It's me in the Financial Times, detailing the deep and pernicious influence of one-size-fits-all management consultancy in our universities... Take a look! 👇
www.ft.com/content/5032...
No serious scholars are using AI to do their writing for them. If you're using LLMs to write up research articles, review grants or manuscripts, or grade, you're a joke.
"A new study out of Cornell Universit found workers most excited and impressed by corporate speak may be the least equipped to make effective, practical business decisions, and it can leave companies with dysfunctional leaders."
In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis.
www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.
(1) Long 🧵 Time.
Today we learned that paleontologist Jack Horner (the same guy who helped give us "Jurassic Park") is in the Epstein Files. As a paleontologist, I feel compelled to say something because this touches my field and I want to make my stance clear on this...
“But I think it is naive, frankly, to say that we should get rid of him because he’s a bad person. I’m afraid there’s many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances.” - the carte blanche for every bully in academia…
DFG erlaubt Einsatz von KI in der Begutachtung.
Wenn wir jetzt noch die AI dazu kriegen, die komplette Forschung zu machen, haben wir den Menschen komplett von der Last des Forschungsprozzeses befreit und er kann sich komplett auf wichtige Dinge wie Reisekostenerstattungsanträge konzentrieren.
Mine
Cutting lines or even whole departments is the frontal assault on higher ed, but another low key war of attrition is the slow accumulation of grinding, meaningless additional tasks concerning syllabus templates, learning outcomes, institutional pablum, and ever more intricate evaluation hoops.
Importantly, this study was done with the contribution of several undergraduate students who helped my collect the data as part of a year 1 course I am teaching (if you are interested in more detail see here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...)
5/5
Turns out, dinosaur skulls are neither optimised for minimising stress nor maximising bite efficiency. However, this makes snout shape and length highly adaptable, enabling them to occupy a variety of dietary niches!
4/5
To investigate the effect of skull proportions we tested different hypothetical models with varying proportions using biomechanical simulations.
3/5
Our results show that the main variability in dinosaur skulls is found in the length of the snout (or rostrum). In contrast, the orbital and braincase regions maintained their relative size fairly consistently.
2/5
Why such a long face? In our new paper, we quantified dinosaur skull geometry and proportions and tested their functional impact. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
(Artwork by Andy Frazer @dragonsofwales.bsky.social)
1/5
Check out Andy’s excellent reconstructions of jawless fish for our latest exhibition @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social!
Honoured to have contributed to a new paper in @currentbiology.bsky.social led by Mario Bronzati and lots of excellent and brainy (yes, pun intended) colleagues, showing that pterosaurs and birds evolved flight-capable brains but in different ways. www.cell.com/current-biol...
Thinking about #dinosaurs? Didn't get a chance to celebrate their 200th birthday last year? Well, our Temporary #Exhibition curated by @palaeostephan.bsky.social has now gone virtual!
Find 'Bringing dinosaurs back to life: 200 years of research' on our Virtual #Museum: ow.ly/Ryt550XvLCA
#SVP2025 was finally an opportunity to show the excellent reconstructions of Dysalotosaurus created by @dragonsofwales.bsky.social
If you are attending #SVP2025 #2025SVP make sure to visit the stall of the @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social for some exclusive merchandise featuring some jawless fish designs!
Feeding Without Jaws opens this Wednesday!
Our temporary #exhibition tells the immersive story of our ancestors, jawless fish. Find out about why these ancient fish have fascinated palaeontologists, & what new discoveries have been made about them.
www.birmingham.ac.uk...
#LapworthRocks
Attending #2025SVP #SVP2025? Interested in Palaeozoic fish and temnospondyls, dinosaurs old and new, sabre-tooth cats, biomechanics, biogeography, museum ethics, etc? Don't look any further, the Lautenschlager Lab got you covered - thanks to a lot of hard work by students, post-docs and colleagues!
This study demonstrates that sabre-tooth canine shape is exceptionally diverse. A functional analysis of theoretical and actual tooth shapes shows that these canines represent a compromise between sharpness, curvature, and length vs. robustness and material investment.
The second paper (based on the 3rd-year project of former student Caitlin Shelbourne) explores the shape diversity of the eponymous canine teeth across different sabre-tooth groups.
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Our results show that Barbourofelis was a force to be reckoned with and that its skull could withstand higher stresses than that of Smilodon hinting at a more generalist behaviour to subdue prey.
The first paper (with co-authors @bortxaf.bsky.social and Shane West) investigates the feeding biomechanics of the “false sabre-tooth cat” Barbourofelis and how it compares to the iconic Smilodon:
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Very happy to have contributed two papers to this Special Issue on Sabertooths:
As we see so often in research, bullies and abusers do terrible things while everyone who could stop them wrings their hands and gives free speech platitudes just so they don't have to act with unity and strength.
This is just another example of academic inequalities and harms writ large. Appalling
He should have been expelled. This is way more than policing opinions.
- Inciting violence at far right rallies
- Interfering in government affairs
- Destroying health and science infrastructures
- Ensuring thousands will die
Abusers, excused and enabled by craven others, always grow in power.
Until a few weeks ago I knew next to nothing about early Devonian jawless fish. To be honest, I still know shamefully little about them. But I’m currently illustrating a bunch of them, and have become utterly fascinated by these extraordinary little freaks.
Anyway, just saying 🤷♂️
Is it really *that hard* to say that it is totally morally wrong to say to people who have come here legally, worked, paid taxes, built their lives here, contributed to Britain, that they have to fuck off now, rather than "unfunded".
