April 5, 2026
Birds, brains, and comment wars
From birds to brains: My path to the fusiform face area (2024)
From backyard cormorants to brain fame: “nepo” or nonstop hustle
TLDR: Nancy Kanwisher shares a winding journey from backyard bird experiments to research on the brain’s face-recognition area. Commenters spar over privilege versus perseverance, debate animal research and “face module” hype, and meme the Norway bike trip—turning a personal science story into a flashpoint about access and how discoveries get made.
Neuroscientist Nancy Kanwisher dropped a tell-all about how she went from raising baby cormorants with her dad to studying the brain’s face-recognition hot spot, the fusiform face area. Cue the comments section going full soap opera. The biggest split: gratitude for her transparency vs side-eye for the privilege. She literally says science was “handed to me on a platter,” and some readers applauded the honesty while others dubbed it “nepo science.”
Then came the bird drama. Her early work showed “diving bradycardia” (the slow heart rate in diving animals) looked more like fear when animals were forced underwater—so their home-raised cormorants barely showed it. Some cheered the humane rethink; others balked at “cute cruelty,” arguing transmitters on backyard birds is still animal research.
On the brain side, the comments spun into a “do we really have a face area?” brawl. Fans said the story humanizes a landmark finding; skeptics rolled their eyes at what they call “module mania,” insisting the brain is more of a team sport than a single star player. Meanwhile, the Norway chapter—buying a beat-up boat and biking to Tromsø—became meme fuel, with jokes about “scientist side quests” and “from birds to brains speedrun.” Love it or roast it, the community couldn’t look away—much like, well, faces.
Key Points
- •Nancy Kanwisher grew up in Woods Hole, MA, with extensive access to scientific education and resources.
- •Her first publication on diving birds was co-authored with her father John Kanwisher and Geir Wing Gabrielsen.
- •Using acoustic heart rate transmitters, they found that diving bradycardia in cormorants was largely a fear response to forced submersion.
- •Fieldwork in Norway included voyages from Bergen and ptarmigan studies on the island of Karlsoy near Tromso.
- •The article transitions to her undergraduate work in Molly Potter’s lab, indicating the next phase toward her neuroscience research.