Officially recruiting postdocs at GW. If you are interested in genetic novelty, structural variation, or evo genetics please get in touch! We have data sets on mulitple organisms with large population sizes (Drosophila, Megalonaias nervosa) and species in decline (fireflies, mussels, elephants).

What a cutie patootie

The Palaeontological Association@thepalass.bsky.social · 23h ago

Bataspis crux, a galeaspid (jawless stem gnathostome) from the Lochkovian of Yunnan with a batwing-shaped head adapted for hydrodynamic efficiency onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... @morphobank.bsky.social

How could 476 whale skeletons accumulate at the bottom of 6km ocean trench over 5 million years? Introducing the WHALE NECROPOLIS

When I first heard about this, my brain looked at the numbers, 476 over millions of years, and concluded this was actually "That Spot Where All The Other Wales Told Them Not To Go, But They Went Anyway And Were Never Seen Again." I realise it's not as catchy as WHALE NECROPOLIS, obviously.

@thefossilfiles.bsky.social · yesterday

How could 476 whale skeletons accumulate at the bottom of 6km ocean trench over 5 million years? Introducing the WHALE NECROPOLIS

Only 2 days left to submit your abstract! 🚨 Submit to the 'The Future of the Fossil Record: Developments, Trends and Innovative Approaches in Paleontology' session here : agu.confex.com/agu/agu26/pr...

Cat Typing on Laptop

ALT: Cat Typing on Laptop

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Narimane Chatar@narimanechatar.bsky.social · last wk.

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE for #AGU2026 COMING SOON (🗓️August 5 🗓️)! 🚨Don't forget to submit your abstract for our paleo session 🦖 The Future of the Fossil Record: Developments, Trends and Innovative Approaches in Paleontology 🔗 tinyurl.com/mtkyptc7 See y'all in San Francisco 🌉

I had a typo in the name of the genus I re-assessed for my first chapter hidden in my thesis. So probably fixing that. (I fixed in with my revisions so really, wasn’t that big a deal)

Ava Bucy@fangirlresearch.bsky.social · 2d ago

#academicsky Things you wish you did/checked in the last days before submitting PhD? Things you’re glad you did/checked?

Are you passionate about #naturalhistory #collections? Apply for our open position for the Herbarium Collections Manager @utkherbarium.bsky.social. We will start evaluating applications on Aug 17, so get your application in now. #Botany2026 #herbarium #jobs

I’m especially excited for the windfall tax on celebrity cosy crime books, it’s a personal pet peeve.

My taxi driver just got me home faster than anyone has ever managed from the airport. I think I figured out his trick…

One really lovely thing about this conference is that a few people have brought babies in to the talk sessions and no one has complained when they kids babble a little bit Really it’s fine, they get taken out if they’re too noisy, and at other times they’re no more distracting than anyone else.

I was a little sad to miss out on the conference’s Messel Pit field trip today but then the weather topped out at 36C.. Seeing some specimens in a climate controlled museum worked out pretty well Instead✌️

Conference souvenir for my partner acquired! Eintracht Frankfurt. They’re seemingly doing ok in the Bundesliga. Idk, I just buy football mugs as requested.

Two tenured, mid-career positions available in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Michigan: Climate-Driven Hazards and Earth Surface Dynamics. Applications due Aug. 15th: lsa.umich.edu/earth/about-...

Excellent coffee break snacks at the IPC polychaete conference (The talks have been super interesting too!)

Umm maybe I’ll go see one of the oldest book copies of The Odyssey when it’s not summer holiday time ✌️

You can kill a French vampire with a baguette. It's a painstaking process but it works.

Don't put other people's work through AI. Full stop. It's not your work to give away. It's unethical and immoral.

Imagine being this rich and not having someone to grow you backyard tomatoes, one of the few shiningly perfect foods in this world. Seriously, what is the point of money?

Matt Novak@paleofuture.bsky.social · 2w ago

Another odd moment occurred when Musk insisted that work in the future would be "optional" because robots would do everything. Musk said people might still work in the future but compared it to people who grow their own backyard tomatoes. He said they could just go to the store for better tomatoes.

Stoked to see our paper out as a pre-print! Check it out if you're interested in how we can expand comparative methods to better accommodate the many-to-one mapping of evolutionary process to pattern... (or if you think frogs are cool) @gjslater.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Beyond the Panglossian paradigm: adaptation, constraint, and anuran functional trait evolution.

Recognizing patterns in functional trait evolution is a necessary step in testing macroevolutionary questions. Quantification of these patterns and interpretation of their generative processes relies ...

biorxiv.org

In retrospect I fully recommend going to see the Odyssey at a 22:45-02:00 imax showing Everyone is just there for the film, and you could hear a pin drop as we all held our breath while the horse trick unfolded. Also it’s excellent. Catch it if you can!

Current poster-making process I think this confirms posters just aren’t for me.

Hey All! I know its field season for many of us, so I wanted to give everyone a heads up on this: The Paleontology Section Manager position (my former job) will be posting on or around August 1. Keep an eye out if you are interested in taking on the leadership of the dynamic NDGS Paleontology team!

Red Alert Warning

ALT: Red Alert Warning

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Shout out to the woman next to me at the nail salon. She was getting a “Carmela Soprano” French tip and really committed to the bit by being a colossal bitch to the staff. Dedication to her craft.

Shout out to the woman next to me at the nail salon. She was getting a “Carmela Soprano” French tip and really committed to the bit by being a colossal bitch to the staff. Dedication to her craft.

🚨 #MUSEUMJOBS KLAXON🚨 We're looking for a Senior Digitiser and two Digitisers to work across @zoologymuseum.bsky.social & @camplantsci.bsky.social to help create biodiversity data for the researchers who need it, through #DiSSCoUK. 1. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/senior-... 2. www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/digitis...

I'm going to see the Odyssey, but maybe I should also go see THE Odyssey?

The University of Manchester@manchester.ac.uk · 2w ago

The Odyssey: a story shaped to be retold 📜📖✨ Meet experts from The University of Manchester and John Rylands Library to explore the oldest known surviving copy of Homer’s Odyssey in book form on parchment and find out why the story has resonated with so many through the centuries.

😭🫡

Ok this is very good

Man I love Tom Cruise. He’s absolutely magnetic on screen and I’ll die on the hill that he’s the last true Hollywood Star (*) (* I know, I know 😔)

The best book I apparently EVER bought him was on the physics and maths of golf, so that’s a high I’ve been chasing for years.

Jane@fossilyarns.bsky.social · 3w ago

Belated Father’s Day gift for my Dad. He likes birds, he likes history, this has got to be a hit right?! Also he can’t feed them at the moment because of bird flu so hopefully it’ll fill a void… (The safety second gift is a big book on the assassin of Trotsky)