finally got my film scans back from last summer's expedition to Xietl Sit' (Leconte Glacier) in southeast Alaska. still sort of grappling with how much this experience changed my life and figuring out how I can do it all over again!
shot on kodak portra 400.
You know palaeontology online spheres are dominated by men, with a big name being outed as a peado accomplice, the first thing they comment on are "I never agreed with his stance on T.rex" & "I preferred Bakker/Gould anyway"
And not "The field is rotten to the core with sex pests and weird men"
had a mostly-solo Christmas this year but lunch with friends gave me the excuse to flex the baking muscles and make a cranberry orange tart ✨
The Excavation of Hob's Barrow is a whopping 55% off in the Steam Winter Sale!
Inspired by movies such as The Wicker Man & the works of M.R. James, with a little pinch of Twin Peaks and Lovecraft - our folk horror adventure is the perfect play for Christmas!
store.steampowered.com/app/1182310/...
Friends from New England have been texting me pictures of snow and the way I ✨yearn✨ to live in an entirely different region is getting painful I tell you!!!
I’m off to #AGU25! It’s my first time attending this conference and I’m so excited to be sharing my work as a @polarsteamteam.bsky.social Fellow!
Send me a message if you want to connect during the conference!
A friend has said that I went from “one cult to another” when I left evangelicalism and starting working in museums, and y’know I can’t find fault in his argument!!
I know part of that is because I’m first-gen w/o the safety net of generational wealth. By all rights I shouldn’t be a scientist rn. It’s just, when everyone tells you how good you are, you think eventually you’ll be good enough to have a career you can make a life out of.
Gonna be real it has been pretty difficult for me to square all of the cool stuff that has come my way through my job w/ the fact that it may never be possible for me to have both this career & other life goals (house, community) at the same time.
Doable for others but apparently not for me. 🫠
Illustration from the 1885-90 "Natural history of Victoria" showing two detailed seahorses. The larger seahorse has an elongated snout, segmented body, and multiple fin-like appendages with blue markings. The smaller seahorse displays the typical curled tail and segmented ridges. Three inset sketches highlight anatomical details of the snout and appendages. The image is titled "Memoirs of the Museum - Zoology of Victoria (Fishes)" and captures the unique morphology of seahorses with fine lines and muted color tones on a yellowed background.
🦄 Natural history of Victoria. Dec. 6-10
Melbourne, J.Ferres, government printer;1885-90.
[Source]
An illustrated linocut print and block of studious author M R James working by candlelight while an ominous portent of death* looms over him. *SURE, A SKELETON. 💀
J is for M.R James in my #folkhorroralphabet the author and medievalist scholar responsible for ghost stories such as ‘Lost Hearts’, ‘A Warning to the Curious’ and ‘Casting the Runes’ which was adapted for cinema as ‘Night of the Demon’.
matpringleillustration.bigcartel.com/product/folk...
I truly never considered reverse SAD to be at the root of all my mental ills until my therapist was like "do not trust anything your brain tells you between May and September please, we do this every year"
is this quirk of my brain fundamentally incompatible with living in a desert?
yeah actually this is a huge problem for me lol
me: there's no way reverse seasonal affective disorder is a real thing
also me as soon as it rains or get gloomy: life is beautiful and worth living, how could I ever have been sad
Oh I adore this!
Digital painting of two fuzzy, dark brown American Mastodon eating pumpkins in a small pumpkin patch. The style emulated watercolor and pencil paintings. In the foreground the larger mastodon is leaning over to crush a very large orange pumkin with its weight, while the mastodon behind it snacks on pumpkin chunks. The forest around them is mixed with tall conifers and deciduous trees in various shades of fall reds, oranges and yellows
A pair of American Mastodon chow down on a (slightly fantastical) pumpkin patch 🍂✨️
#sciart #paleoart
man I really love being a paleontologist who studies mammals instead of dinosaurs I can tell you that
Watercolor illustration from 1810-1817 depicting three natural history subjects: the skull of a babirusa with large, curved tusks prominently shown; a detailed spread of antlers attached to a skull base; the broad, flat skull of a sea lion viewed from above; and a dark-colored lizard with a spiny back and open mouth. Each subject is labeled in elegant cursive handwriting. The composition is scientific and focused on anatomical details. There is no kangaroo depicted in this image despite the keyword mentioned.
🦘 The Naturalists Companion containing drawings with suitable descriptions of a vast variety of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Serpent and Insects; & accurately copied either from Living Animals or from the stuffed Specimens in the Museums of the College and Du
1810-1817.
[Source]
I have been SO frustrated with Hades II’s story so far it’s insane
I haven’t even finished the game yet, this bodes ill
I am surrounded by snails. Everything is snails. I know no other reality than one infested by Gastropoda.
(exhibit installation continues to go well)
Currently in the midst of inventorying hundreds of snail shells for an upcoming exhibit - 300 down, ???? to go! 🐚
I’m at the Sun City Library Local Author’s Fair with WSC peddling my book! 🐴
It lives!!! 🦣🦣🦣🧪
Repeated climate-driven dispersal and speciation in peripheral populations of Pleistocene mastodons | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
oh I am SO excited to finally read this
I haven't posted since I got back from my research cruise but uhhhh how does one combine a career in natural history museums/paleo with a career in polar ship-based field work
because I unfortunately fell in love, whoops
Hello from the ice!
For the first time my email away message says “out at sea” - I’ve been aboard the RV Steadfast as a Polar STEAM Educator Fellow! ⛴️
I’m with a team of researchers studying Leconte Glacier in southeast Alaska, and I’ll be bringing back what I learn to WSC. ❄️
So much gear and this isn’t even all of it! Getting ready to go to sea for the first time as a @polarsteamteam.bsky.social Fellow.
the world is falling apart and all I want is to finally live in a place I love and where I feel even somewhat at peace, and I have no idea if I can do that while also maintaining the career I’ve put so much sweat blood and tears into, and no one told me midcareer would be this hard
I love fog, I love the ocean, I love landscapes with green and gray in them, I need to escape the desert already