Mason Youngblood
@MasYoungblood
@IACSComputes fellow researching cultural evolution - @ESLRSociety committee member - Electronic music as Callosum ✨🐦🏳️🌈
Do whales optimize their vocalizations for efficiency, just like human language? 🐋🎶 My latest study in @ScienceAdvances suggests they do—following linguistic laws seen in human speech. 🧵science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
My new installation "Alaka'i 1777" debuts at the Reforesters Laboratory in Brooklyn on 6/21-22! Come hear real-time simulations of extinct birdsongs in immersive spatial audio 🐦 6/21 @ 2:30 PM: lu.ma/db1o64b7 6/22 @ 12 PM: lu.ma/h90muqr5
How are humans able to make sense of time? Not with special biology but with “time tools”—ideas, practices, and artifacts that render time more concrete. My new paper explores this vast toolkit—one that makes use of knots, nuts, hands, flowers, mountains, shadows, and more. 🧵
New postdoc positions at the (DISI-affiliated) Center for Possible Minds at Indiana University. Looking for scholars interested in interdisciplinary research on the nature of biological, artificial, and collective intelligence. Please share widely! indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/29547
Catching up on big animal culture papers! Herrings have shifted their spawning locations northward, after overfishing wiped out collective knowledge of historical spawning grounds 🐟 nature.com/articles/s4158…
TLDR: new paper headed up by @EleuteriVesta & with an awesome team, incl @AndreaRavignani , showing chimps have rhythm in their drumming & differences b/w east & west drum rhythms! But didn’t we know this already you ask? Well… 🧵1/16
Chimpanzee subspecies drum with distinct rhythms; a finding that could shed light on the building blocks of human musicality. 🥁 See an example of drumming below and learn more in @currentbiology: cell.com/current-biolog… @EleuteriVesta Andrea Ravignani, Catherine Hobaiter
Kicked off our new research group at @IACSComputes with a 3-day workshop on "Collective Creativity" last week! Incredibly inspiring to bring these folks together for a few days 🫶 @GemSchedel @katie__mudd
Two super cool postdoc positions with @norijacoby and colleagues!
We are recruiting two postdoctoral scholars for a research project in human collective intelligence and creativity at UC Davis and Cornell. Joint project with @enfascination,@norijacoby,@daltonconley, & Ofer Tchernichovski. Please forward this thread to relevant people. 1/n
Fabulous PhD opportunity, working with a superb supervisory team!
A reminder that we have a PhD studentship open to candidates of any nationality in Cambridge, UK. The project is on "the comparative anatomy of the mammalian larynx" and links to bioacoustics, evobio, anatomy, socioecology, etc. Please r/t and reach out with questions.
#StandUpForScience today! NYC is 12-3 PM EST in Washington Square Park, details about other cities here: standupforscience2025.org
Applications for DISI extended to Monday, March 10th! Cannot recommend more - I've attended as a scientist and a storyteller and both experiences were transformative :)
📣📣📣 Applications for DISI 2025 are now open!! Interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply! More info: disi.org
Review of applications starts March 1st! Still time! Apply here: disi.org/apply/
📣📣📣 Applications for DISI 2025 are now open!! Interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply! More info: disi.org
📣 preprint klaxon: New study with Edwin Dalmaijer @DrBarbaraKlump @LucyMAplin where we take a closer look at the innovation arms race between cockatoos and residents of Sydney doi.org/10.1101/2025.0…
5-yr position in computational humanities with @OliverWithAnI and Jean-Baptiste Camps in Paris! Original deadline has passed but search is ongoing. Details here: cognition.ens.fr/en/job/junior-…
Entrevistas a @inbalarnon @MasYoungblood @ivangtorre y @rferrericancho en @el_pais @materia_ciencia sobre los artículo de las leyes lingüísticas en ballenas @ScienceNews @ScienceAdvances 👇👏🐳📚 elpais.com/ciencia/2025-0…
My latest story for @NatGeo, about the similarities between whale song and human language, featuring @inbalarnon, @SimonKirby, @EllenGarland4, @MasYoungblood, @rferrericancho and @sgero. nationalgeographic.com/animals/articl…