I'm recruiting a PhD student to join the lab at @gtsciences.bsky.social in Fall 2026! Broad taxonomic and topical freedom under the umbrella of vertebrate joint form and function. Information here: www.manafzadeh.com – please share 🦴🩻

Post your last photo of DC to show what a hell-hole it is. That’s one green hell-hole. Taken from the top of the National Cathedral.

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

Mesquite 4 beta released! Many new features, esp. phylogenomic. Check out the trailer and longer video on the home page: www.mesquiteproject.org, and use the download link there to get a copy. Feedback welcome! Ask and discuss on our new Google Group (groups.google.com/g/mesquite-p...).

The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is having a virtual town hall meeting tomorrow, Thursday, 22 May 2025, to discuss this year's annual meeting as well as to address logistics for future SVP meetings. Please attend if interested!

New paper from the lab: Our teeth arose as sensory organs on the outside of the body of ancient jawless fish.!! Congrats to Yara Haridy and the team! Background and video: phys.org/news/2025-05... Open Access Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41... News and Views: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Our report on employment is out in Paleobiology (They did let us append that the paper was accepted before the election/changes to NSF and other granting agencies) Employment in paleontology: status and trends in the United States | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core - www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

That moment when you're almost done writing the Discussion section, and you realize you need to run more analyses.

Learning about third eyes at the Smithsonian today!

Day 8 of photoshopping @lastweektonight.com's John Oliver with fossils in the hopes that he saves the Paleontological Research Institution This Yorktown Formation Mercenaria in our collections might make a nice desk for our H. sapiens (if this were to scale) #molluskmonday #savePRI

Hey, academics! Have you signed a book contract lately? You should report your royalty/advance rate anonymously on this spreadsheet. Are you negotiating, or about to be negotiating, a book contract? You should take a look at the spreadsheet. docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

New pub alert! 🚨 and the final installment of papers from my dissertation! Really happy to share this work on Triassic cynodonts that reveals surprising growth differences, helping to reshape our understanding of stem mammal evolution #ThinSectionThursday #Paleontology #Cynodonts #Triassic

How’s your research going today? Because I’ve been oscillating between these two extremes.

I’ve been waiting so long to share the most beautiful dinosaur display I’ve ever seen for #FossilFriday - spotted in downtown DC 😍

I was too lost in the scientific sauce to #FossilFriday today, so please enjoy an old pic from the Dr. Seuss gallery in New Orleans. What kind of creature even is this?

Hey BlueSky! I’ll be defending my PhD dissertation on Monday, Feb 24 from 1–2pm US ET. Message me for Zoom info if you’re interested!

Gonna click on all 7000 data points again today. Wish me luck.

I need to commiserate with my fellow 3D data users, because today I individually selected over 7000 mesh faces over the course of 5 hours, only for the analysis to go "No thank you!"

NSF PRFB POSTDOCS: Pull the remainder of this funding cycle’s stipend, all remaining research funds, and all remaining travel funds (if you have them). Do it before 5PM today. Per instructions from multiple NSF POs. If you’re not already on the PRFB slack, DM me and I’ll send you an invite

NSF's Undergraduate Research Coordination Networks in Undergraduate Biology program has been abruptly archived. The deadline was tomorrow. People were submitting proposals. This program is designed to support the American scientific workforce. I cannot see the point of this level of self-sabotage.

This week I played among the Carboniferous floras and found these beauties for #FossilFriday 🌱 These aren’t flowering plants, and there wouldn’t be flowers for hundreds of millions more years. But they’re no less stunning imo. Housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Applications are now open for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Futures Award! See screenshot as well as application link below: vertpaleo.org/svp-futures-...

Giving the invertebrates some love today for #FossilFriday Gorgeous eurypterid from New York, on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

I am extremely excited to announce that for the first time ever, Skype a Scientist is offering mini-grants to support IRL science communication!! Communicating science out in our communities is critical. We want to enable others to get their projects off the ground! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A pretty solid couple of days for publishing some of my dissertation work! 🦎Our description of Milleropsis pricei, a late Permian reptile from South Africa, is out! 🚨Rethink what you know about 'parareptiles'🚨 Link here: doi.org/10.1098/rsos...

A reminder that David Peters is a serial purveyor of nonsense, that he shouldn't be taken seriously, and that he is toxic and leading a highly negative campaign of constant criticism. ResearchGate have been alerted to this issue but have yet to take action. Please see... tetzoo.com/blog/2020/7/...

New Year, New #FossilFriday! Nothing as classic as a T-Rex chomping on a Triceratops. Visitors flock to this display, but I love how no one in the museum ever questions a predator biting into a massive boney plate. On display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Monthly reminder: Many people have a book in them, but it takes a special kind of freak to leave the Land of Laziness, cross the Plains of Procrastination and Insecurity Mountain, find the Blade of No One Made You Do This, and use it to cut your chest open and yank that book out.

#FossilFriday You want terror birds? I’LL GIVE YOU TERROR BIRDS 🦅

Let's see if bluesky is good for this too: Does anyone have the following paper and would be willing to email/DM me? Our library is unable to supply it. Säve-Söderbergh, G. 1947. Notes on the braincase in Sphenodon and certain Lacertilia. Zoologiska Bidragen tot de Anatomie V. 25.

I’m no mineralogist, but I’d regret not showing off this incredible copper sheet for #MineralMonday. Weighing in at 324 lbs from Michigan, it’s one of the largest copper sheets in the world. It’s enough to coat ~2.5 million pennies! On display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

Trilophosaurus is reaching for you this #FossilFriday On display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

So now paleontology and paleoenvironmental studies go to “Life and Environments through Time” (LET) … I like the new name new.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

Palpebrals are wild, and I just gotta ask the croc people: Why.

Calling all dino experts, we have an excellent question alert 🚨 While Vancleavea is not a dinosaur, it’s a top-notch predecessor of the group that includes dinosaurs, birds, and crocodilians. I’m less knowledgeable about excellent dino preservation.

For #FossilFriday here is the partial skull and carapace of the recently described ‘carnivorous aetosaur’ from the Late Triassic of Texas. It provides significant new information about Coahomasuchus kahleorum.

Vancleavea campi, a Late Triassic archosauriform preserved with some of the most incredible osteoderms I’ve ever seen. Cast on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. #FossilFriday

The coolest postdoc I know is now accepting applications: 🧪🔬THE WITTIG POSTDOC IN FEMINIST BIOLOGY🧪🔬 Our interdisciplinary program @ UW Madison seeks to train the next generation of feminist scientists/scholars of science Please share widely and read more here: crgw.gws.wisc.edu/scholarships...

Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

I’m all for normalizing better work-life balance for academics, but I think I’d take working on a 🦃holiday🦃 over talking politics at the dinner table this year 😅

Nominations due soon for the 2025 Dobzhansky Prize! This award recognizes the accomplishments and future promise of an outstanding early-career evolutionary biologist. Submit your nomination now! https://buff.ly/4fNJk9k

Photo of me singing “All I want for Christmas is you” as mouse on display at the NMNH 🐭 🎄

Thrilled to share: out in @natureportfolio.bsky.social (!) just in time for Thanksgiving, the dinosaurian history of how your turkey does the twist. Fibular reduction enabled mid-drumstick mobility, unlocking extreme knee long-axis rotation in theropods 🍗🦖🧵 www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08251-w

This is actually the best way to look at fossils. Why would I zoom in on a pdf and protect my posture when I can just place my face mere inches from the computer screen???

We're hiring a postdoc in evolutionary developmental biology! We're broadly interested in the evolution of vertebrate form, and the postdoc can develop their research in an independent direction. Term is officially one year, but we have 3-4 years of funding. Please share widely tinyurl.com/3xasxuz9

I am ***absurdly*** excited to announce the launch of a new funding opportunity through Experiment dot com!!! You have one month to pitch something wonderful in the realm of plant biology/biotech research and education. $10,000 max grant. PLEASE RE-POST + SHARE!!! 1/3 experiment.com/programs/pla...

Applications are now open for 2025-26 fellowships at @scihistoryorg.bsky.social! We offer postdoc, dissertation, distinguished & short-term fellowships for researchers from anywhere in any fields w/ projects that can make use of our collections. Questions? Ask here!

DC’s Chinatown is sprinkled with zodiac animals on the walkways. What animals are in your city/town? #citywildlife

Tilly Edinger, German-American paleontologist and the founder of paleoneurology, was born on November 13, 1897 ⚒️🧪https://paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2017/04/07/tilly-edinger-vs-the-nazis/ #histsci #womeninstem