Writing by hand may increase brain connectivity more than typing on a keyboard New research has shown that writing by hand leads to higher brain connectivity than typing on a keyboard, highlighting the need to expose students to more handw

I often mention studies like the one below to my students.

www.frontiersin.org/news/2024/01...

Next semester I get to teach one of my favs - Microfossils in the Earth and Archaeological Sciences. #PaleoSky

Teaching a 3/3 load is challenging while trying to conduct research, but teaching many different classes across a two-year rotation is the most challenging part. I've prepped nine different classes so far, none of which are seminar-style. One of those changed books and required a new partial prep!

Grades are submitted! It's such a relief to see ZERO Canvas app notifications. Best of all, for the first time in 4 years, I have no new course preps next semester. I can actually enjoy winter break! Applied Time Series Analysis was my new prep last semester, and it was brutal, but I'm proud of it!

A lady across the street has one that she grows in a container (it’s over 6 feet tall) and then she lets it go dormant in her garage over the winter. She recently asked if I wanted cuttings and I said yes. But with kids and a dog, I’m not so sure anymore!

That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

CaOx morphotypes I recovered from extinct groud sloth dung!

meridian.allenpress.com/tjs/article/...

Yet another cool tool!

Subscription request for the PHYTO-CHAT-L discussion list Hello and thank you for your interest in the PHYTO-CHAT discussion list! In an effort to block spam messages, subscribers to PHYTO-CHAT-L will be added manually by the list owner. Once added to the l...

PHYTO-CHAT-L, the new email discussion list for anything #phytolith related is now up and running. Fill out the subscription form with your name, affiliation, and email address, and you will be subscribed to the list:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

#phytoliths
#archaeobotany
#paleoecology

Cool tool!

I recently used @blueark.app to import some of my past Twitter posts that now appear below my backyard blue sky post.

Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky After recent changes to Elon Musk’s X, a gradual migration turns into a stampede

www.science.org/content/arti...

Same. Initially, science Twitter was great, then of course we all know what’s happened after the sale. This space is so refreshing and reminds me of the “old days” on Twitter.

Looking forward to it!

Yes, I plan on going to the IMPR in Barcelona.

I thought I would make a starter pack of scientists working on #phytoliths. Please share if this is of interest to you, and do ask if you want to be added!
go.bsky.app/8HEDmb9

Great idea. Thanks for doing this!

I just switched my professional/ research social presence from the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter. Here’s a little blue sky from my back yard this past summer.

On my way to the 13th International Meeting on Phytolith Research being held at the Dead Sea Research Institute, Israel. #13IMPR

A visit to Friedrich the Great’s summer residence in Potsdam, Germany before the start of the @icdpDrilling conference @GFZ_Potsdam

Having fun with #phytoliths and ChatGPT

Is #ModernReferenceMonday a thing? #Kava (Piper methysticum var. kalihi) tabular facetate leaf #phytoliths. This plant was grown, collected, and sent to me from Hawaiʻi for an archaeological/ancient agriculture project I worked on several years ago.

I’m growing Oaxacan green dent corn in a plot at the ISU community garden this summer for #phytolith, and #starchgranule reference material. We will be looking at phytolith and starch degradation after grinding, #nixtamalization, and cooking steps. @EESatISU @indianastate

#FossilFriday ~300 Ma black shale with a fossilized #bryozoan (cf. Rhombopora sp.) and a few lithified coal clasts. Found in a creek bed when hiking with the family a few weeks ago here in Vigo Co, IN - USA. Cleaned this up with bleach, H2O rinse, and then 10% HCl. #carboniferous

I was making some #phytolith microscope slides at home and ran out of the fingernail polish that I use to seal coverslips. My wife said “I have some, but it’s like 20 years old.” It was my preferred brand for slide making! #Wet_n_Wild

datasets.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2107393119

The paleoenvironmental side of this study got its start in a 2017 seminar on defining and quantifying environmental variability led by Andy Cohen and Anne B. at the U of Arizona. @jjrowan_paleo and Andrew Du applied their genius to the mammalian...

I am also very grateful to our department chair, Jen Latimer, who hired me as a lecturer (Fall, 2021), and spearheaded my transition into a tenure track position. I'm really looking forward to this next teaching and research phase of my career! #phytoliths

In addition to the multitude of family, friends, and academic colleagues who have supported me along the way, I will be eternally grateful to @DiatomsATTACK, a longtime friend and colleague who brought me to ISU as a postdoc researcher (Fall, 2020).

I am absolutely thrilled to focus on teaching and mentoring students in the EES Department, which is the home department for anthropology, geography, and geology at ISU. This is an obviously amazing fit for my expertise!