Want a summary of the recently published paper of @semifossorial.bsky.social and colleagues on @currentbiology.bsky.social and understand the implications for reptile and turtle evolution? Here it is! I hope you have as much fun reading as I had writing it :) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Back to work after a week off and I feel my brain has not returned from vacations

my external HD is corrupting the files I am working with, not my laptop.... now I'm really worried :(

This review was inspired by my recently started Turtle Origins Research Group @smnstuttgart.bsky.social and @unihohenheim.bsky.social funded by a @dfg.de Emmy Noether Grant, which will deal more with this subject. So much more to come! For now, please enjoy: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

So apparently all the files that I opened in my old laptop in the past week got corrupted when I saved it on my external HD :(

One IPC7 abstract finished, the second one to be done soon. Hopefully I can submit them Monday morning :)

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/...

I was freaking with a deadline tomorrow. Just found out it’s in 10 days 🫠

Every time I come accross the word "shorebird," I read it as "sorebird" #TheDailyDyslexia

OMG it is amazing how incredibly dumb Google now is, thanks to their idiotic IA model. I was looking for information on Eubaena cephalica, and it only showed me results for "vena cephalica" and I did not find a way to turn it off and show me results for the actual words I typed in!

two hours to describe the prootic ugh

Today work finished a bit earlier to watch the opening World Cup match :P

a warm welcome to silescelida acristata 🎉 this is a new eucrocopodan archosauriform from middle triassic brazil, described by garcia et al. based on partial, disarticulated postcranial elements (art by @mfgadelha.bsky.social) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Another off-campus visit to connect with other palaeontologist in the area. Hopefully we can bring some of the plans out of the field of ideas :)

Almost made the “booked a hotel close to the wrong conference venue” mistake

Great news on a holiday! Paper incoming 🥳

spent the morning adjusting for a backbone topology and the results were pretty much the same 😒

me: when I do home office, I seem to be always making mate but there's never enough to drink also me: aaah, pause, let's drink some mate

thin endochondral bones that are in articulation = nightmare to segment

Second meeting of the day ran smooth. Now trying to make 3D slicer read the files LOL

New paper. Modern hagfishes (Myxiniformes) have radically reduced eyes. When did these reductions happen, and how? Leveraging the diverse hagfish fauna from Mazon Creek, we show this happened gradually in animals occupying shallow marine environments royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article...

The day started with my student not showing up for our meeting

Our paper on turtle origins is finally out in Current Biology, with two major implications for our understanding of reptile evolution 🐢 #Paleontology #Turtles #Evolution www.cell.com/current-biol...

I hope the next vertebrae are easier to segment otherwise I will progress at the pace of one per day

me: oh wow, the braincase is preserved! and basically complete! also me: of course it is gabriela, that's why you chose the specimen to scan in the first place health very mental system much nervous

Segmentation advancing very slowly... quite annoying how things that require my immediate attention don't stop appearing in the way. After the deadline next Wednesday I think I should stop comminting to reviews for a while, or only accepting very few of them.

uh-oh I think I found plicidentine

My new institutional email is working but the name showing for me as the sender includes more surnames than the one I use professionally. It feels a bit invasive....

Oh, apparently I have a new professional email now :D

I had missed the ichthyosaur-owenettid proposal

I had to write an editorial for this Wednesday and I panicked so much that I worked intensely on it over the weekend... well, it's sent. I think it turned out good... let's see. Once it's published, I will share over here :)

Another very productive trip do Brasília. Every time I come is very intense, so much to do! But it is also very fun :)

this scan is so amazing I can segment the LAGs 😮

It's been such a busy week that only now I had the time to work on my editorial demands... I try to do it once or twice a week, depending on the satges of the manuscripts, and usually early in the wekk, ie monday-wednesday

Happy 100th birthday Sir David Attenborough! 🎉🎂 youtu.be/ToGZ8ZkUaxY?... #Sylvicanthon #attenboroughi #Attenborosaurus #FossilFriday

Just wrote SIX emails, I'm feeling mentally drained LOL

I hate to reject manuscripts and proposals, but sometimes it is necessary... so, it is such a pleasure to receive a more mature re-submission, with fluid text, clearly-stated goals, detailed methodology etc.

we have a new dog. she's young but not a baby anymore. she's big, energetic, and SO needy! but also got no limits; she had no education. the previous tutors did not take her for walks and would keep her most of the time locked... the only thing they taught her was to jump to greet, not good!

Regarding the recent gutting of the National Science Board by the U.S. administration.

I am having so many research ideas it's annoying LOL can't concentrate too much on what I'm doing now because they keep coming... it's very good for my career transition but it sometimes hurts

omg is the sphenethmoid preserved??? O.O oh... no... that's just the cultriform process T.T the palate is positioned so :|

Just saw a caracara very up close 😍 too bad I could not take any picture

I am having ideas... which is cool. They hamper my concentration on ongoing things a bit, but I consider this very positive because when I am stressed, my ideas are gone and I feel the least productive. I have felt like that in the past months, maybe year and a half, but now ideas are coming back :)

Being at the Brazilian savannah be like: sunny, hot day and, out of the blue, thunder sounds. I hope we do not get heavy rain on the road back home….

Friday, 10:07 pm and I just finished my part of the reviews for the manuscript. Now heading to bed and tomorrow we hit the road for full activity day at the University of Brasilia :)

I had planned to segment a bit, but there was so much editorial bureaucracy to be done today.... also, tomorrow is my daughter's bday so there's stuff to prepare! 😊

that odd time when you finish a major task too late to start a new one but too early to have lunch

New paper: we describe the inner ear anatomy of Eunotosaurus africanus, based on a specimen that has not been published previously. Open access @journalsystpal.bsky.social: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

My affiliation to the University of Brasilia was approved 🥳 not a paying job but at least now I can teach and have students 😊 this will help me build up the CV needed to be competitive here for job applications

I wish people would stop characterising fieldwork in the Amazon as "going to the middle of the jungle" as a way to indicate it is remote and difficult to reach... it gives colonial vibes. Several paleontological locations are far away from cities and with a difficult logistics.