🧪Amazing photos of the hammerhead bat in this @theguardian.com write-up on bat biogeography! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
@labdavalos.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.social
Sonja Vernes
@sonjavernes.bsky.social
🦇 Bat Boffin | Prof of Biology, Uni of St Andrews I study bats to understand how humans learn to talk — yes, really! 📍 Also on IG/Threads @sonja_vernes · LinkedIn: /in/sonjavernes
@labdavalos.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.social@sonjavernes.bsky.socialCool! Looking forward to reading this! 👇🧠🧬
@cedricboeckx.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialDelighted to share our new preprint, which places what we have learned about the polygenic basis of the globular human brain shape into a broader evolutional/developmental context
🧪🧠🧬
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
@sonjavernes.bsky.social📚 Look what just arrived! "Fighting for our Minds: The Neuroscience of Defeating Dementia", the new book from my friend and colleague Tara Spires-Jones. Beautiful and so important. Cant wait to read it! Huge congratulations Tara!🎉 global.oup.com/academic/product/fighting-for-our-minds-9780198995319
@albertabats.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialOur bat probiotic project is expanding beyond BC and WA and into Alberta and the territories! Bats benefit! We’re studying how long it persists and whether it could be used in backyard bat houses.🦇
Help fund this work: donate or run a fundraiser!
@sonjavernes.bsky.social🦇 Last Friday I spoke at a One Medicine meeting in Edinburgh on brain health and dementia. Dogs, cats, bats and everything in between! My pitch: how we can use bats to help us. So inspiring! 😊 @humanimaltrust.bsky.social @brainhealtharc.bsky.social
@sonjavernes.bsky.social🦇 PhD position alert! Are you curious how speech and language evolved? Do you love bats? Join my lab at the University of St Andrews to study FoxP2 and vocal learning in transgenic bats! Funded by EASTBIO. Apply by 16 Nov! @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social #PhD #bats
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
@ergabiodiv.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.social🐋🧬 Welcome to the new ERGA Associate Partner: the Cetacean Genomes Project! They coordinate the generation of high-quality reference genomes for all cetacean species (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) supporting research & conservation worldwide!🌊
www.cetaceangenomesproject.org
@ebpgenome.bsky.social
@sonjavernes.bsky.social🦇 We made the cover of @nature.com! "Family secrets": reference genomes redraw the bat evolutionary tree. A 10-year labour of love from our amazing @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social team. Only 1400 more to go guys!! 😊 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-11007-3
@profsimonfisher.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialThe fab new paper by the Bat1K consortium graces the cover of this week's issue of @nature.com. Congrats to @ariadnamorales.bsky.social @sonjavernes.bsky.social @labdavalos.bsky.social @hillermich.bsky.social @emmateeling.bsky.social @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social & all involved in this landmark work.🦇🧬
@bat1kgenomes.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialFrom six bat species to covering 103 genomes across all 21 bat families 🦇🧬 Two beautiful batty Nature covers, years of collaboration, and an incredible community behind every genome. 🌍🌎🌏 We are proud and excited for what’s next. Our goal: sequence the genome of every bat species!
@sonjavernes.bsky.socialThank you Simon!!
@sonjavernes.bsky.socialWe placed some passive recorders inside to learn about which bats are inhabiting the caves and when they are there. We hope to learn more about how to conserve bats with this partnership.
@sonjavernes.bsky.social🦇This week we met some gorgeous bats in an artificial cave made by the Cyprus government to help protect bats. Thank you Haris Nicolaou and Elena Erotokritou for guiding us!
@bat1kgenomes.bsky.social
#bats #fieldwork #conservation #cyprus❤️
@boron110.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialSumatran orangutans have a long, long childhood (8 yrs!) but there's a lot to learn. This week on the @science.org podcast, we hear about how social and individual learning interact to shape ecological competence in orangutans w/ Elah Feder & Revathe Thillaikumar www.science.org/content/podc...
@gerrycarter.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialNew discoveries in bat evolution www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@bat1kgenomes.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.social„The approach we used to model the evolution of fossil and living species together can do what other methods cannot: identify the oldest group of fossil bats while taking the genomic data into account, and uncover when and where bats originated“ says Dávalos
@labdavalos.bsky.social
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@matthewcobb.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialSo this is the news @bat1kgenomes.bsky.social was hinting at yesterday! Amazing (and a lovely hammer-headed bat in the pic)
@batconservation.bsky.socialReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.social🦇 Taking you into the field to discover the world of bat conservation. BatChat is for anyone who loves bats or has an interest in conservation.
Our trustee Steve Roe talks to the experts as well as local heroes to bring you the latest from the world of bats.
@mpi-cbg.deReposted by @sonjavernes.bsky.socialStudy finds that bats most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago, before spreading across the world. 30 bat 🦇 genomes 🧬 were sequenced at @mpi-cbg.de & @dcgenomecenter.bsky.social. MPI-CBG Alumni @hillermich.bsky.social & Eugene Myers were involved. www.mpi-cbg.de/news-outreac...