Today in the UK, I dropped my six-year-old at school and came home. Alive. Wednesday in the USA, Renee Good dropped her six-year-old at school and never made it home. Killed by masked government agents. There are UK politicians who want Trump-style ICE enforcement here. Let's never vote them in!

An excellent portent for the new year 😬

The winner of the vote among new National Archives files released in Nov-Dec 2026 was this one: COAL 30/568: British Coal Art and Artefacts 1986-1995 This one is interesting! Buckle up for coal mining, an unexpected Indiana Jones reference, and a big METAPHOR for privatisation 1/n

Not gonna lie, I'm pretty pleased with my impromptu microphone stand for my office. 🧪⚒️

The existence of the verb problematicize brings me joy. (Courtesy of Curzan, A., 2003. Gender shifts in the history of English. Cambridge University Press. 🫡 )

🚨 Pre-announcement! 🚨 We’re hiring for 2 x two-year, full-time roles to join me and the wider @palaeoverse.bsky.social team @es-ucl.bsky.social. - Research Software Engineer (REF: B04-06999): lnkd.in/eNRBiPnP - Community Engagement Coordinator (REF: B04-06998): lnkd.in/ejUACCzn

Looking for a PhD in palaeontology or associated fields? Just a heads up that we have a list of opportunities on the @thepalass.bsky.social website: palass.org/phd-opportun... ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky (If you're advertising one, you can add it to our listings too: palass.org/form/webform... )

Really enjoyed my first @thepalass.bsky.social annual meeting! Thank you to all the lovely people that I met for making it a great time. I'm delighted to have been awarded a poster prize for my work on annelid locomotion. Congratulations to the other prize winners, including @lej-palaeo.bsky.social!

Joining y'all at #PalAss25 @thepalass.bsky.social a little late this year due to teaching later today: apologies to the symposium speakers whose talks - that look amazing - I will be missing.

Martin Parr, absolute mensch. From Colin Wilkinson, founder of Bluecoat Press, on FB

Fifteen Years xkcd.com/3172/

We look after a range of special interest and user groups at the University all based around the common theme of computation and data. One of our most recent groups is the #C++ user group. Find out more about their activites in this short interview with @russellgarwood.co.uk

Geology and palaeobiology at the University of Leicester are under threat, with at least 14 staff expected to be made redundant. Support them, their postdocs, and their students by signing this petition: c.org/SK8Xm8dhqK

Meet @russellgarwood.co.uk one of the academic leads of our C++ User Group. Find out more about his use of #C++ in his research and his thoughts on the group.

My students have set up a petition to persuade the University of Nottingham not to close our Plant Biology BSc course c.org/VPhzVVrHPS Please consider signing

I’m a bit younger than Simon Armitage and didn’t grow up in Yorkshire, but this totally resonates. 💯 www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

🚨New paper out in Palaeontology! Check it out if you're interested morphological evolution, fossil phylogenetics, and macroevolution 🧪 "Assessing the impact of character evolution models on phylogenetic and macroevolutionary inferences from fossil data"

Exciting times ahead - I'm beyond delighted to be joining @bristolbiosci.bsky.social in 2026! 🎉🕷️🎉🐌🎉 I'm also looking for a PhD student to join @multipleye-lab.bsky.social in our new home! Come and study the effects of light pollution on the evolution and development of spider eyes with us 🌃🕷️👀 👇

Out now in Biology Letters, my latest paper tackles an apparently simple question: how many characters are needed to reconstruct a phylogeny? TL;DR: in most cases between 100 and 500, more than a substantial portion of morphological datasets, but the story is more complex... doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

If you haven't yet, come see our poster designed by my coauthor Harrison. Tl;dr: if some lifeforms were going around terraforming planets, we could detect them* even without a working definition of "life" or "habitability" *terms and conditions apply

Just caught up on this fascinating paper in Science in August. It reports evidence of strong selective pressure from breeding of horses around 5000-3000 years ago in Central Asia. One reason it's interesting is that the selection is *really* strong... /1 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Know trebor mints? Founded by, amongst others, Robert Robertson. Trebor is Robert spelt backwards. How has it taken me decades to notice this?

an extraordinary person with an extraordinary legacy who nevertheless didn’t take herself too seriously when Gary Larson published this cartoon, she was in Africa and her institute was horribly offended and drafted a complaint the whole thing was defused when she returned - she found it funny

AMAZING JOB ALERT!!! Dorset Council are recruiting a World Heritage Officer to support the management of the Jurassic Coast! Would suit an Earth Science graduate with an interest in digital comms and content: deets here: www.jobs.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/vacancies/32...

OK, head above water briefly and can say a few things about a paper that came out a few weeks ago in @royalsocietypublishing.org on Platysomus and kin.

"differences in squamate fossil record completeness stem from ...anatomy/body size and affinities of different ...groups to specific lithologies and depositional environments." doi.org/10.1017/pab.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio Toxiferans: snakes and mosasaurs the kings of the squamate fossil record 👇

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️25th September 2025, 15:00 UTC🗓️ Join us next week to hear from @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk, on “The Tree of Life and Death: What do Fossil Taxa Contribute to Morphological Phylogenetics?” 🌳🐣⚰️ Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

Live scenes, the day before the abstract deadline for a @thepalass.bsky.social conference, brought to you by the internet officer. 🧪⚒️

Out today in @commsearth.nature.com from some of my newest colleagues at UMMP: evidence that the extinction of dinosaurs led to fundamental shifts in terrestrial environments, and that this signal is recorded in facies shifts tied to the K-Pg boundary: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

We are nearly ready to announce this year's Founders' Lecture speaker! In the meantime time check out @maxjtelford.bsky.social's 2024 lecture: 'Are we really more closely related to starfish than to earthworms?' www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSR5...

Incredibly proud and also very emotional to see this new paper published in @systbiol.bsky.social. The study was lead by Pierre Cockx, who sadly passed away in July. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

Me reading any statement about chelicerate phylogeny not couched in uncertainty: 🧪⚒️

New paper led by my PhD student, Edwin Rodriguez! Building on previous work, we present a systematic description of the ONE BILLION YEAR OLD fossils of the phosphates of the Diabaig Formation, NW Scotland — including some early eukaryotes and new species... #paleontology #fossils #geology

Well done Manchester. Don't change 🫡

Question: What the hell is this? (thread)

At the end of my fellowship in Berlin - me completing the character coding for my arachnid phylogeny v.s. me actually looking at the tree 🕷️🧪⚒️

Handsome horseshoe

German words we need in English: der Restsommer - "what is left of the summer when the season has nearly come to its end."

Also, I think it's worth highlighting just how much love went into these figures: all are stippled. As is clearer in the close up of a claw below, all the shading you see is the result of ?tens of thousands of individual, 0.1 mm points hand drawn with a Rotring pen 🤯

For #FossilFriday here's some gorgeous fossil scorpions - four reconstructions of species spanning 200 million years by my very talented colleague Jason Dunlop at @mfnberlin.bsky.social. Far left of these four is Palaeophonus, also shown in the photo and an interprative drawing below. ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

We've been busy these last few days working out how best to respond to the results of the consultative ballot. So we decided to survey members with some more detailed questions to help us at HEC. The form is open until 5pm Friday 27th Aug, please complete and share. #ucu

Extremely proud to be part of this project integrating stratigraphic paleobiology with phylogenetics. Go and chat to Nik if you’re at #ESEB25 or check out his poster via the link below!

Phylo chums: I am doing a morphological clock analysis, and am getting this error after a few hours run time. Obviously something to do with the tree prior. Anyone have any guidance on how to find out what? .con.tre at this point looks fine. 🧪⚒️

I am one of the 14 authors who chose to leave the Polari Prize, and I find myself frustrated and saddened at the way this entire story has been represented. 1/

Hello all! @thepalass.bsky.social has numerous vacancies on council including internet officer (a role I have served for the last 6 years): palass.org/association/... This role no longer requires any technical expertise beyond using web-based systems, and we can provide full training in those. ⚒️🧪

Latest word to the wise* Der Latte == coffee based beverage Die Latte == a slat, bar, or colloquially, an erection. Be careful what you ask for in your local coffee establishment.

It's a shame that this study didn't hold up — kudos to the authors for retracting it. The alkaline hydrothermal vent hypothesis remains very difficult to test...

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com