Dr. Headbutt 🌈🧪
@nicoleackermans
Assistant prof neuroscientist studying TBI in headbutters 🐏🐂🐐🪶 at U of Alabama CVN lab. Science correspondent for DTNS. I'll happily ID the random bone you found in the woods!
I've started playing Animal Crossing again and it is just such a delight, especially over the summer!
Working on a little secret something for experiment week... First episode draft just dropped 🤫 @queencodemonkey.dev @dtnsshow.bsky.social
TIL Alabama has native stick bugs and they live in my strawberries! I used to raise exotic stick bugs, maybe I should have a tank of native ones on my desk, would certainly make me feel like an old school biology prof
There's the last 3y of my life! Let's hope the grant reviewers like it (gaslighting myself that that's what matters)
In a meeting about goat biomechanics and it made me want to sketch this
Someone brought one of my publications to autograph at the con I'm at. Peak academic, I will never surpass this lmfao
I just got back from camping at Chaco Canyon and I saw a bunch of dessert wildflowers
I went to a cabin for 3 days and it was one of the best decisions I've made in a while
YALL I DID 311 LAPS! And the team beat the fundraising goal 🥳 🛼
Probably nobody cares but there were a bunch of new warblers today and now I'm up to 64 bird species in what is basically a suburban playground
For the last day of class in Comparative Neuroanatomy we do an open house so that the students can teach everything they have learned to the public. We always get great questions and as a bonus we were lucky enough to be hosted at the ALMNH this year! 🧠 🧪
My derby team is having a fundraiser! It's a skate-a-thon, so you can pledge a per-lap donation and wager on how how bad my endurance really is 😆! Or just a one-time donation to my skater name, Yellowhammer. Our team is a non-profit so this is how we keep the wheels rolling 🛼 tiny.cc/Donate
I got up on time and got to see an indigo bunting up close and personal! Worth it! Awesome event by Jefferson Co Greenway
Here's another look at that visual pathway so I can point out the two balloons on the doors are the eyes and the person holding all the streamers is the optic chiasm 👁️ ❌ 👁️ A memorable way to learn!
Students in my comparative Neuroanatomy class were encouraged to present the sensory pathways in a creative fashion as their group project. We got auditory jeopardy, an olfactory rap and an art installation of the visual pathway. As usual, they knocked it out of the park! 🥳 (Photos with permission)🧪
Sketching out a silly poster that's been on my mind ever since e-scooters have become popular on campus.
News! I'm doing a 9-month fellowship to the Centre for Advanced Studies at U Vienna in Oct! I did my MSc there, the pic is at the Vienna nat. hist. museum, my absolute favorite! I'm very excited to go back, and even more so for the opportunity to do some deep thinking & interdisciplinary work there!
Another sperm whale headbutting picture because hell yeah onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/71...
AAAAH WHALE HEADBUTTS WHALE HEADBUTTS! We published the first image of dolphins headbutting in a 2021 review of headbutting animals (doi.org/10.1002/jnr....). Really exciting to see this documented in another cetacean!