Excellent article from @gsoh31.bsky.social on how management consultancy (a parasitic industry at the best of times) is aiding and hastening the destructions of UKHE www.ft.com/content/5032...

I posted about this on my Facebook page, but I'm heartbroken about the God Squad's recent decision to allow oil and gas companies to harm Rice's Whales. You can learn more about these whales here: www.ourgulfwhale.org

Unfurling fern for #FernFriday, eclipsed by bright flowers of purple toothwort (Lathrea clandestina), who parasites the roots of surrounding trees 🌿 #botany

This image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew. Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right. Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman

At last! Ediacarans and Cambrian animals in the same site! Amazing! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Jonathan the Tortoise, who did NOT die

Thrilled to see a leading journal run a special issue on null results — good practice for science, and especially important for conservation where what works should matter more than whether it makes a splashy and positive paper

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.

A research fellow post combining MESOZOIC PALAEOBOTANY and plant ecophysiology here at Nottingham with Barry Lomax. Fixed term to March 2029. Please spread the word! jobs.nottingham.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... #paleobotany #plantscijobs 🌍⚒️🌱🧪🔬

We sequenced the genome of 'desert ginseng' (Cistanche deserticola) - a leafless parasitic plant that gave up photosynthesis - and found it lost huge chunks of its own genome…but started stealing genes from its host! Thanks to my collaborators Prof Huang + her talented team👏🏻 lnkd.in/evF5iU9G

This would be a great way go show Prototaxites ascending to heaven when it went extinct (RIP)

If you use GitHub (especially if you pay for it!!) consider doing this *immediately* Settings -> Privacy -> Disallow GitHub to train their models on your code. GitHub opted *everyone* into training. No matter if you pay for the service (like I do). WTH github.com/settings/cop...

LET'S GOOO!!! Scientists just announced that they brought Trilobites back! After aeons of slumber, it's time to give them back the world they rightfully deserve :) That's why they're releasing a few million out into the wild!

🚨NEW SCIENCE ALERT!🚨Read our new, open-access publication in Scientific Reports (@nature.com) describing #biofluorescence in #cassowary casques! Very excited to unveil this after keeping it secret for 5 years⬇️ www.nature.com/articles/s41... NYITCOM @akiopteryx.bsky.social @jonathanberman.bsky.social

One of many wonderful full-page watercolour illustrations in a 16th-century edition of Pedanius Dioscorides’s work on herbal medicine, De Materia Medica (ca. 80 AD). More here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/w...

Hi all. I am very excited that after 6 years I finally got my phylogenetic comparative methods book and online exercises online. Feel free to use and share. The book is here: nhcooper123.github.io/pcm-primer/. Note that it is not finished, we had to abandon it before the sunk costs fallacy broke us

It’s publication day for my debut book Rocks! 🪨 It is available in many lovely independent booksellers and all the usual bookshops too. Or online here: geni.us/Rocks #geology #SciArt #naturebooks #illustration @quartobooksuk.bsky.social

I’ll start to regularly post photos of Lebanese fossils alongside links to charities supporting the thousands displaced in this war. Even the smallest donations can save lives Fossils on display at Memory of Time, Jbeil, and you can donate here: gofund.me/24a3cee49

We can learn unimaginable amount of things bout the history of life, climate, geosystems and the processes of evolution from the fossil record. But we need strong database curation and financing infrastructure. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Event submissions for the Scottish Geology Festival 2026 are OPEN! This year's theme is 300 Years of Deep Time to celebrate the Tercentenary of Scotland's most famous geologist James Hutton. If you have an idea for an event - we'd love to hear from you!

A simple celebratory post about completing my PhD went viral for all the wrong reasons. Here’s how I managed the backlash and used the attention to promote my research, says Juliet Turner go.nature.com/4sQu3uX

Huge congratulations to the newest Dr from the lab - Dr @sannie-zishanfu.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social!!! A special thanks to Jacob Suissa for making the trip over from the US! It’s been great spending the last couple of days chatting about all things ferns and lycophytes 🌿

Fossilization patterns of the dung, the formation of coprolites: " Rapid hardening of the coprolite margin by permineralisation enhanced reducing conditions in the centre of the coprolite, favouring precipitation of sulphide minerals." onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio

Happy International Women's Day 💐 Did you know, for every 7 men in palaeontology, there are ~3 women. Women make up 25-35% of global vertebrate palaeontological publishing output. And are most likely to study mammals, while men, reptiles.

I have another #paleobotany restoration guide for this #FossilFriday. This time, it's Kimuriella densifolia, a whole plant bennettitalean from the Late #Jurassic of Japan. This plant is composed of three organ taxa: Williamsonia, Zamites, and Weltrichia. #paleoart #sciart #botany

Of course the best fossils are always ✨Paleozoic plants✨ This is a polished section of a Psaronius tree fern from the early Permian (~290 million years) of the Czech Republic 🌿⛏️ We can see the root mantle (R) and the base of several leaves (arrows). Happy #FossilFriday & #FernFriday! #paleobotany

Why tenured academics and administrators insist that using this technology is unproblematic and just how the future should work with none of our input is baffling to me. Feels like a modern cargo cult.

New paper! How weird could Permian animals get? Turns out, pretty weird. Meet the stem tetrapod Tanyka amnicola from the Pedra de Fogo Formation of northeast Brazil royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

A Physcia sp lichen on a poplar tree. NWT, Canada. photo covers about 6cm, left to right. #lichen #fungi #fungifriends

Final version @nature.com of our paper describing unconventional multicellular development in a choanoflagellate inhabiting an extreme environment. A ton of new data since the first @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social preprint (which we've kept updating). A brief 🧵 (carried over from the old place)

Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data! 🧵👇 #FossilFriday #CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated

Neanderthals, modern humans, and the rules of attraction. Here's my story on a tantalizing study on mating preferences as far back as 250,000 years ago. Gift link: nyti.ms/4bcNzvy

Finally, the bug is back with a round of the Guinness.

I’ve been talking about Alysa Liu’s story about her quitting skating only to come back and become even better because she did it for herself and this came to me in a dream…

"We describe the only known example of a three-dimensionally mineralized heart, thick-walled stomach, and bilobed liver from arthrodire placoderms, stem gnathostomes from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation in Western Australia" www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

What to learn more about the enigmatic organism Prototaxites?? Have a read of our new Quick Guide in @currentbiology.bsky.social It includes another great palaeo-reconstruction of the Rhynie ecosystem from @matt-humpage.bsky.social

"But he didn't know" okay, great, but did he speak out against an overtly sexist, racist power broker, or did he accept the invitations and the money? Because this culture doesn't just happen. It's created by the consent of the people who have access to those spaces. 19thnews.org/2026/02/epst...

www.cell.com/current-biol... Our new quick guide to Prototaxites is out in @currentbiology.bsky.social !

Auriscalpium vulgare - Earpick Fungus #FungiFriends

Slime mould seen today, steadily engulfing everything in its path, from logs to fences. Despite lacking a brain, slime moulds can solve problems such as finding the shortest path through a maze. Their abilities have been used to inform the planning of road and rail networks.

Found a friend in the forest yesterday. Springtails are some of the most notorious mushroom eaters around and damn most of them are super cute #mushrooms #springtails #macrophotography #fungi

📄 No evidence that haplodiploidy favors the evolution of eusociality 🐝🐜 ⬇️ www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

#WorldHippoDay #Roman mosaic with hippopotamus on display in Naples Archaeological Museum. This is one of the Nile mosaics found in the House of the Faun in the ancient ruined Roman city of #Pompeii. #art #AncientBlueSky

Keep science accessible 🧪

Happy #WorldHippoDay! 🦛❤️ To celebrate here’s a lovely naturalistic painting of a hippo on a small flake of limestone. Painted by an Egyptian artist some 3,500 years ago! 📷 The Met www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti... #Archaeology

One very rotten deciduous log, one very observant iNaturalist community member — and a close-up world hiding in plain sight. Say hello to the white tubelet (Henningsomyces candidus). 📷 cryptomarasmius on iNaturalist 📍 United Kingdom 🔗: www.inaturalist.org/observations... #ObservationOfTheDay

90% of you probably don’t need to read this. But maybe some of you are curious & 10% will feel seen. Or a little less alone. This isn’t about seeking sympathy. It’s about sharing something hard to say out loud; partly to heal, partly in case someone needs to hear it too. (1/3) tinyurl.com/DudinO

Bringing this back up for the International Day of Women in Science, and yes, I consider scientific art, as part of scientific process and communication 🫰