Poster for a spoof academic lecture. Title reads "The Macroevolution of Cereal Mascots: A lecture by Dr. Matt Friedman." Cropped circles show pictures of Darwin and Matt; these flank the title. Below, a variety of colorful cereal mascots are shown, with a quote from Origin: ". . . endless forms most beautiful have been, and are being, evolved." The time and venue is listed at the bottom of the poster: Thursday, April 9th, 8:30 pm Biological Science Building.

Poster for spoof academic talk. Several lines of text are shown against a cream background: 8:30PM THURSDAY, APRIL 9TH A SPOONFUL OF KNOWLEDGE RM 1010 BSB World-reknown paleontologist, Dr. Matt Friedman, will be giving an exclusive lecture on the macroevolution of cereal mascots. If you don't know what that is, you should come. If you already know what that is, you should still come. We will be providing cereal, milk, bowls, and spoons as usual, but byob, byom, byoc, and byos is encouraged! Two images are shown at the bottom of the poster. The first is a cartoon-like illustration of a stack of books topped with a bowl of cereal bearing the Cereal Club logo. The second shows the classic illustrated sequence of human evolution, with the modern human's face topped with the Cereal Club logo.

Last night, it was my honor to deliver the inaugural "Spoonful of Knowledge" lecture for the U-M Cereal Club. I gave an updated version of a talk on cereal mascot evolution put together in the last year of my PhD, longer ago than I care to admit. Poster credit: Cereal Club Instagram.

Photograph of outcrop showing layers of sediments truncating one another. The rock appears purple-brown, with patches of green moss and algae.

Some great Carboniferous cross-bedding.

My PhD paper on my beloved cycads and beetles on the cover of Science!!!

Check out how we studied thermal infrared as a pollination signal, from molecular mechanisms to the wonders of behavior...

science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🚨New preprint out @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social (under review elsewhere!) 🧵

No global collapse of food webs across the Permian–Triassic Mass Extinction (PTME)

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

UMMP is hiring: Administrative Assistant Senior position with primary duties related to administrative support, collections and publications compliance, and museum outreach and communications work. careers.umich.edu/job_detail/2...

Contrasting evolution of the Arabian Sea and Pacific Ocean oxygen minimum zones during the Miocene - Communications Earth & Environment The Arabian Sea and eastern tropical Pacific oxygen minimum zones were better oxygenated during the warm Miocene, but with regional complexities, according to analysis of trace elements and nitro...

🚨New paper out with @alexauderset.bsky.social! We show that the Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) was better oxygenated during the warm Miocene Climate Optimum than today, but its path to full deoxygenation was slow and complex.
Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

When @omearabrian.bsky.social saw the manuscript, he described it as: ‘What if this figure could be an entire paper?’

I choose to interpret that as high praise.

Now accepted at AmNat: The geometry of macroevolution (with Dan Rabosky). www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Studies Reveal Fish Biofluorescence Dates Back 112 Million Years | AMNH Fish biofluorescence evolved more than 100 times, has ties to coral reefs, and involves more colors than previously thought.

🚨Research alert! Two new studies, led by Museum scientists, suggest that biofluorescence in fish dates back ~112 million years & has evolved independently 100+ times, with the majority of that activity happening among species that live on coral reefs. Learn more ⬇️ amnh.link/4nlyBrk

The history of the ocean, as told by tiny beautiful fossils Bountiful remains of foraminifera reveal how organisms responded to climate disturbances of the past. They can help predict the future, too.

It's been a pretty strange week.
I was interviewed a bit ago for an article about Foraminifera and a recent spate of papers.
Sadly, but predictably, @chrislowery.bsky.social got the best quote in.
@seos-uvic.bsky.social @uvicscience.bsky.social

Regional restructuring in planktic foraminifera communities through Pliocene-early Pleistocene climate variability Nature Communications - The Pliocene–early Pleistocene interval was characterized by climatic fluctuations. Here, the authors apply a bipartite network analysis to a database of planktic...

Hey check out this new paper by former UT postdoc Katya Larina (plus former UT postdoc @foradamifera.bsky.social, @anshumans.bsky.social, @rowanmartindale.bsky.social, and Cori Meyers who I don’t think is here?) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Screenshot from the cover page of the paper

A map of the world showing fly migration study locations and estimated routes

A close up photo of Eristalinus taeniops the stripey eyed hoverfly on a yellow flower in Cyprus

A close up photo of the locust blowfly Stomorhina lunata on a rock. My favourite fly

It's published!
The largest research work I've ever undertaken:

Lords of the flies: dipteran migrants are diverse, abundant & ecologically important

Published in Biological Reviews: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Thanks so much to co-authors @koralwotton.bsky.social & Myles Menz
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Temporal dynamics and global flows of insect invasions in an era of globalization Nature Reviews Biodiversity, Published online: 03 February 2025; doi:10.1038/s44358-025-00016-1Global insect invasions are increasing, driven by advances in globalization and technology. This Review discusses the effects of increasing trade and transport…

New online! Temporal dynamics and global flows of insect invasions in an era of globalization

Preparing CTD-rosettes

When an international group of empiricists and theorists go to sea, good things happen...

New manuscript showing how recurring zones of elevated oxygen that harbor dense populations of phytoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria are connected to viral activity - a 🧵.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Lots of good ecologists here!
bsky.app/starter-pack...

Super excited that our review on the ecology of the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition is now out on how ecology changes across scales from organisms to communities to the world through time. Fab art @franzanth.bsky.social showing the build up of ecological complexity
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

New Contribution from recent UMMP PhDs James, Ethan, and Rodrigo! New Mississippian vertebrates from the Blue Ridge Esker near Jackson, Michigan. @rodrigoichthys.bsky.social @james-v-andrews.bsky.social

Fossil fishes from Holzmaden, preserved as black fossils on dark gray rock.

Fossil fishes (mostly) from Solnhofen, with brown fossils on cream colored rock.

Fossil fishes from Bolca, with dark brown fossils against gray to beige matrix.

In transit to #SICB2025 on #FossilFriday, but here are snapshots of three famous European marine Lagerstätten from a New Year's Day visit to USNM: Holzmaden (Early Jurassic), Solnhofen (Late Jurassic), Bolca (Eocene).

Hi! Can I be added?

I am looking for a PhD student to start in fall of 2025 at MSU. Potential topics include trait-based approaches to plankton community resilience, temperature effects on communities, harmful algal blooms and many others. Please get in touch if interested. More info: www.kl-lab.group.

Amazing fossil alert.

Jurassic salamander from China. You can see the soft tissue of the eye, gills, limbs, even the folds of its tail. And its last meal its stomach…

🧪 #evolution #paleontology

Hi Josh! Could you add me? I am an incoming curator at the museum of Paleontology at University of Michigan.

49 million-year-old beetle looks like it was squashed yesterday Paleontologists named the insect "Attenborough's Beauty," after Sir David Attenborough.

Here's a stunner for #FossilFriday, just look at that beetle's preserved wing case! It belongs to a group called frog-legged leaf beetles (so-named for their extra-juicy rear legs), paleontologists called its pattern "the most perfectly preserved pigment-based colouration known in fossil beetles" 🧪

A fossil dragonfly relative

A fossil insect with long legs

Some cool insect fossils we've got at @ummnh.bsky.social for #FossilFriday

Thrilled to share: out in @natureportfolio.bsky.social (!) just in time for Thanksgiving, the dinosaurian history of how your turkey does the twist. Fibular reduction enabled mid-drumstick mobility, unlocking extreme knee long-axis rotation in theropods 🍗🦖🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08251-w

New here. Can you add me?

New here. Would like to be added

Would love to be added! New here!