Something beautiful for the weekend! An extraordinary Acheulean handaxe knapped around a fossil shell c. 500,000-300,000 years ago! From West Tofts, Norfolk 📷 MAA Cambridge University collections.maa.cam.ac.uk/objects/4509... #Archaeology

Think you know aquatic plants? 7 facts that might surprise you 👇🌊 Read more: shorturl.at/0bCm1 As highlighted in @currentbiology.bsky.social, while at @ox.ac.uk @biology.ox.ac.uk

🤔 Can a concept widely used in economics help us recognise alien life, from fossils on Mars to molecules in the outer solar system? A quick thread to explain a new paper from my research group : Can Pareto Optimality be Evidence of Life?, by Rodgers et al. 🧵 1/10 doi.org/10.1177/1531...

Very, very happy that our paper is finally out! We look at how tight a fit primates experience at birth, and found really cool results. It has been a long journey from collecting the first data seven years ago! A brief thread (1/8) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This is cultural suicide and intellectual vandalism. In an era where humanities-illiterate tech bros have unearned god-like powers, we need historians, philosophers, ethicists, classicists more than ever. Please sign. (Reposting without 404) www.change.org/p/stop-redun...

Call for Writers! 📣 Are you a student or early career researcher? Science communicator? Know someone who is? We're looking for our next round of Guest Bloggers for our journal blog The Paper Trail! Check out our vacancies page to apply, and read some of our latest posts here: buff.ly/7JVQmSx 🧪 🌍

Have you ever booped a trilobite nose? Kainops raymondi from the Devonian Haragan Fm. near Clarita, Oklahoma - Black Cat Mountain. #FossilFriday

🌿Brand new research out in Science today about angiosperm reproductive strategies and how they preceded the K-Pg mass extinction, led by UCMP PhD student, Jaemin Lee, and curator, Cindy Looy!🌿 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

🔥 Published today, and just in time for summer conferences, here are your guidelines for presenting badly www.nature.com/articles/s41... rdcu.be/fqa92

Scientific American is 180 years old. The most eminent science magazine for the general public. And today, sold off as scrap to stop the staff from unionizing. Many top editors I've worked with for a decade on several articles have been fired. What a disgrace @sciam.bsky.social

Congratulation @transitionalform.bsky.social @instmolplantsci.bsky.social for publishing the next chapter of your thesis @currentbiology.bsky.social ! Great work showing that the two fundamental vascular tissues - xylem and phloem evolved asynchronously. Read Laura's thread for more details 👇👇

Our paper on the origin and evolution of phloem, a big part of my PhD work, is out in Current Biology! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Another underrated ecosystem engineer: arborescent lycopods! Plants do a lot to shape their ecosystems, but these things in particular hoovered up so much water from the swamp - and then had it transpire out through the leaves AND the trunk - they sustained the high humidity of the peat swamps

📣 It's out ! ✨32✨ great #paleobotany papers in this special issue of @annbot.bsky.social on fossil #plants 🌿⛏️ edited by Mihai Tomescu, @sandyheth.bsky.social, Brian Atkinson & myself. Thank you to all the authors & all the reviewers for their contributions! 📄 academic.oup.com/aob/issue

Since there's a lot of love for all things algal right now... A chunk of Jurassic stromatolite, a structure formed by repeated layers of sediment and microbial mats (often cyanobacteria), making a blobby hummock. These guys have been doing their thing for 3.5 billion years. #FossilFriday ⚒️🌍🟢🔬🧪

Reform have now lost six by-elections in a row in England, Scotland and Wales. Their national poll rating is 26% – below Labour in 1983 – and Farage’s approval rating is -37. They’re very far from the voice of the people and need to stop being treated as such.

Just a little guy!

New in @science.org ...since our first discoveries of early tetrapods, they have been thought of as "amphibians" characterized by aquatic larvae. But is this true? For the first time, we report exceptional fossils of stem tetrapod babies that upend this paradigm. 1/n www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Some spectacular parasitic fungus for your feed: Ophiocordyceps curculionum!

The other design I did for Artiss’ Pride collection 🏳️‍🌈

In spot tests I've done, I see this happen *all of the time*, such as with my own papers. The LLM would often rather hallucinate a male scientist than get my name right. 🤷‍♀️ It's kind of unsurprising that models trained unscrupulously on the entire internet are misogynistic

And the paper is now available online (open access) 🌿⛏️🎉 A new anatomically preserved species of Keraphyton (Iridopteridales) from the Upper Devonian of Australia | Palaeontologia Electronica doi.org/10.26879/1640 #paleobotany

TODAY! I am fully aware of how absurd a <24h deadline is but trust me there’s a good reason. if you’re interested in this postdoc, send me your CV immediately.🧪⚒️

Glad to see this little review published! Do you want to read about the challenges of integrating molecular and fossil data in plants? Check this out for free! With amazing illustrations by Emma Antonena doi.org/10.1016/j.cu...

Nostalgia Content xkcd.com/3256/

Thanks for covering it, looking forward to listening!

Whale Necropolis, and weird fishes. Glorious chewy carcasses, the real circle of life: ‘we report a vast whale necropolis extending 1,200 km along the floor of the Indian Ocean, comprising 5 modern whale-fall communities and 476 fossil cetaceans.’ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

See ya

Our beautiful special issue on plant evolution is out @currentbiology.bsky.social ! www.cell.com/issue/S0960-...

Rest In Power

🧬 New paper in Cell! Analysis of 12 cave lion genomes shows that cave lions and modern lions may have diverged more than three times earlier than previously thought – as early as 1.7 million years ago! AND…they interbred when temperatures dropped! Paper: www.cell.com/cell/fulltex... 🧵 1/9

Our new preprint On a global scale, plants did not experience a catastrophic mass extinction during the Permian–Triassic boundary (PTB). However, they still suffered losses, with extinction rates reaching around 30%. doi.org/10.64898/202...

This episode is now available on BBC Sounds www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Who's that in the background I wonder...

We had a great time at the Deep Time Gala organised by @scottishgeology.bsky.social ! I'm glad people enjoyed learning about the Rhynie chert and it's strange organisms!

Great review paper by Maria Gandolfo: "the fossil record provides essential and irreplaceable insights into plant evolution by documenting extinct lineages, transitional morphologies, developmental stages, and past ecosystems that cannot be inferred from extant taxa alone." #paleobotany 🌏⚒🌱🌿🔬

Exclusive: Alleging a “pattern of deception” in virus studies done over a decade ago, the U.S. has proposed a ban on federal funding to a prominent coronavirus researcher whose more recent work has incited unproven accusations that he helped start the #COVID19 pandemic. https://scim.ag/3R7nQx1

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

Excellent work, and a well deserved prize!

every day i find an incredible guy (from a painting scroll attributed to qiu ying called "raising the alms bowl: the conversion of hariti, mother of demons) asia.si.edu/explore-art-...

“This study places what may be the final nail in the coffin for the prevailing view that more oxygen made ancient insects bigger.” Learn more: https://scim.ag/4vcqqS8

"The book reads like an 'Eat Pray Love' of biotech grifting, designed to make her into a public figure based on her personal journey." Jonathan Basile reviews Kathryn Paige Harden’s “Original Sin.” https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/original-sin-eugenics-scientific-calvinism-kathryn-paige-harden/

Our research, just published in Ecologies, examines the ecology of this extraordinary, moth-pollinated parasitic plant (Cistanche phelypaea) in the Canary Islands. Thanks to my talented co-authors Matías Hernández-González and Henry Cerbone! www.mdpi.com/2673-4133/7/...

🚨MUSEUM JOB KLAXON🚨 We're now recruiting for a new **Collections Assistant** to help us with an exciting project to relocate an important part of our collection within @zoologymuseum.bsky.social. IS IT YOU? www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/museum-... #MuseumJob #MuseumJobs

I just published Don’t Perish! A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Scientific Paper (2026 edition) Great science deserves to be read—not buried under unclear writing. This is the updated 2026 edition of your favorite guide to writing scientific papers. medium.com/p/dont-peris...

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

🌸 UPDATE: Last week I put out a call for help continuing a 1,200 year long dataset of peak cherry bloom records. I am glad to announce the search is over! We've been in touch with Dr. Genki Katata, a researcher and former collaborator of Prof. Aono, who is continuing this dataset.

📣 Abstract submission is now opened for the 12th European #Paleobotany and #Palynology Congress : www.uni-muenster.de/GeoPalaeonto... 🌿⛏️ Deadline is May 31. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about our symposium for early career researchers.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a... really glad to see this dataset is continuing!

Eeee!!!! So, good news: me and @lepidodendron.bsky.social will be co-hosting a symposium at EPPC this year looking at plant Paleoart!!!!! This has been a long time coming, so I'm incredibly excited that we can finally announce it! #paleoart #paleobotany #conference #FossilFriday #botany