I’m taking a break from @natecoevo.nature.com while I get some first hand insight into whether hominin ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny but the Old Dead Stuff™️ desk is in the excellent hands of @devinleaward.bsky.social for the duration.

What if experimenting with new ways of photosynthesis could help you survive a mass extinction?

➡️ It's on! Paid internship for aspiring science journalists at Nature's London office. Up to three days a week working from home. All the details are here: springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Spring...

Also in the 'Old Dead Things' section of @natecoevo.nature.com this week, we've got a spiky baby iguanodontian www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/e3CZH ...

The early herbivor(ous microsaur) gets the...salad? Tyrannoroter heberti has teeth that suggest terrestrial herbivory was not an amniote innovation www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/e3CX4

What do we want? Fossil databases! 🐚🦕 When do we want them? Forever! 🗓️ Nice new paper highlighting how academic funding systems and digital architecture need to change, to ensure we can protect and sustain our precious fossil data 📚 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Wallets made of “human leather”. Necklaces made of teeth. Turning people into products isn't quirky, it’s wrong. We need a ban on buying and selling human remains. www.itv.com/news/2025-08...

Same-sex sexual behaviour is part of the normal social life of some primates and could play an important part in their long-term success go.nature.com/4qNGo1I

Our January issue is now live: www.nature.com/natecolevol/... Featuring research on 🧪 🐝 pesticide impacts on wild bees 🪺 population genomics of avian brood parasitism 🌱 the origins of terrestrial herbivory Cover image from Abraham et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🎉🦕 Big news! The Palaeontological Association has just released the abstract booklet and programme for the 69th Annual Meeting of the Palaeontological Association (Portsmouth, 11–15 Dec 2025)! 🌍📖 ⬇️ palass.org/annual-meeti... #conference #PalAss25 #uk

Great day for cat archaeology all round

Finally the research has been published to prove that wild cat (Felis silvestris) lived in Ireland 5,500 years ago. Many claims over the years but the backup genetics was needed and a good number of bones have been recovered to provide enough material www.rte.ie/news/munster...

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 ⚒️

"Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished" That'll be because without heads, they couldn't see where they were going? www.science.org/content/arti...

The geology department at the University of Leicester, where myself and countless others did our palaeontology PhDs, is at serious risk of closure Please show your support by signing the below! c.org/KtYyZB8dHk

I'm not at #SVP2025 unfortunately, but if you're interested in publishing in @natecoevo.nature.com one of my excellent colleagues can tell you how to get in touch with us!

Here’s the @natureportfolio.nature.com crew at #SVP2025 - @joaovascoleite.bsky.social @devinleaward.bsky.social @lukegrinham.bsky.social and me. Come and chat.

Anyone interested in learning about why journals make a proactive effort to increase women's participation in the peer review process should take the time look at some actual evidence about why this is needed. Ditto journalists covering such a story. Do some reporting! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Richard Wrangham pays tribute to Jane Goodall in an obituary for Nature, outlining how she was a tireless advocate for conservation, the welfare of captive chimpanzees and the protection of habitats. 🧪

Sheng et al. call for greater survey efforts and broader conservation initiative to protect the 11 (ELEVEN!) felid species of the Tibetan Plateau. (Strong contender for the Correspondence, or indeed article of any kind, with the best figure we ever published) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The archaeological record of plastics

FYI this excellent piece is now free access for a month--check it out! #palaeontology #plasticpollution

Sarah Gabbott's @thepalass.bsky.social plenary talk has been living rent free inside my head ever since December so I'm delighted that she's written it up as a Comment for @natecoevo.nature.com: we need taphonomy to understand plastic pollution rdcu.be/eAmRU www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our August issue is now live! www.nature.com/natecolevol/... 🧪 Featuring research on: 🧬 The antibiotic resistome 🌍 Palaeobiogeography of lagerpetids and early pterosaurs 🫄 Evolution of mammalian pregnancy Cover shows a pangolin from Emogor et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This company claimed to ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves. Then the fighting started. Colossal’s bold announcements have drawn criticism from many scientists, but the billion-dollar firm is not backing down. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Like science? Then you better be interested when *someone* starts putting out hit pieces on scientists. This is beyond the pale ethically and honestly anyone who doesn’t want to slide to hell on a slick of ai generated content that benefits billionaire business, maybe now is the time to get angry.

I was really looking forward to @cpeg-cpb25.bsky.social but unfortunately can’t make it anymore. Hope to catch up later, but if you’ve got any #conservation #palaeobiology papers please do submit them to @natecoevo.nature.com! Or drop me a message to discuss

Paranthropus robustus ecology and life history via Sr isotopes from teeth www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/exFEL

Our July issue is now live! www.nature.com/natecolevol/... 🧪Featuring research on: 🌴Regenerating tropical forests 🐊Early archosauromorph reptiles 🦑Bobtail squid visual and nervous systems Cover shows an orchid mantis, from Pei et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

And here is a whole host of expert comment on the Moa/Colossal announcement -- well worth a read, with lots to think about. www.sciencemediacentre.co.nz/2025/07/09/m...

Nazi Germany did literally ban Nature: "Articles are often published in the London weekly scientific journal Nature containing outrageous and vile attacks on German science and the national socialist state. The journal must therefore be excluded from general use in the scientific libraries."

Finding out #Jomon people (hunter-fisher-gatherer-potter-beangrowers) may have #domesticated adzuki beans blew my tiny mind, so I wrote a Research Highlight about it for @natecoevo.nature.com 🫘🫘 www.nature.com/articles/s41... (original paper is in @science.org www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...)

This article is the culmination of a @wennergrenorg.bsky.social project led by the iso-GOAT 🧪Judith Sealy. I'm so honored to have attended the conference, talked about open science in isotopes research, and then been part of this paper led by Max Spies 🏺https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.250283

Forests in England and Wales associated with higher human #wellbeing are in areas with the least socioeconomic deprivation according to new research from @jessjessfisher.bsky.social and colleagues from @dice-kent.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41... (OA) #AccessToNature 🧪🌎

Our alternative interpretations of the ‘king’ of Newgrange (a skull fragment from an individual who was born of incest) and his distant relations have been published! We argue for the importance of careful integration of aDNA results with detailed archaeological evidence. Such a great team effort!

"museums must shift from being passive repositories of colonial-era collecting to active, ethical and inclusive participants in shaping a sustainable and just future." Claire Browning reviews @jackdashby.bsky.social's new book in @natecoevo.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/es9pa

‪[1/n] New paper co-lead by @emmadnn.bsky.social‬ @macroecoevoale.bsky.social‬ and I: we combined fossil occurrences, biogeography and climate modelling to investigate the origins and early evolution of pterosaurs 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Data from questionnaires distributed to hunters and wild meat vendors in Nigeria suggest that most pangolins are not specifically targeted but are captured opportunistically for their meat, rather than for their scales www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An insanely long pollen core shows vegetational change over the last 3.5 my in Tibet (OA) www.nature.com/articles/s41... #palaeoecology

Our June issue is now live! www.nature.com/natecolevol/... Featuring research on: 🧬Airborne eDNA 💰Costs of biological invasions 🌡️Genomic predictions of temperature adaptation Cover illustration by Marco Lawrence, based on Bradfer-Lawrence et al. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Strong contender for the most adorablest Species Spotlight we've published yet. Yes yes it's an interesting cryptic species complex but also LOOK AT ITS LITTLE SPOTS www.nature.com/articles/s41... (free to read at rdcu.be/eqtw4)

We're excited to announce the next @icarehb.bsky.social Alt-Ac Paths conversation, with Luíseach Nic Eoin @roinnanluisigh.bsky.social and Tansy Branscombe @tansybranscombe.bsky.social, who now work at @natecoevo.nature.com and @barpublishing.bsky.social. Thurs 19th June, 11am (GMT), Zoom link below.

Our library and archives are home to so many treasures, including this colour copy of The Insects of Suriname by Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) who was one of the first to depict the life cycles of insects (namely metamorphosis)

Momentous discovery: while most @natecoevo.nature.com editorials are anonymous, it turns out last year we somehow reanimated Gideon Mantell and got him to write one for us, in 1869. Impressive, no?

Why am I getting targeted ads for horse blankets while reading about Sahelanthropus? I neither own a horse nor have I considered buying it a blanket (would probably go for the blue and white polka dots though).

Last month I got to see some extremely long-lived Cryptomeria japonica trees in Yakushima. A cool new paper in @natecoevo.nature.com shows average tree life expectancy has only a weak relationship w/ maximum lifespan, reinforcing the idea that the yakusugi have won the lifespan lottery rdcu.be/elQOY

Fondly reminiscing about the approx. eight weeks I spent as a tv review commissioner.

The obituary of Isaiah Nengo John Rowan mentioned in his #HumanEvo25 talk is here www.nature.com/articles/s41... (you need to register, but it’s free access. Or free to read at rdcu.be/ejH8J)

Hello, I’m in Hinxton for @eventswcs.bsky.social #HumanEvo25, please come say hello if you’d like to chat about publishing in @natureecoevo.bsky.social and other @natureportfolio.nature.com journals