Hi! I'm Shane. #actuallivingscientist I put computers on whales to study the oceans, origins of culture & get people to protect the deep!
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Shane Gero @sgero@scicomm.xyz
@sgero
Canadian Biologist & | | Biology Lead | Founder | He/Him
CanadaJoined April 2009
Shane Gero @sgero@scicomm.xyz’s Tweets
tl;dr: Acoustic properties such as spectral mean or spectral regularity might be informative in sperm whale communication system
Read our preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2303.10931
With amazing student Andrej Leban and
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Our network learns properties considered meaningful by existing research, such as:
-Number of clicks
-ICI timing
The network also uncovers new acoustic properties that may be meaningful but haven't been hypothesized as such before:
-Spectral mean
-Spectral regularity
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How do we approach an unknown communication system?
We train GANs that learn to imitate whale vocalizations and encode information into those vocalizations.
Using CDEV (causal disentanglement with extreme values), we can infer which properties the model encodes as meaningful.
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Uncovering the unknowns in sperm whale communication🐳 using deep learning
We introduce a novel interpretability technique (CDEV) that combines generative deep models and causal inference methods.
Our model discovers meaningful properties, both novel and previously hypothesized
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As a speaker at #Bioneers2023, I'm excited to join an incredible group of leaders to discuss solutions to today’s most pressing challenges and help us get the big wheels of massive change turning. Join me! Use code BioSpeaker for 15% off:
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Humans blast the oceans with noise from shipping, oil exploration and military operations. For dolphins living in a world of sound, that might be making it harder to work together.
Mine in
& thanks , for talking with me
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This week I’m joining 's #WriteToChangeTheWorld workshop, because this is how we change who writes history. If you’re interested, register here (scholarships available):
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Claudia Geib writes, "The more sperm whale clans overlap territorially with each other, they found, the more distinct their identity codas appear to be."
Click for this and more from Ocean.
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Did you know baby dolphins have whiskers? This baby was on its second day of life when we saw it yesterday! The whiskers (on top of the rostrum) will fall out in a couple days, but until then they help sense things in the environment while they’re still learning to be a dolphin.
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Working with and early on to create experiential learning opportunities on the water through our research has grown dramatically into the amazing Fellowships in collaboration with !
Meet the first team of Fellows!
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Please meet Whitney, Omari and Khade, the 2022/2023 CETI Fellows! CETI's Dominica Marine Conservation Fellowship is a community-based 10-month, multi-module training program for the next generation of conservation leaders in Dominica.Show this thread
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The program’s curriculum (co-created with @InsideNatGeo) includes modules on marine biology, scientific research and techniques, whale and wildlife monitoring, ocean navigation and sailing skills, climate change, storytelling, community outreach and leadership among other topics.
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So excited to work with these amazing fellows!
What started out as a small experiential learning opportunity with has grown to be a 10 month fellowship in collaboration with and
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Please meet Whitney, Omari and Khade, the 2022/2023 CETI Fellows! CETI's Dominica Marine Conservation Fellowship is a community-based 10-month, multi-module training program for the next generation of conservation leaders in Dominica.Show this thread
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There is NOTHING ok about this. Protections being removed from critical land. Conservative donors/land developers benefiting from seemingly insider information. Where is the investigation? Where is the OUTRAGE? #HandsOffTheGreenbelt #ONpoli
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I will be hiring PhD students/postdocs with strong background in ML/NLP to work on deciphering whale communication as part of Write me if you are interested
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On heartbreak and its remedies, after a lovely night at the Brazilian opera. My latest for .
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Good morning, Canada! This is the view from my flat in Doha, and that tower in the hazy distance is Khalifa Stadium, where the Canadian men will kick off against Croatia a little over three hours from now. Not a huge deal. Just their biggest game ever. Let’s go!
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***Plastic pollution is also an animal welfare issue***
This sperm whale must have lived a horrible and painful existence with 150kgs of plastic in its stomach until it finally died. Awful 😩
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Dead sperm whale had 220 pounds of garbage in its stomach, including rope, plastic and gloves
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Environmental (In)Justice in the Anthropocene Ocean
This new paper examines how pollution, plastics, climate change, environmental and fisheries declines converge, accumulate & impact coastal populations around the world's oceans. #marsocsci #bluejustice
authors.elsevier.com/a/1g81N,714Mn9
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Can you measure the length of toothed whales in the wild? Yes you can! You can even calculate the body volume to represent the body condition/health of individuals in a population. How? See our new article Arranz, Christiansen et al. 2022 doi.org/10.3390/su1422
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The Canadian men played their young hearts out against Belgium tonight. It wasn't quite enough. On missed chances, and learning opportunities, and how they're sometimes the same thing. For .
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I know I’m late to this because I watched it recorded after avoiding internet all day, but #CanadaSoccer should be proud of the #Canadavsbelgium game! We out played them and lost on one weak goal. #FIFAWorldCup
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Very proud of for her paper on how sperm whale clans in the Caribbean appear to have distinct distributions in relation to islands and not just environmental variables
And check out her newest scientific adventures as #drFISHPERSON on
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A very cool paper by on drone based morphometrics of pilot whales from three sites across the North Atlantic, including #Dominica
mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2
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Morphometrics of free-ranging short-finned pilot whales across the North Atlantic
mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/2
Photo credit @PatArranz Agustín de Betancourt fellow at @ULL
Thanks to @KateSprogis, @FChristiansen83 and co-workers!
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This thread on the parallels between bear and human culture is amazing
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Reading that study that found how grizzly bear genetic populations and indigenous language families in central BC mapped onto each other almost perfectly with my jaw on the floor
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An updated global population size and estimates of post-whaling trajectory by Hal Whitehead and Megan Shin
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Dear Ontario: it's not just kids at risk. The care you may need for a heart attack, stroke or car accident is now in jeopardy due to overwhelming strain to our entire health care system from uncontrolled viral transmission. Do your part #WearAMask #WeNotMe
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90% - public health has pushed false info (hand washing over masks; vax only)
Vaccines work to prevent severity more than to prevent transmission. N95s prevent most transmission.
Spread facts, not Covid. #BringBackMasks 2/2
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386 experts studying Covid in 112 countries came to a consensus on what needs to be done to END Covid. Can we please bend to their collective wisdom??
100% - Covid is airborne; indoor drives transmission
97% - vax alone won't end Covid
96% - N95 masks ARE necessary 1/2
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I can't get over that we asked kids to sacrifice school, play dates, birthdays, holidays, etc etc for 2.5 years when adult ICUs were filling...
And now that peds ICUs are overflowing, the adults can't be bothered to wear a fucking mask unless forced to.
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How to weigh a sperm whale without a scale? Check out our latest #openaccess article published in #MarineMammalScience:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11 @marinemammalogy
Many thanks to @FChristiansen83 & our collaborators at @DomWhale, Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute, @ATursiops 
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11 @marinemammalogy
Many thanks to @FChristiansen83 & our collaborators at @DomWhale, Pelagos Cetacean Research Institute, @ATursiops 
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I feel like its time for this video again for both Canada and the USA : youtube.com/watch?v=yhO6jf
#vote #FPTP
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Parents that are frustrated that your kids could likely lose a week of school over this labour disruption, please remember, your kids will get more benefit out of seeing society stand up against politicians that abuse our rights than they’ll ever get from 1 week in class. #onted
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Link to Mastodon profile:
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