My Obituary of Elisabeth Vrba—out today in Nature in read-only format:

rdcu.be/ediyO

Fired federal workers share the crucial jobs no longer being done Thousands of probationary federal employees received termination notices. Many were doing crucial work at science-related agencies.

Looking for specific examples of federal scientists who serve the public?
www.sciencenews.org/article/fire...

Cover of Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums by Dolly Jørgensen. Taxidermied Carolina parakeet under a glass bell jar.

My amazing book cover is here!
Coming soon from University of Chicago Press.

Word of the day is ‘cumber-world’ (14th century): a person or thing that encumbers the planet.

New paper re-up! It covers:
- how natural history & world cultures #museums can learn from each other.
- examples of questions natural history museums can ask when researching legacies of colonialism in their collections.
- a discussion about repatriation.
- environmental legacies of #colonialism 👇

I would like to petition for love hearts to replace the standard scale bars for illustrating size in palaeontology papers please.
Also, this shark was smol!

Love at 1st sight w/ our 1st Galagadon tooth found by Cretaceous Creatures 8th graders! This small extinct shark is from Hell Creek Formation, Montana, ~65 million years ago.
#happyvalentinesday #fossilfriday

Ochre is red,
The lias is blue,
You can’t know the future,
Without the past too

Happy Valentines day to all of you who value the study of the times before ❤️🦣🏺🪨

Two Tyrannosaurus wrestle by biting one another ON THEIR MOTHERHUBBIN' FACES. They lean towards the right of the image, the further animal trying to wrench its jaws out of the bite of the closer. One foot of each animal is off the ground, and the tail of the closer individual arcs upwards. Dust and debris scatter as they stagger around the clearing. Behind them is a nice, pleasant day with blue skies and shady trees; the sort of place you might picnic if it weren't for the threat of two 8-tonne reptiles trampling you while they settled their differences. The experience is similar to being in some city parks.

For #valentinesday and #FossilFriday, here's Tyrannosaurus engaging in face biting, a behaviour evidenced from numerous tooth gouges and puncture wounds in their skulls. Among living species, face biting is strongly correlated with the onset of sexual maturity, so this image is love-adjacent, sorta.

Happy Birthday to Charles Darwin, born this day 1809! This is one of his rare first editions of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859), housed in the library at Florida State University. #darwinday #evolutionarytheory

"All disciplines will be affected by these cuts, not just science." - H. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-chief, Science journals

"These [NIH indirect cost reimbursement] cuts should be a rallying cry for higher education to come together to make the case for the American system of research and teaching,” writes @holdenthorp.bsky.social in a new #ScienceEditorial. scim.ag/4b2nv4D

On dreich days like these it might cheer you up to know that in 19th-century slang an umbrella was a ‘bumbershoot’.

Watercolour and pencil sketch showing a Cretaceous landscape as understood in 1833. A lizard-like Iguanodon is shown at left alongside a large palm tree, its tail whirling over rolling hills in the distance. A meandering river bisects the scene, with other animals along its banks. These are, from the top down, a swimming plesiosaur in the stream, a monitor lizard-like Megalosaurus, stork-like birds, the spiky Hylaeosaurus, another swimming plesiosaur, a somewhat dog-like crocodile, and two turtles. The right side of the image shows fern-like plants, reeds and more palm trees.

Iguanodon was named 200 years ago today, so here's (AFAIK) the first time it appeared in #paleoart: an 1833 watercolour/pencil study "Reptiles Restored, the Remains of Which Are To Be Found in a Fossil State in Tilgate Forest, Sussex" by George Scharf. That's Iguanodon on the left. #Sciart thread...

A man seated beside a table in a suit, one arm rested on his lap and another on the table. He is slightly frowning and staring rather menacingly at the camera from beneath his brows.

As we near Charles Darwin's birthday, please remember that time he wrote to a friend about this photograph, "If I really have as bad an expression as this photograph gives me, how I can have one single friend is surprising."

Hugs to you and everyone she influenced… ❤️

I am deeply saddened to have learned of the death, on Feb 5, 2025, of Elisabeth Vrba—a fantastically creative scientist and a warm, wonderful human being. She leaves us a legacy of original macroevolutionary thinking that is still fresh and illuminating.

A coloured painting, depicting two Iguanodon in a forested environment. The Iguanodon are bipdel and very scaly, with iguana-like crested heads. One is walking in the foreground in a determined manner, with thumb-spikes outstretched, and in the background one is stretching up to eat leaves from a tree, with a prehensile tongue gripping the branches.

Happy 200th Birthday Iguanodon!

Very much a fan of your early-20th century look depicted by Gerhard Heilmann, with prehensile tongue and power-walk

A sedimentary ancient DNA perspective on human and carnivore persistence through the Late Pleistocene in El Mirón Cave, Spain - Nature Communications Archaeological contexts in caves provide an opportunity to examine human and animal dynamics through climatic events. Here, the authors present sedaDNA of 28 taxa from El Mirón Cave, Spain, including ...

A sedimentary ancient DNA perspective on human and carnivore persistence through the Late Pleistocene in El Mirón Cave, Spain www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In a 1st, ancient proteins reveal sex of human relative from 3.5 million years ago Researchers have extracted ancient proteins from australopithecine fossils and determined whether they were male or female — a first for human evolution studies.

In a 1st, ancient proteins reveal sex of human relative from 3.5 million years ago www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Cretaceous Antarctic bird skull elucidates early avian ecological diversity - Nature A new, nearly complete fossil skull of Vegavis from the James Ross Basin, Antarctic Peninsula, provides insight into its feeding ecology and exhibits morphologies that support placement amon...

Congratulations on the new paper published in Nature about the #Cretaceous Antarctic bird skull by Christopher R. Torres and co-authors ✨
Here is the link ⬇️
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#article #research #paper #news #nature #bird #antarctic

A Pocket Guide for Scientists: Safeguarding Online Communications - Climate Science Legal Defense Fund This guide helps researchers understand how to best express their personal views and engage in activism online.

Hey scientists. Now would be a good time to revisit @csldf.org guidance on on-line communication.
www.csldf.org/resource/poc...

Resisting by continuing the broadening of participation in science.

Cretaceous Creatures is available nationally.

8th grade science teachers apply today.

cretaceouscreatures.org/get-involved...

Dinosaurs 101 Take a tour through the Mesozoic Era for a deep dive into the world of the dinosaurs: how they evolved, lived, moved, and died.

BTW, if you like dinosaurs (which that book is about), the @nhm-london.bsky.social has a *sweet* "dinosaurs 101" course that is presented by the kick-ass @tweetisaurus.bsky.social. naturallycurious.nhm.ac.uk/course/dinos...

It's still February, which mean that if you buy any of my kids books on @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social they'll donate 10% of to the fantastic @booktrust.org.uk & that's ace (here's a link to my books if you like #dogs, #cats, #dinosaurs, tiny #animals & #evolution...) uk.bookshop.org/shop/nickcru...

Hi! Buying books online? Buy them from @bookshop-org-uk.bsky.social! The sales financially support local, independent bookshops AND for the WHOLE of February if you buy ANY CHILDREN'S BOOK from them they will donate 10% to the awesome @BookTrust and @scottishbktrust! uk.bookshop.org #readitforwards

big news for #FossilFriday

All 8th-grade science teachers across United States are invited to Cretaceous Creatures, a paleo pub sci project partnering w/ students to do real science w/ real (tiny) fossils from Montana. Join for free access to fossils + more!

cretaceouscreatures.org/get-involved...

I love you, @toriherridge.bsky.social !

A blue-skied landscape set around a watering hole in the Early Cretaceous. Three large, subtly-striped iguanodonts are emerging from the water while white flying reptiles flap past them. They approach a group of smaller iguanodont species with red-orange backs and pink-grey hides, who are drinking from the water. Seen between them is the front half of an armoured dinosaur, a polacanthid, walking by. The group of small iguanodonts stands on a churned-up mess of brown mud, the product of many heavy animals coming to drink. In the mid-foreground is a small, gold tyrannosauroid with its head tilted back to trickle water down its throat. Several small, bird-like oviraptorosaurs sneak along the water margin in the lower left. Dinosaurs of opposing size - two enormous, long-armed brachiosaurs - stand in the far distance, in front of a sparse forest.

For #FossilFriday, here's some #paleoart of a casual afternoon in the Early Cretaceous Wealden group, with iguanodonts, tyrannosauroids, polacanthids and sauropods making a mess of a watering hole. The mashed-up muds left by these animals can be found to this day in Wealden rocks. #dinosaurs #sciart

I’m hoping to go…would love whatever workshop you’re working on!

A book cover, featuring the text "Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time. Edited by Chris Manias." The cover image depicts a large long-necked Sauropod dinosaur, modelled after the famous animation "Gertie the Dinosaur" in a park, with a city skyline in the background. A range of humans are standing around Gertie, pointing at and admiring her. There is also a man in a ringmaster outfit standing on Gertie's shoulder.

"Palaeontology in Public: Popular Science, Lost Creatures and Deep Time" is out today, and is freely downloadable as an open access pdf, published by @uclpress.bsky.social !

uclpress.co.uk/book/palaeon...

🎺🦕🦕🦕⚒️🎥🦖🦖🦖📖📰🦣🦣🦣🎺