In a recent paper, KLI fellow Liberty Severs, along with Qiuran Wang, introduces a framework for characterising decision-making as a kind of history-dependent regulation to better account for its distributed, decentralised, and non-representational forms. (click on title to continue)

We are pleased to welcome our new Writing-up Fellow, Sanjay Narayanaswamy, to the KLI. Sanjay is currently a PhD student at the University of Vienna in Prof. U. Technau´s lab. At the KLI, he will work on his project “Notch Coordinates Concurrent Germ Layer and Axial Polarity Self-Organization in Cnidarian Gastruloids.”

We are happy to welcome our new Visiting Fellow, Carrie Figdor, to the KLI. Carrie is a professor of philosophy at the University of Iowa and an honorary professor of philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. Her KLI project is titled “Biological Modality and the Mind/Body Problem.”

Patricia BELDADE (Lisbon University), 2026-01-15 15:00 (CET). Please join our colloquium via Zoom!

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Enrico PETRACCA (KLI), 2026-01-08 15:00 (CET). Please join our colloquium via Zoom!

The staff and the fellows of the KLI wish you a joyful holiday season and a happy New Year!

Biological Theory’s December Issue 20(4), featuring a Thematic Issue on “The Concept of Lineage in Biology,” is out now, with free reading links for all the articles. (Click on title to read more.)

Cristina VILLEGAS (KLI), 2025-12-18 15:00 (CET). Please join our colloquium via Zoom!

KLI fellow Anne Le Maître, along with colleagues from the Société d'Anthropologie de Paris, coordinated a special issue of the journal BMSAP on the topic "Mortuary practices and social inference.” (Click on title to continue)

Barbara Fischer (KLI Group Leader for Evolutionary Biology) was interviewed for the first episode of the new podcast “Was wir Wissen” [transl. “What we know”] from the FWF magazine scilog. (Click on the title to read more.)

Thomas HANSEN (University of Oslo), 2025-11-20 15:00 (CET). Please join our colloquium via Zoom!

The workshop, “Urban Evo-Devo: Starting the Glossary” (1-3 Oct 2025) marked the beginning of a dialogue on transferring knowledge between evolutionary developmental biology and urban morphology. It was organized by Sergio Porta (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow) & Philipp Mitteroecker (KLI & University of Vienna). The workshop featured a series of introductory presentations, followed by discussions aimed at developing a shared glossary to unify definitions and concepts from both disciplines. Participants also outlined concrete steps to advance the project. (Click on title to read more.)

We are delighted to welcome our new Postdoctoral Fellow, Pascal Hagolani, to the KLI. Pascal is an evolutionary biologist with a robust computational background, focused on advancing our understanding of complex biological systems. At the KLI, Pascal will work on his project, “Urban Evolution,” in which he will develop a comparative framework between urban and biological genotype-phenotype maps (GPMs) and create computational models to investigate urban evolutionary dynamics.

Ronald PLANER (University of Wollongong), 2025-10-23 15:00 (CET). Please join our colloquium via Zoom!

Isabella Sarto-Jackson (KLI Executive Manger and Group Leader for Evolution of Cognition), in conversation with Magdalena Schwarz for Austrian weekly newspaper Die Furche, emphasizes the importance of social interactions and play-based learning in Kindergartens, along with the vital role of a loving family for the holistic brain development of young children. The article titled, Der Traumkindergarten“ einer Hirnforscherin’ [translated as The “Dream Kindergarten” of a Neuroscientist) was published online on 13 Oct 2025, and in print as “Meine Traum-Kindergarten” on 16 Oct 2025. (Click on title to read more.)

A new clinical study by a team of researchers including Barbara Fischer (KLI Group Leader in Evolutionary Biology), reveals that the shape of a woman’s pelvis may significantly influence her risk of developing postpartum pelvic organ prolapse (POP). These results have the potential to be applied for risk assessment in preventive care. (Click on title to read more.)

Understanding animal social networks through behavioral observations has been a challenge to behavioral ecologists due to many factors including non-independent interactions, sampling bias etc. that lead to confounded causal effects. In a recent paper published in PLOS Computational Biology, KLI Fellow Ben Kawam and colleagues present a new analytical framework based on causal inference that provides a more transparent link between empirical observations with theoretical models, and solves common statistical issues with in the analysis of animal social networks. (Click on title to read more.)

We are happy to welcome Visiting Fellow Martin Brüne to the KLI! Martin is currently Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Division of Social Neuropsychiatry and Evolutionary Medicine at the LWL University-Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany. During his fellowship at the KLI from 27 October to 11 November 2025, he will be working on his project, “Evolution in Psychotherapy.” Here’s wishing Martin a productive time at the KLI!

This new paper by Enrico Petracca (KLI Senior Fellow) and Shaun Gallagher challenges the post-Northian idea in institutional economics that a norm’s content is physically located in the minds of the agents; rather, Enrico and Gallagher argue that norms are genuinely relational concepts emerging from a practical interaction, and are located in institutional practices. (Click on title to read more.)