A reunion of the folks (all @vcuchs @vcualumni) who worked on the #FoundingFossilsExhibit @thepealebaltimore
Maggie and I co-created the #FoundingMonstersComic that will also be the source for an upcoming exhibit in Pennsylvania with @widga.bsky.social All on #MastodonMonday
"We are the only natural history museum in Riverside County, which is roughly the size of New Jersey and has more than 2.5 million people...we decided that offsite programming would become a significant part of our outreach efforts."
life-from-a-certain-point-of-view.ghost.io/maxs-mobile-...
I suppose that would explain why there haven't been periodic reinvestigation of the site itself! Tricky.
That's news to me! There is so much unanalyzed material in the academy that I hadn't thought much about reopening the site. At least anytime soon.
I made a good call coming to the Academy of Natural Sciences today, actually
Infographic showing the main steps in the preparation and publication of 3D datasets.
How should I publish my digital fossil? Recommendations for the publication of comprehensive 3D datasets in palaeontological studies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @daniajinn.bsky.social @mfnberlin.bsky.social @dfg.de @datadryad.bsky.social #FossilFriday
Glad you stopped by! Hope to see some Founding Monsters in the gallery soon!
Had a short but productive meeting with Dr. Chris Widga, Director of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Museum & Art Gallery at Penn State, about an exhibit for the fall based on the #FoundingMonsters comic….. great museum btw!
I should probably hide this paper...
From the person who once extracted the oldest DNA, comes a study that got none out of 6,000-year-old elephants. Or 0.01% to be precise. The worst possible PR for using aDNA to study archaeological ivory. But success stories are coming soon...
tinyurl.com/5ycwwt66
D. Stefanelli, M. Marino, B. Mecozzi, R. Sardella, A. Zazzera, and M.P. Ferretti (2026)
Reassessing diagnostic postcranial traits in Pleistocene elephants: evidence from Palaeoloxodon antiquus and Mammuthus in Italy
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 71(1): 155-171
www.app.pan.pl/article/item...
Anatomy of a perinatal woolly mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius) from Niederweningen (Late Pleistocene), Switzerland sjp.pensoft.net/articles.php...
Ooo. New book on one of my favorite rivers...
For anyone keeping track at home....Port Kennedy Cave has some v large samples of Irvingtonian mammal taxa--crying out for modern re-analyses! Megalonyx wheatleyi, Tapirus, Mammut and a whole raft of large carnivores.
I enjoy citing these papers when I can say they were outright, bonkers, wrong. Otherwise, nah.
A man with a mastodon tusk (3D printed) from @valivingmuseum on #MastodonMonday
Pre-orders help a *lot*, so if this tyrannosaur tale is one you know you’ll read please consider ordering your copy early.
Part of a map in the publication described in the post. The map shows Mississippi River channel belts of various Holocene and Late Pleistocene ages.
Not as pretty as the old Fisk maps, but Roger Saucier's maps in his Geomophology and Geologic History of the Lower Mississippi Valley (1994) have ages assigned based on radiocarbon dating, and I think a better understanding of the processes involved.
Can some museum just do a blacklight survey party in their collections after hours and report everything that glows? Every 6 months there’s another one of these and I’m starting to think maybe it’s not that special/there are some interesting patterns we could pick up with broad sampling.
It's not everyday you get to shake a dinosaur's hand
Just updated the #SciComm community directory on my website: www.virginiaschutte.com/scicomm-comm...
I added the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators (@gnsiart.bsky.social) & the Early Career Science Writer Network (www.linkedin.com/groups/12971...)
LMK if there's a group you think I should add!
Oxygen supply through the tracheolar–muscle system does not constrain insect gigantism
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Happy #FossilFriday! Very happy to have a grant-funded summer position open at the Science Museum of Minnesota! Apply here for a great chance to work in our Paleontology Dept + good volunteer opportunities to join us in the field in North Dakota & Montana!
recruiting.ultipro.com/SCI1003/JobB...
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!
"'There is no 11,000-year-old ash layer underneath the Monte Verde II site," Dillehay told Live Science in an email. "They are studying a different context in the area and are projecting that into the site from elsewhere.'"
Another archeology debate that is secretly geology (stratigraphy)....
Dune poster reading "Clovis First" in Dune Font and "Ignore the Stratigraphy" below that.
Democracy isn't a modern luxury—it's a political strategy with deep roots.
In our new study for Science Advances, we analyse 40 different societies and develop a framework for measuring human governance along a collective-autocratic axis.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Press release for our new paper!
“…people across the world created inclusive political systems, even under difficult conditions…An understanding of the hallmarks of autocracy and democracy can help identify threats and pump the brakes on burgeoning totalitarian regimes.”
phys.org/news/2026-03...
Three panel comic. Panel 1: young man in a hoodie looking morose and sitting on a swing set. He says “she’s breaking up with me…” Panel 2: next to him is a glyptodon, an early ancestor of armadillos. With his head in his hands, the young man says “what do I do glyptodon?” Panel 3: the glyptodon says “I’m like an early ancestor of armadillos. The young man angrily replies, “are you even listening man?”
