Monthly since 2021
Dr. Ackermans is an award-winning podcaster and is the science correspondent for the Daily Tech News Show. She makes monthly appearances on DTNS to around 30,000 listeners. Every episode, she dissects news that bisects science and technology.
01/09/2026
New Scientist – Three goats headbutt each other 1218 times in 12 hours
A recipe for concussions?
If you ever feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall, spare a thought for functional morphologist Nicole Ackermans at the University of Alabama. Her lab studies the mechanisms of neurodegeneration. In order to understand this, she watches what happens to goats when they headbutt each other.
Find our livestream here
01/07/2026
The Transmitter – Neuro’s ark: How goats model neurodegeneration
Since debunking an urban legend that headbutting animals don’t damage their brain, Nicole Ackermans has been investigating how the behavior correlates with neurodegeneration.
01/02/2026
Scientific American – How woodpeckers turn their entire bodies into pecking machines
“Pecking is a full-body exercise,” says University of Alabama biologist Nicole Ackermans, who studies brain damage in woodpeckers and head-butting sheep. Coordinating “micro breaths” with muscle clenching and creating “this hammerlike structure in their whole body is such a unique approach,” she adds.
12/02/2025
The Collegian Magazine – Woodpecker Research May Offer Answers for Head Trauma
Thirty miles south of The University of Alabama, the Biological Sciences department trains the next generation of scientists.
Find the full article here
11/20/2025
Audiomunnity – Scratch that itchy worm in your head
In this episode, Matt and Kevin are joined by Nicole Ackermans to discuss her recent review paper tracing human thoughts about headbutting from 10,000 BCE to the present day. How are animals like bighorn sheep and woodpeckers protected from brain injury? Actually, wait… are they protected from brain injury?
It’s a wonderful romp of a paper, but with some serious undertones, since misinformation about animal biology is being commercialized and promoted to make people feel better about gladiatorial sports like football.
07/16/2025
The Transmitter – NIH proposal sows concerns over future of animal research, cut costs
The announcement doesn’t make clear which animal models are included and whether a proposal without non-animal models is automatically denied, says Nicole Ackermans, professor of biological sciences at the University of Alabama. It also raises the issue of what this means for the future of animal research. “Is the goal to have zero animal research in the United States, and at what point in time? Is that immediate or is that over the next 50 years?” she says. “How would you support the transition financially to get there? Because it will be expensive.”
07/31/2024
I Know Dino – The State of Headbutting Science
Some headbutting animals suffer brain damage from the shock.
In dinosaur news this week:
Paleontologists reviewed what it means to have a dome-head and to headbutt like a pachycephalosaurid (and other prehistoric animals).
11/30/2023
Psychology Today – What can headbutting goats reveal about brain injury?
Researchers look to nature for models of animal neurodegeneration.
Goats and sheep may be apt models of how acute brain injuries can lead to chronic neurodegeneration.
Male bovids (sheep and goats) are among the animals that headbutt as part of their natural behaviors.
In the long-term, the accumulation of head impacts likely causes neurodegeneration in bovids.
Male bovids risk long-term brain injury for the short-term goal of passing on their genes.
06/22/2022
National Geographic – Why some animals evolved to sacrifice themselves
From headbutting muskoxen to self-sacrificing bees, evolution favors populations, not individuals.
05/27/2022
CBC Quirks and Quarks – Headbutting animals can accumulate brain damage
Animals like mountain bighorn sheep and muskox compete for mates and social dominance by slamming their heads together with massive force.
Scientists had wondered how they could do this without damaging their brains. It turns out they can’t, as a new study has shown the animals can have brain trauma similar to that found in humans with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which results from repeated head injuries.
The research was led by Dr. Nicole Ackermans from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
01/13/2022
Ologies – Bovine Neuropathology (HEADBUTTING)
Slamming heads together to impress someone: why does this happen? Let’s ask Dr. Nicole Ackermans, whose current job involves receiving sheep heads and painstakingly counting damaged neurons from headbutting concussions.
Nicole Ackermans, CVN lab 