Monday is the deadline for public comment! The Heritage Foundation has been mobilizing its members to leave comments in favor of the rule change, so every unique comment matters (don’t use a form letter or copy/paste—similar comments are batched and treated as one).

Bethany Brookshire@beebrookshire.bsky.social · 4w ago

There's an OMB rule change that would require political oversight of scientific grants, and could pull any that don't "reflect presidential priorities" Another country has tried this before! It was the USSR and it was called Lysenkoism. By @thsaey.bsky.social www.sciencenews.org/article/omb-...

this is amazing, will be using this to teach about social construction of colors in my philosophy class #philsci moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/w...

Where to Find the Colors Your Screen Can’t Show You

An atlas of the vibrance of the real world

moultano.wordpress.com

An impressive tour de force on how evolution came to be accepted by the scientific community. We often learn about great discoveries but rarely how consensus gets built. Highly recommend watching if you have... uh... four hours to spare?

Gutsick Gibbon: A Gentle and Modern Ape@gutsickgibbon.bsky.social · last mo.

Hey guys, if you like science and history check out my new video! I worked hard on it 🥺 youtu.be/SsI7M4NNpEg?...

Well dang. One more mystery in Rising Star (although I feel like I've had this in the back of my mind for some time... Was there a rumor about this floating around before?). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Proteomic analysis of dental enamel from 20 Homo naledi individuals shows no male markers

The Rising Star cave system excavations resulted in a high number of well-preserved skeletal specimens from multiple individuals of Homo naledi, showi…

sciencedirect.com

I hope people are doing research on internet video learning and I wish there could be at least half the resources devoted to online video education as to AI in education.

The bent hip, bent knee gait is interesting. And the swiveling arms.

CNN@cnn.com · 4mo ago

A humanoid robot won a half-marathon in Beijing in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, finishing faster than Ugandan runner Jacob Kiplimo's world record. Read more: https://cnn.it/4sGl276

I have three initial thoughts on this: 1) Amazing fossil! Exciting to see our knowledge of apes in Africa expand geographically 2) That is a very questionable use of ASR 3) Come on, Science, seriously no methods whatsoever in the main text!?

Julia Arias-Martorell@julsam.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Check out this new Early Miocene ape, Masripithecus, from Egypt! 👀 Paper by Al-Ashqar et al.👇https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adz4102

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

👋 Back for #FossilFriday with more data on where/what new species get published! Updated data and scripts: github.com/bryanmgee/ne... Nature/Science: ⬆️in coverage through 1995 PNAS: 🆕, new species through 2000 Current Bio: 🆕, new species through 2006 Palaeontology: 🆕, new species through 2010 🧵👇

Bryan Gee@koskinonodon.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data! 🧵👇 #FossilFriday #CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated

Dental Formulas xkcd.com/3213/

Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data! 🧵👇 #FossilFriday #CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated

a close up of a dinosaur 's head with green eyes

Alt: a close up of a Spinosaurus head with green eyes from Jurassic Park

media.tenor.com

Emily Troyer@fishfetisher.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Someone should do a review to see what taxa descriptions most commonly get published in those top journals

This is great. It's not as in depth as the suggestions here, but at my JC in grad school we always asked two questions at the end: "What is the most valuable thing we can take from this paper?" and "What's the next step we would take related to that most valuable thing?" It was fantastic.

Stephen Heard@stephenbheard.bsky.social · 7mo ago

It's easier to tear down than build up, and in science we have a bad case of that. So: how to lead a journal club that actually finds value in what you read. scientistseessquirre... 🧪

A great question about the context of Sahelanthropus from @fossilhistory.bsky.social. Figured I'd share it and my best attempt at answering it, rather than letting it linger in replies.

Paige Madison@fossilhistory.bsky.social · 7mo ago

...but it matters for how the fossils + findings are interpreted, of course. It’s my understanding that there’s some uncertainty around the fossils’ provenance and dating. If the dates were revised, for example, how might that change your interpretation of the evolutionary significance?

This was one of those exciting papers to write where many of the results genuinely surprised me. I'm proud of the work we did on this one, and huge thanks to Scott for leading and to all my co-authors, as well as the reviewers for important feedback! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Earliest evidence of hominin bipedalism in Sahelanthropus tchadensis

Limb bones of the earliest known hominin, Sahelanthropus, are chimpanzee-like in shape but demonstrate adaptations for bipedalism.

science.org

If you want to understand the war in Ukraine, watch @anderspucknielsen.dk. For the investment of watching just a few 10-15 minute videos per month, you'll understand the war better than most journalists (and far better than the US administration lol).https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiTNUZ2zONY

Europe's great power move: EU secures Ukraine funding

YouTube video by Anders Puck Nielsen

youtube.com

Professional anatomist here. I label this diagram "Job Security."

Carl Zimmer@carlzimmer.com · 8mo ago

Given all the recent buzz about how great ChatGPT has gotten, including its prowess with images, I figured I'd check in on its anatomical skills. Nope.

This kind of simple, robust, hypothesis-driven test of our existing assumptions is so important for our ability to interpret fossils. We need more of it!

Caley Orr@caleyorr.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Congrats to our coauthor Joseph Won (PhD Program in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center) on his 1st publication. Curvature of the hand & foot proximal phalanges varies between two orangutan species consistent with differences in their substrate use (all trees vs. some ground use). 🧪

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for people who put their data on Morphosource.

Paleo folks: Please recommend researchers (incl yourselves) interested in phylogenetic reconstruction in deep time, molecular clocks (discord w/ fossil clocks), foundational/methodological issues in phylo/paleo-reconstruction & who'd be interested in hanging w/ historians & philosophers of science ⚒️

Angela Collier is fantastic, and this is possibly my favorite of her videos. Highly recommend a watch for a fascinating story about the discovery in insulin and who gets the credit.

Curious whether anyone knows if authors of scientific papers are members of this Class, or whether we signed that away to the publishers? Regardless, it's interesting to see which of my papers were used.

Ryan Estrada@ryanestrada.com · 11mo ago

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

First official postdoc paper out in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! We compare different approaches to studying kinematics in a macaque ankle and note that the talocrural joint seems to contribute minimally to dorsiflexion of the foot during stance phase. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

Comparison of ankle dorsiflexion using XROMM and external angular kinematics in a quadrupedally walking macaque

Summary: Different approaches to measuring ankle dorsiflexion capture different underlying kinematics. Evidence indicates that dorsiflexion at the talocrural joint is actively limited during walking i...

journals.biologists.com

Buried in the regime's political takeover letter of the Smithsonian is the worst bit. Unlike exhibits, which are non-destructive towards primary materials, temporary in nature, and reversible, the foundational collections are irreplacable. They want to be able to throw stuff out.

I am no constitutional scholar, but I can't help but feel that "the President gets to dictate what every university can teach and what every television station should broadcast" is closer to what the founding fathers were worried about when it comes to free speech than trigger warnings on syllabi.

www.popehat.com/p/the-fourth...

The Fourth Of July, Rethought

Can Any Nation So Conceived Long Endure?

popehat.com

One of the marvelous things about the United States - something it shares with Rome, I might add - is that American identity is fundamentally legal in definition and almost totally binary. Regardless of my politics or his, Zohran Mamdani, naturalized in 2018, is every bit as much an American as me.

Using ancestral state reconstructions to generate hypotheses about primate evolution and testing them against the fossil record. urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=htt... This has been in the works a long time and I'm really pleased to finally have it out! Thanks to all who contributed.

Musing: one side effect of constantly defending (eg an institution or a political party) against disinformation and bad faith criticism is that you can become habituated to ignoring all criticism (as bad faith), which makes it difficult to learn, adapt, grow, and address your actual weaknesses.

Population wide supplementation as a public health intervention is not new and has yielded incredible health benefits through the years don't let the misguided attacks on fluoridated water fool you. Why do you think iodide is added to table salt? Since we are intent of forgetting history here is a 🧵