ct_bergstrom

@ct_bergstrom@fediscience.org

I am a biology professor at the University of Washington. I study how information flows in biology, science, and society.

I wrote a book: Calling Bullshit: http://tinyurl.com/fdcuvd7b

I love ravens and crows.

he/him

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ct_bergstrom, to Birds

New phylogenetic tree of just dropped.

(paywalled, I think)

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07323-1

slashdottir,
@slashdottir@mastodon.online avatar

@ct_bergstrom A shareable link I found: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07323-1.epdf?sharing_token=-mQ6UCdLpfx89RFuhdvxatRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0M6pOXJe1718OoKhxQL2GqXu1rXk1pRygRkhHTylbJrP-NzwtBdlmsopXJMvO1whUqmWtQDooTALednwBE5LOpwi4eQfZgl9-F82AbvK-mQa17FmOJ-ySOTqKvcTGLZmWdW2q2C0AMWOTnnwDZ_5Gd5lcs4lISxbAVqaWxcasXrVz7OH0Wn4FBALfEGPt2pKPtQt6D4ddQzuwWamFrZ3m2a&tracking_referrer=www.popsci.com

SmallOther, to random

This interview with @ct_bergstrom was always going to age well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEKLwFoBZjc

I'm reminded of it every week, most recently:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilybaker-white/2023/01/20/tiktoks-secret-heating-button-can-make-anyone-go-viral/?sh=6093bc936bfd

ct_bergstrom, to random

Picked up this lifer in Southern New Mexico this week: a pyrrhuloxia.

skry,
@skry@mastodon.social avatar

@ct_bergstrom Gorgeous! Ruby around the eyes adds to its regal bearing, but the crest marks it as some sort of wizard. The pink knickers are a bit much, but the racing stripes tamp it down a bit. Gray topcoats are always in good taste.

ct_bergstrom, to random

Tonight I had one of the most glorious birding moments of my life. A decade ago I first saw pinyon jays in the Colorado mountains. Ever since I've looked for them in the mountains around Santa Fe on my frequent visits there. I can usually find them, but it takes time and I see just a few.

After massive commercial deforestation and climate-change driven destruction of the pinyon forests they rely on, their numbers are plummeting and they are being considered for the endangered species list. 1/2

ct_bergstrom,

Tonight after a great day working with colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute, Joe Bak-Coleman went for a hike. As we headed back to the car, A huge flock of birds headed up Santa Fe Canyon; I knew their squeaky caws before I even saw them. It was a group of at least 100 pinyon jays heading to roost. I've never seen anything like it. I am so happy they are thriving here. 2/2

Zoom: A hundred blue pinyon jays fly across low pinyon scrub in Santa Fe Canyon just before sunset.

ct_bergstrom, to random

Bob Dylan recorded Red River Shore for his monumental 1997 Time Out of Mind, but in the end it did not make the record. That choice makes sense; it would have been out of place on the record.

But I’m struck by how perfectly the song would fit on Springsteen’s 1995 Ghost of Tom Joad.

I even hear Dylan mimicking Springsteen’s vocal mannerisms.

Remarkable.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hPtkQWneopA

fae2535,

@ct_bergstrom

❤️

ct_bergstrom, to random

Hold on.

I'm being told it's actually kind of a dck move.

xorn,
@xorn@mastodon.social avatar

@ct_bergstrom Mmm... Retat

NunavutBirder, to superbowl
@NunavutBirder@mas.to avatar

Last one for #SuperbOwl Sunday. Owls (and other Arctic Predators, avian and mammal) use rises and hummocks to scan for prey, using the same spots year after year. Their waste and remains of prey fertilize the spot and the plants grow taller there than the surrounding tundra. Here a juvenile Snowy peers at me from such a spot. #Nunavut #Arctic #WildlifePhotography #Birding

ct_bergstrom, to random

From this time last year, an eagle in the rainy predawn twilight of Sitka, Alaska.

ct_bergstrom,

An hour later....

ct_bergstrom, to random

Willet borrowing Andrew Wyeth's pallet.

CorinaLogan,

#1 Grackle vs Crow -Aesops Fable water tube tests

  • Heavy vs light: most grackles & all crows preferred to drop functional heavy objects. Score 1:1
  • Wide vs narrow: no grackles had a tube preference, while most crows preferred to drop objects into the functional wide tube. Score: 1:2

Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5rHHb52vAs. I ran these tests on great-tailed grackles & New Caledonian crows using similar methods & apparatuses.

GTGR: https://peerj.com/articles/1975
Crow: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0103049

CorinaLogan,

Hi @ct_bergstrom and @cobalt Thanks for inspiring a thread on grackle vs crow cognition! It turns out that the grackles are quite the contenders - sometimes their performance is the same as crows, sometimes worse, and sometimes better. Here are the details…

CorinaLogan,

EXTRA
We found that grackles use self control using a go no-go test on a touchscreen computer. Yep, grackles can use computers! I don’t know of an experiment in corvids that is comparable to our self control experiment and I also don’t know of corvid tests that use computers

Video https://youtu.be/TXFOYqZztf4?feature=shared

Grackle self control: https://doi.org/10.26451/abc.09.01.03.2022
Grackle touchscreen training: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0246446

jasonkoebler, to random
@jasonkoebler@mastodon.social avatar

Google News is indexing and promoting websites that immediately rip off others with AI clones of their articles. These websites are absolutely littered with Google ads. Our website, in which real humans do journalism, is not indexed by Google News

https://www.404media.co/google-news-is-boosting-garbage-ai-generated-articles/

jasonkoebler,
@jasonkoebler@mastodon.social avatar

This AI farm published the cloned article within 5 minutes of http://Heavy.com posting their article. The article itself is obviously a direct rip, with very minor AI gen tweaks (AI on the left).

The AI altered direct quotes in the article (which is bad!), for example.

image/png
image/png
image/png

ct_bergstrom, to random

SANTA BARBARA, CA: After an intensive seventeen-year search spanning all seven continents, scientists located and captured high-resolution photographic images of the world's roundest round-borb.

petersuber, (edited ) to random

@OpenAlex () has a friendly new user interface.
https://openalex.org/

It's beautifully simple & should bring this powerful tool to more users.

Next time you have a research question, try it before or your other stand-bys. Or try both & compare.

  • searches titles, abstracts, full-text
  • takes keywords,
  • 7 sort orders
  • 39 built-in filters, inc for OA works
  • indexes 250m+ works, 250k+ sources
  • Data
  • Open

NIH_LLAMAS, to random
@NIH_LLAMAS@mastodon.social avatar

@ct_bergstrom @pluralistic lolz

"Amazon Is Selling Products With AI-Generated Names Like 'I Cannot Fulfill This Request It Goes Against OpenAI Use Policy' "
https://futurism.com/amazon-products-ai-generated

Actual real:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMFDNP7D/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CMPGFP5H/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CM82FJL2/

ct_bergstrom, to random

Tip for

With modern digital sensors, you don't want to be shooting in direct sun. The shadows are too harsh and the highlights too bright.

Try overcast (Townsend's solitaire), shadow (fledgling Anna's hummingbird), bright fog (Trumpeter swans), or rain (Little wattlebird).

Small round baby hummingbird, wings outstretched.
Two swans through the mist
Striking brown wattlebird on a bright flower.

ct_bergstrom, to random

"Incredible usage growth", "people use social media a few percent more during week with paid holidays" — it's a potato potahto sort of thing.

negative12dollarbill,
@negative12dollarbill@techhub.social avatar

@ct_bergstrom
Hey but don't forget all that growth in Japan where <checks notes> they suffered two horrible catastrophes in a few days and Twitter actually prevented them from finding out key information.

ct_bergstrom, to random

US residents: If you haven't ordered your free COVID tests through USPS in the last five or six weeks, you're eligible for four more per household. It takes about a minute to fill out the online form, and USPS delivers them to your mailbox.

Testing is a great way to keep friends, family, and coworkers safe.

https://special.usps.com/testkits

ct_bergstrom,

@amyshark @mmalc

As the great P. T. Barnum never said, you can please some of the people all of the time but there's always some asshole on the internet....

ct_bergstrom, to random

Wawurritjpal (2021). Etching on abandoned road sign.

One of the most amazing and moving artistic expressions I have ever seen, from First Nations artist Wukun Wanambi (1962-2022).

At the National Gallery of Victoria.

ct_bergstrom,

Detail.

vardi, to random

In the fall of 2021, whistleblower Frances Haugen released a massive set of Facebook internal documents to Congress and global news outlets. The documents revealed that Facebook was well aware of the adverse societal impacts of its technology. https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2024/1/278892-computing-you-have-blood-on-your-hands/fulltext

ct_bergstrom, to random

Trumpeter swans through the mist.

ct_bergstrom, to Birding

Hey Australia I fell so hard for this pouty little cormorant of yours.

ct_bergstrom,

Zoom of the same shot

ct_bergstrom, to Birding

Australasian darter

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • JUstTest
  • ngwrru68w68
  • everett
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • thenastyranch
  • rosin
  • GTA5RPClips
  • Durango
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • provamag3
  • tacticalgear
  • osvaldo12
  • tester
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • mdbf
  • ethstaker
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • anitta
  • normalnudes
  • megavids
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •