, millions of birds travel across, connecting ecosystems and reminding us that nature knows no borders. Let's celebrate these incredible travellers and protect the habitats they depend on!✨️ Which migratory bird have you spotted recently? Share in comments

I'm recruiting PhD students this cycle! We study how the brain perceives, remembers, and predicts naturalistic experiences like movies and games, using computational tools to analyze behavioral and neural data 🧠 App deadline is 12/2/26 - see our lab pubs on our website www.dpmlab.org/pubs.html

None of this year's science Nobel Prizes have gone to women. The number of these prizes to go to women remains at 27 out of more than 600. See how many you can name in our quiz: www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

“I don’t use [generative AI] when I write grants or papers. … So I don’t particularly want them reading my work either.” https://scim.ag/46Qiqv3

My latest column www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Oh for goodness sake. What are we doing?

Time for the cyclamen to shine🌸 Enjoy your day

As editor for one journal manuscript, I've had 14 review rejections. And as many again just not reply. Only 4 suggested alternate reviewers. 2 years back, I'd need to ask 2 or 3 people tops. This is not a criticism of my colleagues - it's an indirect measure of rising academic workloads.

I'm looking to hire a postdoc to work on the RepAdapt + MacroMar projects, analysing genomic data from >130 species of plants, animals, and fungi (VCFs are processed, ready to go). Lots of potential for creativity and collaboration! yeamanlab.weebly.com/uploads/5/7/...

I wrote down my thoughts about the last several weeks of AI hell. aiguide.substack.com/p/misleading...

In a future where AI scientists run their own labs, Jonathon Keats and I argue they should learn from more than human minds. Our new essay in @nautil.us asks: What can ants, pigeons, and chimpanzees teach AI about doing better science? nautil.us/a-natural-so...

This is one of the objections I have when people talk about how useful LLMs can be for literature searches or for any kind of search, really. Even beyond the biases that inevitably (and, in some cases, intentionally) show up, part of a good literature search is seeing information *in context.*

Saw this attack in the wild for the first time, in a purported ebooks site claiming to be using Cloudflare. I expect many (most?) of you use Linux or Macs, but just in case: This is trying to get you to run a Windows program that will infect your computer. If you ever see this, run away fast.

But you don’t hire talented juniors *for the routine tasks they do*. You hire them because you want to develop them into talented seniors. When a firm says "AI can do the research and make the slide decks, so we don’t need juniors" either they don’t realise this, or... (2/3)

Based on a range of evidence it seems likely (but insanely hard to prove) that over-reliance on GPS is going to lower your hippocampal functional capacity and have for some increase risk of Alzheimer's disease so below is a good plan, but even better if its with a road atlas

Hi #ECBB2026 @ecbb2026.bsky.social 👋 I have 3 UKRI-funded Senior Research Associate positions live at the intersection of behaviour, conservation + AI (coral reefs/UK waters) 2x2yr9mth; 1x2yrs. More info here sallykeith.weebly.com/team.html Wish I was there!

📢 Postdoc opportunity in interaction networks under global change @ University of Helsinki! The position includes leading fieldwork & analyses on seed dispersal networks & mentoring junior researchers. Apply by 30 Sept: jobs.helsinki.fi/job/Helsinki... #Postdoc #Ecology #Conservation #AcademicJobs

Very nice graphic illustrations of the tragic glacial collapse in Nepal www.reuters.com/graphics/NEP...

@movebank.bsky.social just crossed 10 Billion animal tracking locations! Also 10K studies. Thanks for trust of the scientific community to archive such hard earned data there. Working on 'Movebank Neo' for the next 10 Billion

Dolly Parton, among a thousand other amazing things she did in her life, gifted over 330 million books to kids through her Imagination Library program. Her passing is a tremendous loss to the world, but you can support the program today to keep it going imaginationlibrary.com

‘SpaceX operates the largest autonomous collision-avoidance system currently in orbit. Last year the company revealed the number of collisions it was already avoiding, reporting to the fcc that its #Starlink satellites cumulatively dodged about 300,000 collisions over the course of the year…’

sunflower and blue skies sunshine 🌻 perfection 🌞 North of Scotland on a glorious warm Monday morning #UkWeather #Sunflowers

No one had to think super hard about how to make a washing machine useful. A telephone. A vacuum cleaner. So why do our bosses have to constantly challenge us to find something, anything, for which AI might be helpful If your customers don’t find your product useful, that’s a you-problem

NEW: It was a digital lynching. And the media is never going to hold itself to account for the role it played in Jason Arday’s death. But there are things we can do. This is a practical guide based on my own experience. broligarchy.substack.com/p/a-digital-...

Puffins in a line! 🥰 This one is especially for the Puffin lovers amongst my followers, I know there's one or 2 of you... 😉😁🐦😍

EcoEvoJobs 2026-27 just opened for business and we've already got 79 faculty / permanent jobs listed. Please repost! ecoevojobs.net

We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1

Really baffled by the Met Office pushing through the new interface in its current form. The old version gives me everything I need at a single glance. The new one requires extra clicks on 'detailed forecast', more clicks to ask for humidity %, and then all the info doesn't fit on screen. Poor 🙁

We need a serious reckoning about the British press. We've had too many tragedies. And this whole saga was nothing but appealing to the worst, most prejudiced instincts of their writers and readers. They turned this into a cruel, relentless spectacle until a terrible outcome.

Still one of the best takes on GenAI. Thanks @marketoonist.bsky.social.

Here comes the S̶u̶n̶ Moon 🌑 On 12 August, a total solar eclipse was visible across parts of Europe, while much of the continent experienced a partial eclipse. From space, MTG-I1 recorded the Moon’s shadow moving across Earth: www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 📹ESA/Eumetsat

People in Europe: if you’re watching the solar eclipse please remember this lesson from America:

I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...

Question: do I know anyone near Nantes who would be willing to pick up a dead gull-billed tern and its logger? L49 has sadly been killed near a road. I’d be very grateful for a picture and the logger and would of course reimburse postage.

In terms of temperature anomaly for the last three months (MJJ 2026 period), France is the most anomalous country in the world with +2.8 °C above the 1991-2020 average.

Your bad art is better than AI slop.

Thank you, Mr. Scalzi, for some required reading to give to my students this fall. I am going with a hard AI ban (with a signed no AI contract). I think this paragraph from Scalzi's piece nails the pedagogical logic behind such a ban.

New paper - What could the next 20 years of wildlife tracking look like. Our horizon scan, out today in Proc Royal Soc B, maps out 28 innovations to unlock movement ecology's untapped potential. wildlabs.net/en/article/o...

Absolutely insane footage of rock avalanches currently sweeping across the entire south face of the Matterhorn, as filmed from Cervinia! 🔥😱 📽️ Via @meteovalledosta