There’s an interesting series of 5 free online paleobotany lectures via the Oxford University Botanic Garden this autumn. You can book all 5 lectures here (scroll down webpage to ‘Get your tickets now’ button) www.obga.ox.ac.uk/event/dr-san... #paleobotany

Regular reminder to authors to please acknowledge and cite people who have contributed to your work. Yet again I find a paper that I collected data for and I’m not acknowledged. 🧪 Also see our recent paper that provides a toolkit for more just and equitable citation practices👇🏽 🔗 osf.io/qjecy_v3

Great to see an interrogation of the sources of commercial fossils, especially from Morocco 🦖🇲🇦 But utterly disappointing to see the platforming of people who have repeatedly and openly flouted (inter)national laws. Not a legal (or ethics) expert in sight 🤦‍♀️ [1] edition.cnn.com/2025/08/15/s...

Here’s a comic I drew when I was 19.

I was explaining to my Ukrainian colleague the phrase ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’. She told me the equivalent in Ukrainian is ‘The only free cheese is in the mousetrap’ - which is so much better

One of my favourite #MaryAnning facts™️ is that she would discover fossil cephalopod 🐙 fossils with preserved ink sacks, concoct a dangerous chemical slime to turn them back into gloopy ink, and then use her Jurassic ink to draw exquisite illustrations of the vertebrate fossils she found. Meta.

For #FossilFriday, a cobble from the streets of York with corals, not sure of the precise taxon. Maybe Carboniferous?

It’s my book launch on Monday 28th April (5 days) and so I’ll be posting a bit about it for the next week or so! Nervous, excited, overwhelmed- I’m all of these things plus a few more. @FairfieldBooks_ thenightwatchman.net/buy/cricket-ch…

I enjoy the way that in this photo my cats look like a hip-hop duo quite a lot of people quite liked in 1996 who have made a comeback record, done an interview with a broadsheet newspaper and are attempting to prove they are still serious and relevant.

Little egrets fighting. Taken at Spurn Head in East Yorkshire, UK #birds #nature #egrets #littleegrets #sprunhead #eastyorkshire #wildlife

Saw some dinoturbation in the Jurassic Sandstones, South Cliff, Scarborough today. First time spotting these here, was very exciting!

I left the hellhole site a while ago and took a break from all this. But hey, I'm back. Hi everyone—hit me up if you're into anything dusty, chronology, and Quaternary. And here's an image of some lovely sand wedges preserved in loess as a little welcome gift.

I'm Dr Rachel Smedley, Reader in Physical Geography & Director of the LivLumLab for the last 7 years! I love to push the luminescence dating technique to its limits to answer innovative environmental research questions, including dating our hominin ancestors, underneath Antarctica and much more!

You maybe interested to read the information board in the Church on the lifestyle of the Chirotherium, undoubtedly from a little read chapter in the Book of Revelations

Pyramids, glaciers, Shane Hargrave and John Barry. And Fletch! In the Spring 2025 edition of The Nightwatchman, I mark the passing of the York Vale Cricket League after 91 years. Issue 49 also features @anniechave.bsky.social & @camsell59.bsky.social: www.thenightwatchman.net/buy/the-nigh...

The Footprint Bed of the Helsby Sandstone was well exposed at Storeton. It contains trackways of the early reptile Chirotherium. There is a slab with three prints in the porch of Christ Church - not something one usually sees in a church! #urbangeology

Really sad to report that our friend and colleague Richard Fortey passed away this morning after a short battle with cancer. We’ll all miss his wit and wisdom. Here he is checking out a dino footprint we found while filming together on the Isle of Wight

📢 Job available here at University of Birmingham for a CT scanner experimental officer to run and manage our micro-CT facility! Scanning a range of paleontological, geological and biological samples edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

OH COME ON OOLITH IS A WORD YOU TWERP

It's beyond Obama. The bigger truth is about Black progress in America in the 20th/ 21st century-- Black advancement helps open the doors for so many other marginalized groups to rise. They want to kill the path of govt/educational/ career advancement for EVERYONE not white, straight, and male.

A while ago, my brother put forward the idea that all nouns are actually descriptive acronyms. I have found it very helpful this year. madliam.blogspot.com/2025/02/that...

It's almost three years since I left #academia... ...and since then, in my conversations with folks also thinking of leaving, this is the one thing that always come up: "I see myself as an academic...and nothing else". Recognising your value outside academia is the key first step...

This #FossilFriday i am excited to tease a new piece of work in press on the architecture of #Charnia masoni from the #Ediacaran . I basically took the rangeomorph architectural rules established by my mentor Martin Brasier and sculpted them in 3D with beautiful consequences. 1/2

The only 'Blue Monday' article you'll ever need theneuroscienceofeve... It's #BlueMonday again. And this is all you'll ever need to read to know the 'truth' about it Which is that it's a ridiculous marketing stunt that got way out of hand and impacted me more than most people

My first barnacle penis sighting in the wild🤩Barnacles have the largest penis in the animal kingdom relative to their body size. #invertebrates

Its a day ending in y so there's news about the UK university sector collapsing in on itself. This here is a Russell Group story, but if the excellent education beat at the FT had the full sector data... I think I know what they would see. The great letting go (of staff).

Just came across this picture from my days working in an aquarium - horseshoe crab feeding time! Because they're silly chitinous dorks, in order to make sure everyone got enough, we'd flip them over and stick food right in their mouths (that spiky hole in the middle of their legs).

#PortfolioDay I'm Brooke. A scientist who studied billion year old mud and fossils, and does natural history, science fiction, horror, and fantasy illustration. brookejohnsonillustration.carrd.co

Do you know someone who loves playing Minecraft?! BGS have a range of geological models and environments built in Minecraft which are free to access through our website (Including a volcano!) Happy building 🌋⚒️😎 www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-...

Favourite new bryozoan genus of the day: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyella

People sometimes make fun of science that sounds stupid and random. Meanwhile, a study of lizard saliva turned into a peptide medication, which was turned into a diabetes medication, which was turned into a GLP1 weight loss drug, that just became the first therapy every approved for … sleep apnea

When I was a I boy I used to stare into the window of Eaton’s (a shop off the Charing Cross Road). I used to love the 3D ammonites that were simply labelled “Whitby”. I didn’t even know where is was. It was a mythical destination that I wanted to visit. Fast forward decades & I got to go there.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History is looking for a project archivist for the Phillips Archive! www.oumnh.ox.ac.uk/project-arch...

The prep for the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival 2025 is starting. If you have a dino-themed book/film/project coming out. Or are a palaeoartist eager to have an art stall. Get in touch to be part of the largest palaeontology-themed festival in Britain! Happening on the 14-15th of June

"After necking several cans of Carling in the churchyard, I concluded that Tatton Sykes' Disco Cave in Garton-on-the-Wolds bore a startling resemblance to a peacock swallowed by an elephant seal." (Nikolaus Pevsner, Church Architecture of the East Riding, 1972) madliam.blogspot.com/2024/12/i-be...

A 2024 highlight was the production of this unique #coccolithophore dress, commissioned by PML and brought to life by a designer and Arts University Plymouth students. Find out more & watch our short video 'the creation of the coccolithophore dress': www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ndU... (2/2)

Assuming the community chest cards in the University of York Monopoly set are based on actual policy, I think I can see why UK higher education is in financial dire straits.

A wee thought this morning for Kirsty MacColl who died #OTD 2000 A true original..

It's been 24 years since we lost the truly incredible Kirsty MacColl. Here she is singing a bit of 'Miss Otis Regrets' We lost quite a talent when Kirsty left us.

Chauvet Cave was discovered on the 18th December 1994. 30 years ago today. To many it is the most arresting expression of cave art in the archaeological record & it is one of the oldest examples in Europe. Here are four of my highlights. archeologie.culture.gouv.fr/chauvet/en #AncientSky 🦣🏺

Exciting upcoming conference - Female Foundations: The Lives and Legacies of Women in Earth Sciences Proposals for papers that celebrate individual or collective women’s contributions to science. Abstracts to [email protected] #science #archaeology #geology #EarthSciences #palaeontology

Recommending ‘Breaking Ground’ great new exhibition @morethanadodo.bsky.social based around my favourite early geologists William and Mary Buckland

One for the punctuationists, from the latest British Wildlife: '... the increased reporting of dragonflies using social media....' Are there dragonflies using Bsky? I think we should be told.

Been studying for my Life in U.K. exam while I wait for files to upload and boy, are these some tough trick questions…

Looks like December 17th 2024, might be Iguanodon's 200th birthday! Research by Martin Simpson indicates that Gideon Mantell's first public announcement about this 'herbivorous reptile of gigantic magnitude' was to the Portsmouth Philosophical Society on 17 Dec 1824: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-engl...

Hi Bluesky! I’m Jake, a science communicator 📢 and palaeontologist 🦖 living in the northeast of England. For my day job I take an inflatable planetarium into primary schools 🚀. I love houseplants 🪴, Dungeons & Dragons 🎲, Pokémon, Marvel movies, collecting fossils 🐚 and chilling with my cat Darwin 🐈‍⬛

For #FossilFriday, I'm delighted to share this amazing new specimen donated to the NHM. The slab preserves over 100 specimens of the Middle Jurassic crinoid Isocrinus nicoleti. This is the subject of ongoing research with Tim Ewin, Ebony Cutcliffe, @egmitchell.bsky.social & @echinerd.bsky.social .

The December issue of my newsletter has just been sent out. My reflections on 2024. Launch of Adventures in Model Land. New paper of immersive storytelling. Gaming Environments. Read it on Substack and subscribe to get it sent to your inbox. open.substack.com/pub/floodski...

Trees were found in quarrying operations in the C19th. They were in the overburden of Portland Stone and also Carboniferous sandstone quarries in N England & Scotland. They were carefully excavated when found. See this blog by @fossiliam.bsky.social madliam.blogspot.com/2015/05/digg...