Yesterday we led a workshop at @cpeg-cpb25.bsky.social on “Building open data science skills in paleobiology and ecology”. Huge thanks to everyone involved for making the workshop so successful and fun! 🤩

This week, Open Palaeontology published our first research article: a reassessment of the giant millipede-like Arthropleura by Lhéritier, Vallois and Durand! Thank you to the authors for being part of the open-access publishing revolution! www.openpalaeo.org/article/view...

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 It’s time to announce our Summer 2025 talk schedule 👀 Looking forward to hearing from @spissatella.bsky.social, @sauropodlets.bsky.social, @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk! Sign up here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025

Really happy to see this out! Also super grateful for Jeff bringing me on board; what started as a casual conversation over lunch in the NHM staff room has turned into some really interesting work and a great friendship. What more can you ask for?! Read on for stuff on fossil record preservation! ⤵️

Go work with Lewis, he's bloody great. But seriously, if you're interested in bias in the fossil record, open science, or corals, he's your man!

Just under two weeks left to apply for this 3 year postdoc looking at how signalling shapes skeletal development in sea urchins! Please reach out if you’re interested! For lovers of imaging, skeletal development, biomineralization, in situ hybridization, and marine invertebrates!

A huge thanks to @bethanyjallen.bsky.social for the write up on our recent Current Biology paper! Happy to have added to the ever growing toolkit for combatting sampling bias in deep time 🖥️📈🦕

If you are interested in biodiversity in deep time, check out my new preprint with @rachelwarnock.bsky.social and @dralexdunhill.bsky.social! We review methods of quantifying diversity and diversification, using the fossil record and phylogenies with extinct tips 🐚🦕📊 doi.org/10.32942/X2D...

🖥️ Our new paper summarising the paleontological community's progress with data equity is now out! 📉 Really thankful to have played a small part in the making of this paper; it was a joy working with these folks and very satisfying to find a home for some of my thoughts on museum data and curation.

The paperback is here!

Curlews #WorldCurlewDay

I use the CDNC *literally* daily for research that supports tribal sovereignty/rights claims. This is such a vital resource with outsized impact for U.S. researchers, communities, history, etc etc etc. Please, please, pleaseeee reshare and submit a comment!

Great to see Lewis Jones received his Doscar as one of the winners of the 2025 Dorothy Bishop Prize for his work on the Paleoverse (palaeoverse.org) a community space improving reproducibility in palaeobiological research. #Palaeobiology #Reproducibility #OpenResearch #Research

🦖📉 In case anyone missed it, our new paper on using occupancy modelling to resolve the structure of the end-Cretaceous dinosaur fossil record came out yesterday! 🪨⛰️ You can find it here ⬇️ www.cell.com/current-biol... It's also accompanied by this incredible illustration by @tim-bird.bsky.social!

It’s been hotly debated whether dinosaur populations were thriving or dwindling when an asteroid slammed into the planet 66 million years ago.

A new way to gauge the cracks and stains in our windows to the deep past.

🚨 I'm super happy to announce that our new paper is finally out today in @currentbiology.bsky.social! 🚨 We used the ecological approach of occupancy modelling to investigate the structure of the dinosaur fossil record prior to the K/Pg mass extinction! www.cell.com/current-biol...

Our new paper out today describes a sebecoidean crocodylomorph from the Early Palaeocene of Patagonia, and provides support for the survival of a large-bodied terrestrial vertebrate lineage across the K-Pg. @pdmannion.bsky.social @es-ucl.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

The Palaeoverse team have published a 🚨new preprint🚨 on “Ten simple rules to follow when cleaning occurrence data in palaeobiology” 🧹🐚 Take a look here: doi.org/10.32942/X2FS8M There is also an accompanying R vignette on our website at tenrules.palaeoverse.org 💻

My new book SMALL WORLD came out yesterday! And it's ironically HUGE (here modelled by my eldest), immersing you in the habitats of 30 of Earth's smallest animals. It's *insanely* illustrated by Rosie Dore and published by Wide Eyed Editions (Quarto) here in the UK. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/smal...

I remember starting my PhD and wishing there was a guide on how to how to prepare data for palaeo analyses. Now there is. Very happy to see this preprint out and more broadly to be a part of the Palaeoverse. It’s a joy to work with these folks in so many ways.

Brilliant news! At last, confirmation that the Govt *will* go ahead with the #NaturalHistoryGCSE 🎉 We have to get to know our fellow travellers on this planet again. Young people who know & love nature are far more likely to protect & restore it - as well as enjoying better physical & mental health

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 🗓️27th March 2025, 16:00 UTC🗓️ Next week we will hear from Dr Ondřej Mottl from Charles University, on “FOSSILPOL: the workflow to process global palaeoecological data of fossil pollen for vegetation-based macroecological synthesis” Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

Without a doubt the best paper you'll read this year. The video abstract is pretty hard to beat too.

Today I have resigned from my position as a Data Editor at Proceedings B. I believe the journal does great work, but it feels wrong to voluntarily spend my time holding authors to account on behalf of the Royal Society, while the Society refuses to hold its own Fellows to account.

Announcing The first found, and most complete, #dinosaur skeleton from the Middle #Jurassic of Scotland! 📢🦖 So delighted to finally be able to share this great new fossil, published today! It was actually the first dinosaur found in #Scotland... thread 🧵 #OpenAccess #fossils doi.org/10.1017/S175...

New paper @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social in which we consider how species' ranges shift, expand, and contract in the present day, past, and future, along with the effects on local and global biodiversity, with Jed Brodie, Ben Freeman & Anna Hargreaves: doi.org/10.1016/j.tr... @es-ucl.bsky.social

We’d like to announce the Spring 2025 line-up of the 🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨 Don’t miss these four excellent speakers! Register for a Zoom link here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-lecture-series-2025

🚨 It's been a week since our 'dark data' manuscript was published! 🚨 If you missed it and want to know how it can impact fossil groups, you can follow this little thread I put together ⬇️

🚨I promised I'd say more on the Royal Society and Elon Musk, so here it is. 🚨 I've resigned my position as Associate Editor at Royal Society's journal Open Science in protest at their lack of action over Elon Musk. My op-ed in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Exactly this. The @royalsociety.org had a chance to lead but has instead aligned itself with oppression and conservatism. I predict (and hope for) a #boycott. If you're a reviewer, an author, recommended for a prize... take a look at the #royalsociety and consider what it now endorses. #musk #doge

Bluesky community - I’m raising rapid-release funds to help Congolese friends with emergency evacuation and subsistence support in Bukavu and Goma. Many have lost work and access to aid, not least b/c of USAID gutting. Please give what you can & re-share this post! www.gofundme.com/f/emergency-...

A fascinating & hopeful river-moment: Lewes District Council agrees to recognise a Charter of Rights for the River Ouse. “The Ouse has long been taken for granted…this is the beginning of a journey to give the river a voice & ensure its wellbeing for future generations.” elflaw.org/news/histori...

I'm transitioning my Japanese historical art threads to bluesky - todays wonderful example is 'Fish and Octopus' from a series called 'Colorful Realm of Living Beings (Dōshoku sai-e)', painted by Itō Jakuchū in 1766. There is a sneaky second octopus in the painting who is very very cute 🐙♥️

Museum 'dark data'! Really interesting paper. Similar problem of 'legacy data sets' in forestry - being explored with a view to rescue by group led by Sheila Ward in @iufro.bsky.social

Museum ‘dark data’ show variable impacts on deep-time #biogeographic and #evolutionary history #ProcB #OpenAccess royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Anyone who has worked in and/or with a natural history collection knows what an untapped trove of treasures they are. This paper showcases their importance! #NaturalHistoryCollections #MuseumScience

Very excited to use my first @bsky.app post to announce @echinerd.bsky.social and I's new paper in Proc B! 🎉 We used a dataset of Palaeozoic echinoids from 33 museums worldwide to see the impact museum ‘dark data’ has on biogeographic and evolutionary patterns in deep time! doi.org/10.1098/rspb...