Studying wrist and ankle bones for fossil id and found it amusing how carpals have wired names like magnum and unciform but tarsals have tired names like cuneiform 1, 2, 3. Like they ran out of cool names for bones by the time they got to feet 😆

Two new papers on fossil carnivorans. Old collections continue to offer new insights! @ucmpberkeley.bsky.social & IVPP Late Miocene immigrant carnivorans in California... www.vertpala.ac.cn/EN/10.19615/... Eco-functional divergence of Crocuta and Pachycrocuta... www.vertpala.ac.cn/EN/10.19615/...

New paper out today lead by @tsengzj.bsky.social where we test the 150-year-old hypothesis that the unique jaw torus in Nimravus is an adaptation to resist bite forces using FEA🦁🔪our results highlight some functional advantage of the torus, which are amplified at larger gape doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...

The Department of Integrative Biology @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social is hiring an Assistant Teaching Professor of Human Anatomy! Open until September 19. Please share with anatomy/paleo/func-morph colleagues and friends. Happy to answer any questions. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05053

New preprint with @tsengzj.bsky.social & @hlusko.bsky.social! Here, we developed the most comprehensive phenomic dataset of extant and extinct pan-carnivorans to test how Cenozoic climatic change influenced the evolution of the cranial, appendicular, & axial skeleton www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

🚨New paper alert!🚨 We show that hummingbird beaks have changed in shape & size since around WWII, driven by the rise of commercialized feeders! 🧵 📄 Paper: dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.... #ornithology #evolution #GlobalChangeBiology

Great day at the UW Undergraduate Research Symposium! Over the last two years, my mentees learned to develop hypotheses, collect data, code, and present results. All of this would not be possible without NSF support.

Read this w/ mixed feelings: the success of integrative approaches to studying evolution sped up the disappearance of disciplinary hires in areas such as paleo. UCMP’s 5 full time vert paleos now down to 2. Candidates w/ paleo training need to be centered in a more popular field to improve chances.

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...

TANK vs TESLA "We've crushed fascism before and we'll crush it again" - ⁠WW2 veteran Ken, 98, in the tank

Choose Science. Choose Europe. A new Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships 2025 call is now open. With a budget of €404.3 million, it will support around 1,650 researchers from Europe and beyond. Apply by 10 September → europa.eu/!fBTMgF

The Royal Ontario Museum is hiring a new collections manager! Please spread the word. Collections Specialist 2: Fossils (Vertebrate Paleontology) - Royal Ontario Museum - Careers t.co/CTtfs3MBMB

Scott Pelly of 60 Minutes says Paramount is interfering with their reporting on the Trump administration because they want Trump to approve a merger and that prompted the resignation of executive producer Bill Owen’s.

reminder that neil degrasse tyson is a creep www.vox.com/2019/7/29/89...

Thrilled to share my second PhD paper with @tomezard.bsky.social & @evoswami.bsky.social focused on the application of landmark-free geometric morphometrics! 🎉 Excited to contribute to advancing shape analysis techniques in biology. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1186/s128...

#WithoutNSF we would not have the means to both strengthen scientific ties with allies and understand & learn about our competitors during the formative early career stages of an American scientist. I did the former through DDIG and the latter through EAPSI, both now discontinued in my field.

For the last 3 yrs, I was the director for the Science of Science program at the NSF. We funded projects on science communication - science communication to the public, communication of public priorities to scientists, citizens engagement & participation in science. 🧵

We get to keep @narimanechatar.bsky.social here for two more years of mammal masticatory madness!!!

New 🦦 paper in @anatrecord.bsky.social! I quantified the growth curves of theoretical bite force & jaw musculature in sea otters. Newly weaned otters are at a disadvantage in foraging until the early stages of adulthood when they reach full skull & biting maturity doi.org/10.1002/ar.2...

Inside me there are two wolves. One of them has a 15 genome edits the other 20 genome edits. Neither of them is a dire wolf.

#FossilFriday Eocene coprolites from the Chocolate Mound locality, Jefferson County, Montana. Not to be confused with its extant counterparts in Washington D.C.

Christine M. Janis, Alberto Martín-Serra, Jessica M. Theodor & Craig S. Scott (2025) Down to earth: therian mammals became more terrestrial towards the end of the Cretaceous Palaeontology 68(2): e70004 doi: doi.org/10.1111/pala... onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🌎 Join us for a full day of family-friendly activities celebrating our home planet at EarthFest—including Identification Stations for your discoveries! amnh.link/3G2vaUY

Our National Science Foundation funded work, led by @chrislaw.bsky.social, continues to decipher trade-offs in complex biological systems. These projects add new phenotypic data with which to understand how evolution works in the past, present, and future.

Had a blast presenting our work on carnivoran adaptive landscapes at #AnatomyConnected25! Read more here: academic.oup.com/iob/article/... #anatomy25 @tsengzj.bsky.social @hlusko.bsky.social

Excited to be part of this article in PNAS ably led by Alec Wilken and @crocholliday.bsky.social Holliday presenting results of our NSF grant on the interplay of brain expansion, jaw muscle reorientation, & cranial kinesis in bird evolution. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... bit.ly/3FxEYGC 📷: U Chicago

#FossilFriday teaching the @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social non-majors course on Mesozoic life with Jane the teenage T. rex this week, followed by a field trip to see the Wankel T. rex in front of @ucmpberkeley.bsky.social!

😍

Good evening from the UCMP! #CalBigGive starts now and goes until 9pm tomorrow! Until then, enjoy some images from past field trips. These field experiences allow students to gain deeper understanding of fossils and deep time in geologic context. To donate: give.berkeley.edu/fund/FU0961000

For #calbiggive we are sharing profiles of graduate students like PhD Candidate Emily Bogner who knew she wanted to be a scientist after watching Jurassic Park, “I thought it was so cool you could dig in the dirt and find remains from animals that are no longer alive.”  mvz.berkeley.edu/supportmvz/

For #calbiggive we are excited to share profiles of graduate students like PhD Candidate David Tian who says the best thing about working in the MVZ is, “the diversity of organisms, locations, and questions that MVZ members investigate.” To support the MVZ visit mvz.berkeley.edu/supportmvz/

Hey Bluesky! @sicb.bsky.social 's Divisions of Comparative Biomechanics and Vertebrate Morphology are here! We're here to share any position opportunities and keep you updated on DCB and DVM activities. Give us a follow and feel free to send any postings our way.

omg almost every response is one I would've given too...

#FossilFriday it’s been an action-packed week for fossil CT and FEA fans: -During et al: efficient and open-access CT segmentation -Díaz de León-Muñoz et al: open-access FE modeling -Mitchell et al: new framework for comparative FEA All open access! Kudos to the authors. (links in thread) 1/4

The National Science Foundation benefits communities in every state.

"History will remember this day— when an American President and Vice President abandoned all we stand for."

Just saying.

I will never forget the photo of Zelenskyy’s face after he saw Russia’s war crimes in Bucha in 2022. He seemed to age years in an afternoon. Watching him constantly cross the world asking for aid that should have been thrown at him is one of the deepest shames of our age.

Check out our children’s book on paleontology and life in the Eocene! This work stems from our NSF funded research on mammalian response to the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum in the Wind River and Bighorn basins of Wyoming. digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/165/

@science.org just published this article about the Paleontological Research Institution and its importance in this time of financial crisis for the institution. Please share widely as donations in any amount can make a real difference in the short-medium term. ⚒️🧪🦑 www.science.org/content/arti...

I lost my job at the National Science Foundation yesterday, along with 167 of my colleagues, including some dear friends. This was the best job I've ever had, and I thought it would be my last. The PI community has been sympathetic and supportive, without exception. I will miss working for you.

NSF fired 168 employees, leaving the agency less equipped to fund a wide range of scientific research.

Welcome to Trilobite Tuesday! Pictured is the Devonian-age phacopid trilobite Erbenochile erbeni. Not only does this Moroccan species feature towering 0.8-in (2-cm-) high eye stacks—each topped by a unique shading brim—but it also has a row of intimidating spines that run along its axial lobe.

Firings happening right now at the NSF.

Beautiful mammal paleoart for #FossilFriday

🚨Calling all undergrads!🚨 The IB SURE program at UC Berkeley is a great chance to dive into cutting-edge research in Integrative Biology! 🔬🐟🌿 My lab has hosted two IB SURE students in the past— fun research, hands-on experience, & mentorship! #ResearchOpportunity #IBSURE