@mdshawkey profile picture
Matthew Shawkey @mdshawkey

Hoofddocent (Associate Professor) & Baas (Chief), EON group @ugent, studying (mostly) non-pigmentary colors in birds and other dinosaurs.

Joined July 2013
  • Tweets 9,118
  • Following 1,051
  • Followers 1,280
1,321 Photos and videos
Ik ben Belg 🇧🇪
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My first 5k race since high school (?) and I have slowed down a bit but still happy with my result and second in my age group!
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fun to play live music again
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Taking synesthesia to the next level: EON PhD student Huimin Liu has developed a cool new method to visualise ultrasound absorption and reflection by small objects such as earplugs and, more relevantly to our work on acoustic camouflage, moths! authors.elsevier.com/c/1n4vO…
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Do dark materials always warm up more than light materials? Not if their reflectance in the visible and NIR wavelengths are decoupled, as seems to be the case in some integument and eggs. 😎 new research led by @JGoldenbergEvo onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…

Color and Near‐Infrared Reflectance Covary in Distinct Ways Across Taxa

Solar reflectance across ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths was analyzed in integuments and eggs of 322 species. We found consistent positive correlations between UV and visible...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com
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My best time in three years, but that 55 seconds will haunt me/fuel me until the next one
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I'm blue baba di baba da but not through a blue pigment because those are unstable and complex, so instead I have a quasi-ordered nanostructure of keratin and air in my feather barbs baba di baba lareleveetlapeste.fr/pourquo…

Pourquoi le bleu et le violet sont (presque) absents du monde animal terrestre

Omniprésent sur Terre, le bleu se fait discret chez les animaux terrestres. En cause : une rareté chimique et des contraintes évolutives

lareleveetlapeste.fr
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quillette.com/2026/04/02/fra…

Francesca Albanese's Fraudulent Honorary Doctorate in Belgium

Three Flemish universities are about to convey the sanction of university-recognised expertise to a deeply dishonest and fraudulent individual.

quillette.com
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Nog een beetje persaandscht voor ons artikel over de melanosomen van de vogelbekdier bionieuws.nl/nog-een-raritei…

Nog een rariteit: vogelbekdier heeft unieke holle melanosomen - Bionieuws

Bij vogels zorgen ze voor glanzende kleuren, maar het vogelbekdier blijft er gewoon dofbruin van. De ontdekking van holle melanosomen in dit zoogdier zet bestaande ideeën over pigmentstructuren onder...

bionieuws.nl
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Matthew Shawkey retweeted
Ming@mxiaocolor
Mar 19
Our work on one-step, mask-free structural colour patterning via tunable nanoparticle segregation was published on Nature Communications. Big congrats to my PhD student, Li. nature.com/articles/s41467-0…

Bioinspired maskless structural colour patterning via tunable nanoparticle segregation

Nature Communications - Structural colour offers an alternative to pigment-based colouration, but patterning often requires multiple steps. Here, the authors report a one-step, mask-free strategy...

nature.com
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Platypus (Platypi?) hairs have never-before-seen, hollow, meatball-shaped melanosomes that apparently serve no function in color! wild stuff from EON PhD student Jess Dobson royalsocietypublishing.org/r…

A unique hollow melanosome morphology in the hairs of the platypus Ornithorhynchus anatinus

Abstract. Melanin pigments are ubiquitous and serve diverse functions, including UV protection and colour production. In vertebrates, they are housed in or

royalsocietypublishing.org
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more replies
sciencenews.org/article/plat…

Platypuses share a surprising fur feature with birds

Platypuses are the first mammals known to have hollow melanosomes, pigment-bearing structures found in the hair of many animals.

sciencenews.org
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scientias.nl/in-de-vacht-van…

In de vacht van het vogelbekdier zit iets wat niemand had verwacht

Het vogelbekdier was al een buitenbeentje en nu hebben wetenschappers iets compleet onverwachts ontdekt in zijn vacht.

scientias.nl
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Another year, another €10k raised for cancer research, another 200 kilometers run (40 by me). Viva los pinguinos hermanos!
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Apparently a major US funding agency put a full ban on use of AI in grant proposals after receiving 46 proposals (on vastly different topics) from one PI in one year
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Nice article by @ki_irving (and featuring Jessica Dobson and I) on why mammals are the least colourful vertebrate group: livescience.com/animals/why-… @FWOVlaanderen

Why aren't mammals as colorful as reptiles, birds or fish?

Many mammals have fur the color of brown and black. Why don't they have more exotic colors, like purple and neon pink?

livescience.com
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Pretty darn happy w our new bookcase
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Matthew Shawkey retweeted
Gert de Cooman@gertdecooman
Feb 16
Het moet me van het hart. Ik vind het toekennen van een institutioneel eredoctoraat aan Francesca Albanese ongelukkig en onverstandig. Ik distantieer me ervan.
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