Blog

"Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can’t exist without the other." - William Zinsser

Jul 75 min read

How does a marmoset know which vocalizations are his own?

How can an individual correctly determine that the perceived sounds are indeed self-produced, rather than coming from an external source?

Feb 31 min read

Variational Autoencoders, UMAP and birdsong

Using the paper Goffinet et al., 2021 and birdsong data, I explain how Variational Autoencoders and UMAP works.

Aug 10, 20238 min read

Talking to a crow will be possible in 50 years

“The Dr. Dolittle Challenge - can you build an AI that communicates with animals”? Corvids, neuroscience, and multimodal AI, can handle it.

Jan 16, 202313 min read

Brain-body size divergence in birds: An evolutionary, morphological and ecological case

Named after Edward Cope, Cope’s rule states that species in mammalian clades tend to increase in size over the Cenozoic era (Hone and Benton

Dec 1, 20227 min read

Understanding religious violence beyond the 'modernity-religion' dichotomy

When trying to understand religious violence, Western media often adopts a substantive and private conceptualization of religion.

Oct 25, 202234 min read

The evolution of the posterior cingulate cortex: Landmarks, autobiographical memories, and self

Many have pointed out that the neuronal dynamics in the hippocampus or entorhinal cortex enabling spatial navigation, may also facilitate...

May 8, 20223 min read

Getting to know AI

‘Select all squares with traffic lights’ is a common online prompt to prove that you’re not a robot. It is also a typical task in machine...

Feb 9, 20223 min read

Shooting your shot: Using reinforcement learning approaches to study place learning

Would you be able to find a café after just one previous visit? The answer for human and non-human animals is yes: they have the ability...

Mar 1, 202118 min read

Foucault, social media and climate change deniers: Disciplining abnormality through internet memes

Internet memes about climate change deniers are typically seen as harmless. Yet, when understanding the denialist critique of climate...

Feb 27, 202110 min read

What is real and what is observable are not the same

Let's imagine the following thought experiment. A primary school child finds out that besides all the other colours she is aware of,...

Nov 5, 20205 min read

Drop-outs: Not just a Problem in Schools

Are drop-out rates in therapy the new “elephant in the room”? No, it’s probably worse; the elephant has been standing there for decades....