Welcome to the CAMBRIAN FECAL REVOLUTION. We didn't name it the Cambrian fecal explosion for obvious reasons. I'm happy to share this paper on fecal matter and its role in Cambrian ecosystems. So if you want to read a really shitty paper (50 days free access): authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYg8cZ3X7...

Glad to share our new study at @natcomms.nature.com which resulted from several workshops on the early warning signs of mass extinctions and coordination of macroevolutionary vulnerability and the states of carbon cycle and temperatures. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Whenever I get asked about my views on climate change, the energy transition, etc, I always stress that whatever pathway lies ahead, the public have very, very good reason not to believe the motives of many if not most *energy* companies…

Center for Climate Integrity@climateintegrity.org · 5d ago

In June 1966, scientist James Lovelock warned Shell in a confidential memo of “the almost certain fact that the climate is worsening and the probability that the combustion of fuel is responsible.” Shell would later become "a founding member of the denialist Global Climate Coalition." 😑

NEW PAINTING TIME! Here is "Consuming the Fallen," commissioned by The Etches Collection. It features over 50 different species of marine vertebrates and invertebrates. #SciArt #PaleoArt #MarineReptiles #SeaRex #Pliosaurus #Ichthyosaurs #Jurassic #JurassicWorld #Thalassodraco #Sharks

#FossilFriday Sponge labelled Toulminia bullatus with stalk and roots in the NHMUK collections. Collected from the Late Cretaceous Chalk somewhere in southern England.

say what you will about nineteenth century imperialists but at least they took a kind of arrogant pride in Knowing Things

Sam Heller | سام هيلر@abujamajem.com · 6d ago

Stupid empire x.com/reutersafric...

It is putting it mildly to describe these people as a death cult.

From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation iucn.org/news/202607/...

From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums

The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation: a formal acknowledgement that natural history museums,...

iucn.org

plants, man. what are they even doing

Jeff Groh@jeffgroh.bsky.social · last wk.

Avocados come in 2 varieties - A-types start each day female and switch to male midday. B-types do the reverse. In work just published from the last chapter of my PhD, we show this system evolved 40+million yrs ago and is regulated by alleles of 1 transcription factor www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I started a new part-time role @nhm-london.bsky.social today providing curatorial cover in the Fossil Echinoderm collection. Job #1 was putting away some specimens which were scanned by a visiting researcher, giving me a chance to see some of these amazing Paleozoic #crinoids (sea lilies)!

Cool new behavior caught on video! This is a special type of octopus known as a #papernautilus (aka #argonaut) and her shell is a little less than 5cm. Watch as she extends and retracts her fleshy mantle - at the end, she rapidly retracts it all! #blackwater #blackwaterdiving

This. I never get tired of the reaction when someone realises the sheer amount of information about 🌍 past we can get from 'any old rock' or 'any old fossil'. Especially when people learn we can tell the temperature of ancient oceans and continents from fossil shells. 🤯

Prof Chris Jackson@seismatters.bsky.social · last wk.

Rocks are like time capsules. They reveal ancient life and climates. They’ll help us fight climate change. They record the birth, life, and death of continents. They give us a framework for understanding lithosphere-biosphere dynamics at a global-scale. They’re ace, frankly [2/2]

Someone recently made a quip that, “if you’ve seen one rock, you’ve seen them all”. It was a joke, I guess, aimed in my direction and geologists more generally. Although I think the rock-centric way geology sometimes sells itself is foolish…this person couldn’t be more wrong…[1/2]

It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.

🦈 New #Open-access paper 🥳 on the impact of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction 🌋 on marine vertebrates 🐠, from the Dolomites (Italy) together with @aswolniewicz.bsky.social, Carlo Romano & others. We report the first Early Triassic marine reptile from the Dolomites 😎 #FossilFriday

New insights into the extinction and recovery of marine vertebrates across the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event in the Dolomites, Southern Alps, Italy

The impact of the Permian–Triassic mass extinction on marine vertebrates is incompletely understood due to their scarce fossil record. To better understand marine vertebrate extinction and recovery...

tandfonline.com

Cool weird facts about the first Western palaeontologists. Did you know that the palaeontologist Henry De la Beche, is cited for being the first person to depict Earth as seen from space (1834)

Natalia (娜塔莉)@nataliajagielska.bsky.social · 3w ago

What links Richard Owen and William Buckland (that's not dinosaurs) They got along with, then Prime Minister, Robert Peel, and both worked on modernising sewers and drainage systems, in Westminster (Buckland) and Lancaster (Owen).

We really need to retire that phrase. How about the "Biologically Bangin' Billion", or "Boomin' Billion" or "The Acritiferous Age", or "The Eukaryeon" or the "Stem Eukaryote Diversification Interval" (SEDI)" or... *gets pulled off stage by a shepherd's crook*

Miguel Méndez Sandín@sandinmm.eurosky.social · 3w ago

Apparently the "boring billion" was actually exciting! We provide molecular evidence of complex Mesoproterozoic eukaryotic communities. So happy to see this out 🥳 Thanks to @phoebefossil.bsky.social , Hélène Morlon & @fburki.bsky.social for a lovely collab! doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

Could Excel be conscious? We surveyed more than Jan 1 1900 people to find out.

RE: ‘complex cross-subsidies in HE’ the humanities (and business school) depts subsidise the more expensive STEM depts within each uni. £9.5k p/yr doesn’t touch the sides of educating a geology or chemistry student with pricey fieldcourses or labs, but an English/ history student is cheap!

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’ll be force feeding my piece down your throats bit by bit for the next few days. This is about why loss of research capability in universities isn’t just a linear bit of market forces but a messy process of universities sometimes doing panicky short term cuts

Fantastic time @lifeandplanet.bsky.social @geolsoc.bsky.social last week! The usual mix of amazing people, science, and community. Pleased to present our @chalksea.bsky.social work on marine ecosystem response to #Cretaceous environmental change. Which felt sadly appropriate during a heatwave.. 🌍🌡

🚨 NEW from @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social Britain backs Binface 🚨 When asked who they would prefer win the Clacton by-election... 33% say Count Binface 21% say Nigel Farage 32% say neither 13% are undecided

Nigel Farage vs "the establishment" He went to private school, worked as a stockbroker, has been a professional politician for 31 years, has his own TV show, is a brand ambassador for gold, is mates with POTUS, accepted a secret £5m gift, and owns five houses bought outright with cash What a rebel

Farage just called a referendum on the concept of objective reality iandunt.substack.com/p/farage-jus...

A powerful recreation of what we have lost in my life time: www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Listen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 years

Guardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

theguardian.com

Nice piece on our little Antarctic dino find courtesy of the BBC Science team: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Antarctica's first ever dinosaur bone discovered in a drawer

The fossil, collected in Antarctica in 1985, is part of the tail of a beast called a Titanosaur.

bbc.com

#FossilFriday: Psiloceras planorbis from the Lower Lias of Watchet in Somerset. From the collection of geologist and surveyor William Smith (1769–1839), purchased by @nhm-london.bsky.social in 1816.

Diversification of angiosperm reproductive strategies predated the end-Cretaceous extinction | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Diversification of angiosperm reproductive strategies predated the end-Cretaceous extinction

Angiosperm reproductive evolution is traditionally linked to the end-Cretaceous biotic crisis and subsequent ecological restructuring. Here, we report diverse and unexpectedly large diaspores (dispers...

science.org

Ed Hawkins@edhawkins.org · last mo.

1976 and all that... Greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, have caused global temperatures to rise 1°C since 1976, but comparable UK heatwaves are now 3°C hotter, and would peak at 38-39°C. (Oh look, same as this week's temperatures...) theconversation.com/we-recreated...

Irony is dead