I'm friends with people who take the initiative to plan said journal club. Honestly, it's been very helpful.

Whole and partial femur at the Melrose Area Museum. Each bone preserves data from ancient animals that once roamed the area’s post glacial landscapes.

Distal end of a bison femur at the Rice Country Historical Society. #Pleistocene #Holocene #Bison #Palaeontology #Mnmuseums #CitizenScience

Bison femur at the Pope County Historical Society

Bones discovered near Hansen Park in New Brighton Minnestoa

#FossilFriday The largest bone in the skeleton—the femur—often survives the test of time. It is the eighth most common vertebrate mammal post cranial element I’ve documented in county museum collections across the Midwest so far.
#Palaeontology #CitizenScience

Lost Bones marcusbrandel.substack.com

Goals lol

I saw this movie with a good friend and the validation I'm getting from everyone who had the exact same instantaneous reaction we did is... beautiful.

There is a new Ryan Gosling movie out apparently and the only thing I know about it from posts here is that the centrifuge is unbalanced, and I’m delighted that this fact has come across my feed many many many times today. You’re my people 😂

A picture of a centrifuge with 5 blue top tubes in triangle

I love trying to balance centrifuges with odd numbers of tubes and in atypical configurations. Makes me feel like some sort of a physics pervert

Why Has ‘Project Hail Mary’ Ignited So Much Online Debate? "There's debate around a number of themes that seem to be political," says one industry expert about why the Ryan Gosling-led film has seen a sky-high level of social media engagement.

The only “online debate” I’ve seen about this movie is about how he loaded the centrifuge, and it’s not much of a debate - we all agree that Ryan Gosling doesn’t know how to load a centrifuge

www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie...

Out today is our paper 'Genomic history of early dogs in Europe', in which we uncover the identity of the dogs that lived in Europe before agriculture—during the Paleolithic & Mesolithic periods: doi.org/10.1038/s415.... A thread ⬇️ (10)

@biouea.bsky.social @crick.ac.uk @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social

Monarch butterfly population increases 64% Two new reports estimate a 64% increase in species population and a significant decrease in forest degradation in the butterfly's winter home

Fantastic news! 🦋🦋 Link to full report in 🧵 www.worldwildlife.org/news/stories...

Third installment of #mammothmarch2026 a cast of a Columbian mammoth footprint found at the Carson City Prison, Nevada. On display at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California.

#fossilfriday #naturalhistorymuseumoflosangelescounty #prehistoricnevada #mammoth

Megabelodon minor holotype mandible, small and lacking any evidence for lower tusks. Despite small size is a young adult with m3 erupting

Subadult gomphothere mandible with p4-m1 and two round lower tusks

Large mandible with a long and downturned symphysis. The second and third molars are well worn suggesting this was an old adult.

#fossilfriday it’s been a very busy week visiting the collections @ucmpberkeley.bsky.social to study the gomphotheres houses here. Enjoy the three holotypes I have had the pleasure of studying/scanning this week: Megabelodon minor, Gomphotherium cingulatum, and Trilophodon simpsoni!

Do they "chew"?

It looks like an underwater armadillo

Have student or early career mammalogists looking to attend the 2026 meeting? Apply for travel awards!

American Society of Mammalogists, the deadline to apply for travel awards for the annual meeting is March 15.
Visit the "instructions" tab at
www.mammalsociety.org/index.php/co...

Rebuild those programs BIGGER

The Curling Controversy at the Winter Olympics Isn’t What You Think After Swedish curler Oskar Eriksson accused Canadian vice-skip Marc Kennedy of cheating last week, everyone has become an expert in curling rules. They’re missing the point.

The Curling Controversy at the Winter Olympics Isn’t What You Think www.wired.com/story/2026-w...

Scientists: if you have pursued/secured philanthropic funding in the wake of federal research funding cuts, I want to talk to you.

Reposts appreciated!

Canadian fossil reveals one of the first plant-eating animals Scientists have unearthed in Canada's province of Nova Scotia the skull of a creature dating to about 307 million years ago that is one of the oldest-known plant-eating land vertebrates, representing ...

Canadian fossil reveals one of the first plant-eating animals
www.reuters.com/science/cana...

Japan's ancient 'tigers' were actually cave lions, DNA evidence shows There aren't any native lion or tiger populations living in Japan today, but this was not always the case. Fossil evidence indicates that at least one species of large cat roamed the archipelago durin...

Japan's ancient 'tigers' were actually cave lions, DNA evidence shows ⛏️🧬🦁🇯🇵 phys.org/news/2026-02...

Quite low. I know a couple that have masters degrees, but when they were giving me career advice they urged me to get a PhD.

India Sees Its Grasslands as 'Wastelands.' Ancient Poems Show Otherwise The sprawling grasslands of western India are, in the popular imagination, the remains of woodlands that were leveled under British rule — areas to be reforested, rather than conserved. But a recent analysis of stories, songs, and poems from centuries past reveals that western grasslands predate British colonization.

The grasslands of western India are, in the popular imagination, the remains of woodlands lost under British rule — areas to be reforested, not conserved.

But an analysis of medieval songs and stories reveals the grasslands predate British colonization.

The billion-dollar case for sustaining palaeontology’s digital databases - Nature Ecology & Evolution The authors survey community palaeontological databases, documenting their contributions to science as well as their vulnerabilities, and provide recommendations for the future of open science databas...

New paper emerging from our Paleosynthesis project @paleosynth.bsky.social.
In www.nature.com/articles/s41..., we highlight the value of databases to #paleontology and the importantce of sustained funding. Our finding are probably applicable to other science fields as well.

The first Early Pleistocene (ca 1 Ma) fossil terrestrial vertebrate fauna from a cave in New Zealand reveals substantial avifaunal turnover in the last million years New Zealand has a rich Late Pleistocene–Holocene vertebrate fossil record with numerous sites across the country in dune, cave and wetland deposits, collectively providing detailed knowledge on the...

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The first Early Pleistocene (ca 1 Ma) fossil terrestrial vertebrate fauna from a cave in New Zealand reveals substantial avifaunal turnover in the last million years

New Date: February 23!

My allergist warned me before going to college that with my exposure throughout childhood and my allergies, when I left for school and then returned home I would be worse: he was 100% correct.

I desperately want this

a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a table with papers . ALT: a man in a suit and tie is sitting at a table with papers .

It's giving

Too late for me, but this is excellent news for millions of people who suffer with this condition.

So power imbalance and coercive behavior is taken as a price to be paid. Anything becomes permissible as long as things appear consensual. Those with power and money keep it, and many look the other way to not jeopardize funding, field camps, their opportunities.

The problems are pervasive.