ParkRun is not a competitive sport. There are no men’s or women‘s categories. We just all line up at the start line and go at the same time. The most important thing is that you try to show up every week. It’s the single most effective public health intervention.

News on #SVPCA, a (mostly) UK-based annual meeting devoted to vertebrate palaeontology. Things have been quiet about the meeting for the last 18 months, but a team of us are working to pick up where we left off. More details to follow ASAP, hopefully very soon. #FossilFriday #paleontology #fossil

this is the latest AI booster talking point “we don’t know if LLMs are alive because we don’t really understand the human brain” this is NONSENSE. We understand how LLMs work, we know what they are doing and what they are not doing. How human brains or hands or feet work is not relevant!

Now the actual military has to dress like it’s not the military cuz federal law enforcement agencies dress too much like the military

Palantir was a warning sign. Keir Starmer choosing to hand our data and security to US tech companies is an outrageous failure of judgment. All in the name of "investment." What about national security?

A lot of people seem to think that "common sense" prevails over education (and science)... #education #science

Here's a link to a conversation on this: ecoevo.social/@drmambobob/...

I know rejection is common in academia but every application takes so much energy and time that every rejection is a literal waste of all that expended energy that doesn't get rewarded. #academia

If you can use existing tools and skill set to accomplish something effectively, then there’s no point in learning new skills and tools unless they let you do something you can’t do. #skills #datascience

In shock to hear that Richard Forrest passed this morning. What a guy. I've met few people as enthusiastic about fossils. He had a whole life, whole career, outside of the academic world but made huge contributions to scholarship. And was so kind and welcoming to everyone. RIP.

All plesiosaurs today for #FossilFriday, in tribute to our departed friend Richard Forrest.

Just learned that Richard Forrest, one of the pillars of British vert palaeo, has passed away unexpectedly. Richard was such a friendly, welcoming person, an expert on British marine reptiles, and the unofficial custodian of SVPCA. We spent many hours chatting in various pubs. He will be missed.

#FossilFriday a magnificent Iguanodon dinosaur skull from the Bernissart collection in Brussels. The prominent arch is the palpebral made up of two bones in Iguanodon presumably to protect the eye as it foraged through spiky Early Cretaceous plants or maybe it acted as a sunshade in those hot times.

Last year I published a chapter with @richardfallon.bsky.social comparing Conan Doyle's Lost World with Crichton's Jurassic Park and the parallels between the two. Yesterday we were awarded 'Doylean Honors' from the Arthur Conan Doyle Society for our scholarship. acdsociety.com/Honors/Honor...

Naming a police officer is not doxxing. We aren’t supposed to have secret police in America.

I love terrestrial isopods! ecoevo.social/@drmambobob/...

Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A shake-up of the dinosaur family tree! Rhabdodontids are not ornithopods. They are ceratopsians. There were horned dinosaurs in Europe! As shown by a new fossil of Ajkaceratops from Hungary! Check out our new study, led by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social ⤵️

Still time to apply for this PhD studentship on the phylogenetics and evolution of felids!

Still time to apply for this PhD studentship on evolution and environmental changes in Polystira! blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/c...

Still time to apply for this PhD studentship on the evolution of dragonflies! blogs.reading.ac.uk/crocus-dla/c...

"because AI is being crammed into everything, I could be using it at any time, it's hard to avoid!" should make you angry, not make you go "welp guess I gotta accept AI now"

In the process of transitioning away from Adobe and MS Office, exactly because of this sort of crap.

Most people confuse subject expertise with instantaneous encyclopaedic recollection. If that’s what an expert is, then yes, LLMs can definitely replace experts. But thats not what subject expertise is.

As an educator I’m baffled why we’re being told LLMs are good tools for studying…reviewing the literature and summarising key information is a core set of skills that you should have as a graduate level subject expert.

suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research: they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.

Yes, this is exactly what happened to me. I lost more time checking and verifying than doing it myself, so I quit

I am highlighting a bunch of examples of people genuinely trying to use LLMs and genuinely not finding them very useful to illustrate that this really isn’t just a “rabid AI haters who’ve never actually tried it” conversation

Looking for a PhD in palaeontology or associated fields? Just a heads up that we have a list of opportunities on the @thepalass.bsky.social website: palass.org/phd-opportun... ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky (If you're advertising one, you can add it to our listings too: palass.org/form/webform... )

“I know it kills puppies but it’s inevitable and we’ll lose out if we don’t use it!” Does this sound convincing to you?

Look, the thing I noticed, rereading the article, is how many of the people were complaining about being excluded from jobs that they didn't even apply for.

"We have known since the calculations of Nobel prize-winning physical chemist Svante Arrhenius in the 1890s of the impact increasing CO2 would have on temperature," Hayhoe said, citing scientific literature from 1896. YES - 1896. That's how long we've known. factcheck.afp.com/doc.afp.com....

“The slanted-eyes pose is often seen as disrespectful to East Asians.” “Often”? So there are instances where this isn’t disrespectful to East Asians? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Brits saying US-style private health care is better than the NHS is just absolutely bonkers.

“People have every right to own property, but we must balance that with the demands of burglars to steal that property and sell it.” Fuck off. And tell your loser tech mates to fuck off while you’re at it. Cheers. Ta. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

This paper coauthored with a former undergraduate research student was on the shortlist for the @thepalass.bsky.social Best Paper in Palaeontology Prize 2025. It started its life as a 3rd year dissertation so I'm really pleased with it, even if it didn't win the prize.

Many of my students tell me they can’t draw. I tell them I’m not looking for Da Vinci but Picasso. Abstraction of complex anatomy into distinguishable features is a core skill in zoology.

I was once told a very important holotype specimen was “lost” only to find out someone else got to study it shortly after.

I've always thought that the whole "natural immunity is the best way to protect people" thing was a bit like saying "getting pregnant is the best form of birth control." Anyway, cool to see it's better for the immune system to see vaccine before virus from an effectiveness standpoint too.

Fascinating spotlight on the delights and rewards of a second career in palaeontology. www.bbc.com/news/article...

This is the picture on the "skeleton" page on Wikipedia. It's so wacky, I love it! I use it in my lecture on skeletal anatomy.

I think Microsoft is going to totally destroy itself with AI investments. Without OpenAI they have nothing, and OpenAI is fucked too

The final, formatted version of the Zanno & @jgn-paleo.bsky.social Nanotyrannus paper is out: Zanno, L.E., Napoli, J.G. Nanotyrannus and Tyrannosaurus coexisted at the close of the Cretaceous. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

For no other reason than that penguins are cool and funky, here's a photo of a rockhopper penguin skeleton in the Cole Museum of Zoology at the University of Reading. #zoology #science

I have a funded PhD studentship on offer on the phylogenetics and evolution of living and fossil felids. Deadline is 19 Jan 2026. #paleontology #PhD

"Students aren’t being taught to think more deeply but to prompt more effectively. We are exporting the very labor of teaching and learning... Critical pedagogy is out; productivity hacks are in."

What a great headline

“First, reduce “statistical machismo”, or the tendency to adopt and advocate for more complex approaches for their own sake rather than because they are the best tool for the job”… I mean… I am glad to see this piece out in Frontiers. Ecologists must consider why we do what we do in the 1st place!

Does anyone want a survivorship bias shortbread