Tag: SciComm
-
UA Magazine feature!
Our woodpecker research was just featured in The Collegian, a magazine by The University of Alabama’s Barefield College of Arts and Sciences. Two students from the CVN lab, Emma Bowie, an undergraduate, and Preston Herring, a Masters student, both spoke about their woodpecker research at Tanglewood Biological Field station. Read all about it here: Find…
-
We’re hosting a livestream!
On Tuesday December 9th 2025, the CVN lab will be hosting an educational livestream from 7am to 7pm CST (or as long as we can manage!). Lab members will be competing to see who can collect the most headbutting data and we’ll be sharing our goat videos live on the stream! At the top of…
-
Talking Audiommunity
Dr. Ackermans was recently a guest on the Audiommunity podcast! Matt Woodruff and Kevin Bonham of the Audiommunity podcast chat headbutting and neuroinflammation, in a discussion about my recent publication reviewing the history of human thought on head-hitting animals. We had a real blast! And even managed to talk about immunity a little bit! Go…
-
H-eye Resolution!
Eye-pixels! They’re pixels for your eyes! Allow me to explain In a recent article in the journal Nature, researchers developed a new technology with the smallest pixels ever, in a screen that has the highest possible resolution that our eyes can perceive! The 4k vs 8k debate fans will know that in any screen,…
-
Bone Drones
In an unlikely team-up, paleontologists worked with lichen and drones to find more dinos! A recent paper published in Current Biology used drones equipped with special sensors to help find dinosaur bones with the help of some friendly lichen! In the Canadian Badlands (Alberta Provence) at Dinosaur Provincial park, a research team used the properties…
-
The 2025 Nobel prizes
This October the Nobel prizes were announced. These awards “confer the greatest benefit to human kind”. I broke down the three science prizes in a bit more detail. Physics Awarded to John Clarke, Michael H. Devoret, and John H. Martinis for their discovery in quantum mechanics that paved the way for cellphones and cameras. Nobels…
-
Woodpecker drone
An allegedly crash-proof drone that attributes its inspiration to woodpeckers has been in the news. I specialize in woodpecker skulls and have a lot of skepticism around woodpecker biomimicry. Let’s get into it. The article “Collision-Resilient Winged Drones Enabled by Tensegrity Structures” was published in Aug 2025 in the Journal Advanced Robotics Research. This drone…
-
Gold-plated hairballs
If your cat (or dog) has coughed up a hairball recently, it may have been for science! This recent publication from the Journal of Veterinary Behavior explores why cats and dogs eat grass just to throw it up later. I find the methodology both hilarious and genius. The researchers opportunistically collected “six regurgitated masses” from…
-
The 2025 IgNobel prizes
The IgNobel prizes were awarded September 19th 2025. These are always fun. What are they? Why you should care? Should you eat teflon? What are the IgNobel prizes? The research that makes people laugh, then think. What did the IgNobel prizes go to this year? Some of the less tech-centric prizes went to studies such…
-
NEW PAPER! Headbutting history
A new paper is out from the CVN lab! Published in The Anatomical Record as part of our thematic issue “TBI, not just for humans”. Here is the press release: A newly accepted paper by Dr. Nicole Ackermans of The University of Alabama is poised to reshape scientific understanding of brain injury in animals. Titled…
Nicole Ackermans, CVN lab 