#Yourpalaeolife The ECR survey is published @ecol-evol.bsky.social! Early career palaeontologists from all over the world have talked about their experience with fieldwork - how could you change your working practices to get more early career researchers into the field? doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

#Yourpalaeolife: Interrogating the Status of Fieldwork Among Early Career Palaeontology Researchers

This global survey of early career palaeontologists provides the first quantitative data regarding the prevalence of field skills training and field work among junior researchers of the discipline. T....

doi.org

Proud supervisor moment! Seeing students graduate and move on to do exciting things (e.g. doing PhDs in Edinburgh and Cambridge) is one of the most rewarding things of undergraduate teaching.

Very honoured to have received this award for excellence in doctoral research supervision. Many thanks to all PhDs (past and present) and others who nominated me!

For reasons (i.e. when heads of educational institutions uncritically push AI)...

Why does T. rex have such short arms? Just appeared on CNN to answer that question.

As a climate scientist I despair at inaction on climate change. As a person, I despair at our collective indifference to avoidable suffering. But I am not sure that anything has caused me as much despair as the casual abandoning of that which makes us human - our creativity and communication.

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Ante-ChatGPT, more than ninety-eight per cent of all English-language articles being published on the internet were written by humans. By the fall of 2024, machines were writing around half of such articles" 😬

Nice to see that our article on the biomechanics of the sabre-tooths Barbourofelis and Smilodon received so much attention.

Dr Stephan Lautenschlager @palaeostephan.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Very happy to have contributed two papers to this Special Issue on Sabertooths:

Worrying that this requires a whole article and is not simply the default position for academics… there is no shortcut to learning and research, at least none that has any lasting value. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Meet the academics refusing to use generative AI

Researchers say they have their reasons for avoiding AI tools — and they’re sick of arguing about it.

nature.com

I only found out today that the tag #geodog exists! So here is palaeo/geo dog Minnie admiring the dinosaur footprint she found.

Great day out in the field with the year 1 palaeontology students, with lots of fossils and even more sunshine in Pembrokeshire.

One contestant irk of palaeoart is that marine reptiles are always devouring my beloved cephalopods... Well no longer! Calling palaeoartists to realise my dream of a giant octopus get vengeance for all cephalopod kind!!! My thoughts on the new paper here! 🐙 www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

‘Kraken-like’ giant octopuses 100m years ago crunched bones of prey

Study of fossilised beaks shows patterns of wear and suggests some ancient species were up to 19 metres long

theguardian.com

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...

Management consultants are ruining UK universities

Relentless off-the-peg commercial rewiring has undermined British higher education

ft.com

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.

Laura Keating@lorekeating.bsky.social · 4mo ago

I keep seeing "all authors use AI, the real issue is they're being forced to be sneaky about it" headlines. Full stop No. This is a lie peddled for normalization. It's schoolyard-level pressure tactics "C'mon, all the cool kids are already doing it. We won't tell. It's fine. We're on your side."

"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."

Workers who fall for ‘corporate bullshit’ may be worse at their jobs, study finds

New study finds that employees impressed by corporate speak may be least equipped to make effective decisions

theguardian.com

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.

New fossils may settle debate over mysterious sail-backed spinosaurs

Spinosaurs have sometimes been portrayed as swimmers or divers, but a new species of these dinosaurs bolsters the idea that they were more like gigantic herons

newscientist.com

(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…

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 7mo ago

Musk should remain member of UK Royal Society, says president ft.trib.al/tC0vaAa

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.

Künstliche Intelligenz in der Begutachtung

dfg.de

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.

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!

Dragons of Wales@dragonsofwales.bsky.social · 8mo ago

No. I don’t just draw dinosaurs! These illustrations were commissioned for the Feeding Without Jaws Exhibition at @lapworthmuseum.bsky.social Check out their website - www.birmingham.ac.uk/events/feedi... - for more details of the exhibition, which runs until the end of February. (1/4)

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!

Lapworth Museum of Geology@lapworthmuseum.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Our new temporary exhibition Feeding Without Jaws is open TODAY! Come and immerse yourself in the fascinating world of ancient fish. We are open 10am-4pm Mon-Fri, 12pm-5pm Sat-Sun and are free to visit 🐟 #LapworthRocks #FeedingWithoutJaws #NewExhibition #SVP2025 #Palaeontology #Paleontology

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!

Very happy to have contributed two papers to this Special Issue on Sabertooths:

The Anatomical Record@anatrecord.bsky.social · 10mo ago

We're excited to share a new Special Issue on sabretooth taxa, broadly defined. From defining what makes a sabertooth/tusk to exploring fossil taxa and saber function. anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/19328494... Volume edited by Hartstone-Rose, Werdelin & Pollock

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.

The Royal Society@royalsociety.org · 10mo ago

"I am increasingly concerned over threats to the values that allow science to flourish." Read the full statement from the President of the Royal Society Sir Adrian Smith: royalsociety.org/news/2025/10...