The dawn of the Phanerozoic: A transitional fauna from the late Ediacaran of Southwest China | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Just got back from an amazing trip to Japan with the @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social to work on evo-devo-paleo collaborations with the Hirasawa group at UTokyo

Last week we had an incredible time visiting the lab of Tatsuya Hirasawa, with whom we're collaborating as part of a joint Princeton-UTokyo grant. Seeing hagfish eggs, learning new techniques, and exchanging ideas and planning new projects. Can't wait for our next visit!

#Zebrafish🐟 #Pericyte Progressive mural cell deficiencies across the lifespan in a foxf2 model of cerebral small vessel disease #SciArt from Dr. Sarah Childs lab😍 #eLife 2026 elifesciences.org/articles/106... Cleared wild-type 3-mpf 🐟brain pdgfrβ (blue) kdrl (red)

New paper in @journalofanatomy.bsky.social with PAD Wise and AP Russell! We show that using morphological criteria to assign developmental stage provides more ossification sequence resolution than embryo size or developmental time (days). onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.... #GeckoEvoDevo

🚨 Hot off the press: Our look into of the palaeontological database landscape and its sustainability into the future. Palaeo databases are invaluable and continue to transform our research field - but they are vulnerable... (1/6) 🧪 ⛏️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In bird embryology you occasionally get an unfertilized “dud” egg. @lnwilson.bsky.social, not wanting her emu eggs to go to waste, used a dud egg to make a beautiful cake for the lab!

For your delight and amusement, here are some dinosaur gastroliths, underneath the ribs of an Early Jurassic sauropodomorph from Zimbabwe 🦖🇿🇼

Not a big baby! My commentary in @science.org about the latest Nanotyrannus research. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Why does life explore so few of the forms it could possibly take? Using fractal descriptors, this #scienceadvances paper shows that Earth’s biosphere clusters around simple shapes, reflecting deep evolutionary constraints. @artemyte.bsky.social @manlius.bsky.social www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Our lab is growing: we will have openings for student and staff positions throughout the year. Please visit edwards-lab.org for the most up to date job positions. I am excited to work with the department and looking forward to the months ahead!

A few new papers out recently that I'm excited to share with you! First: How well could stem reptiles hear? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Another cool paper, glad to see it finally out: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Figuring out the range of error that exists, & factors influencing offsets, between growth marks and ontogenetic age remains a challenge for estimating growth curves from bone histo data. More work like this is needed.

The Vertebrate Paleontology students did a great job 3D printing and painting skulls—look at that homology!

The discovery that Nanotyrannus is a distinct species from the T-rex indicates complex food web and interspecies interactions in the Dinosaur world. This research was funded by NSF post-doc grants, which were just archived, i.e., they're no longer available. news.yale.edu/2025/12/04/t...

Congratulations to UMMP Associate Research Scientist Miriam Zelditch on the release of the third edition of the indispensable "Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists" (a.k.a. the green book)! #FossilFriday

#FossilFriday The awesome new article in Science by @griffinlabpaleo.bsky.social et al. adds more evidence for the validity of Nanotyrannus by showing that the hyoid bone in the holotype has adult bone histology. Here are some more images showing the ceratobranchial bone in place in the skull. 🦖

Development of the zebrafish retina captured on a light sheet microscope. Credit to @ichajaroslav.bsky.social. #ZebrafishZunday 🧪

Very excited to share that our latest paper is out in Science! We show that the type specimen of Nanotyrannus—an isolated skull—is fully grown, showing that it is not a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex but a distinct species (1/12) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

'Tis the season for graduate school applications, so here's a reminder that I'm recruiting! My lab uses a combination of fossils, statistical phylogenetics, fieldwork, & computational methods to study macroevolutionary dynamics in the marine biosphere. Check the link below & feel free to reach out

Happy to be a part of this big project led by Mario Bronzati & Matteo Fabbri—out today #OA in @currentbiology.bsky.social bit.ly/3M5weun —on the brain endocast of a close pterosaur cousin & what it means for pterosaur brain evolution...maybe different from bird brain evolution. 1/2

The Nishikawa lab at Northern Arizona University and the NSF-funded Integrative Movement Sciences Institute are hiring a postdoc to help develop multiscale muscle models - please apply and share widely! careers.nau.edu/cw/en-us/job...

Innovative and interesting work here by @caleb-m-gordon.bsky.social, so happy to be part of it!

New IJDB issue! Our cover image features an immunostaining of neural crest cells and their derivatives in an Mllt1 E10.5 murine embryo from the paper by Zinck et al doi.org/10.1387/ijdb... Congratulations to the team of @aineurolab.bsky.social for their outstanding contribution!

Join us in Sheffield! We are keen to support early career researchers in applying for independent research fellowships (IRFs) to join our friendly and collaborative environment, in areas related to developmental biology, stem cells and regenerative biology, and neuroscience.

Princeton has a great showing at #SVP2025! See our work on such diverse topics as baby stem-crocodylians, mammal tooth isotopes, dinosaurian energy/fitness models, and ostrich development. #2025SVP

Our big squamate origins and early evolution review is now fully published as open access! with @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social and F. Burbrink www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Flashback #FluorescenceFriday to some of the first light-sheet imaging we were doing. Video shows the collecting duct system of the developing kidney labeled with a pan-cytokeratin antibody. Courtesy of former talented technician Deanna Hardesty.

Had a wonderful visit from collaborator Tatsuya Hirasawa from the U of Tokyo! We’ve been awarded a joint Princeton-Tokyo grant to exchange exciting new techniques in vertebrate evo-devo. Our visit to Japan will happen in March!

Opening a field jacket in the new prep lab! Preparator Jack Wilson will work his way through the matrix to the croc skull hiding inside

‼️‼️Triassic Life just opened @smnstuttgart.bsky.social‼️‼️ For all #Triassic fans, lovers of strange reptiles and the Dawn of the Modern World, this is an absolute MUST! It also couldn't be more timely with our recent publication @nature.com of the wonder reptile #Mirasaura, which is now on display!

Issue 19 is complete! On the cover: Mouse E10.5 embryo stained for Sox9 (cyan), alpha-tubulin (yellow), and endomucin (magenta). Acquired by Nicole Roos & Anthony Wokasch and chosen by popular vote from the Node’s 2025 MBL Embryology course image competition. thenode.biologists.com/results-from...

Interested in fossils? Brains? Reptiles? Want to study how reptile (particularly squamate) brains and senses changed over time? Want to be part of an international team studying the evolution of cognition? Then apply for our Univ of Edinburgh PhD project! e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk/project?item...

Hechenleitner, E.M., Martinelli, A.G., Rocher, S. et al. A long-necked early dinosaur from a newly discovered Upper Triassic basin in the Andes. Nature (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...

"...regional extinction rate of between 75 and 84% for squamates in the Western Interior of North America and suggests this group was more severely impacted across the K/Pg boundary than other small-bodied vertebrates." royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology

Proud to share a new piece in Scientific American co-authored with the brilliant @lnwilson.bsky.social , edited by @katewong.bsky.social, and featuring this spectacular depiction of the endless daylight of the Cretaceous summer in Alaska by Chase Stone! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

🚨 ‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time sciencedirect.com/science/arti... Honored to be among the long author list of this new paper out now in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social that looks to bridge the ecosystem engineering and paleontological literature.

Had a great visit at Oklahoma State, thanks @fmachado.bsky.social for the invite and for all your hospitality!

Happy to share the advance version of our big AREES review on squamate origin and early evolution: From Fossils to Genomes with my two amazing colleagues, Frank Burbrink and @marcanthonytollis.bsky.social www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

If you’re interested in exploring function in vertebrates, there will be no better place than Armita’s group!

Postdoctoral Fellowship in Geosciences – Princeton University, USA Harry Hess Fellows Program 2026–27 Eligibility: PhD Deadline: 1 October 2025 Details: higherjobz.com/princeton-po... #Postdoc #AcademicJobs #USAJobs #ScienceCareer #PostdoctoralFellowship #EarthSciences @princetonupress.bsky.social

Important work on pelvis evolution and development here!

I am proud and grateful to present a dream project today in @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41... Meet #Mirasaura grauvogeli, a #wonderreptilewith skin appendages that rival feathers and hairs, challenging our view of reptile #evolution🪶🦎

A rare job opportunity for Invertebrate Zoology: fieldmuseum.hrmdirect.com/employment/j...

(1/10) I am excited to finally share our work on avian left/right symmetry breaking with you. We reveal a tissue-scale active torque dipole generated at the Hensen’s node, thanks to crazy experiments by Julia @juliapfanzelter.bsky.social and some analysis by me. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

New paper out today with @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social @gondwannabe.bsky.social Kimi Chapelle and Paul Upchurch. In it we describe the partial femur of a large silesaur from Zambia 🧪🦕 royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

Back in Montana working in the Fort Union Formation for the next couple weeks! It’s my first time leading my own fieldwork and we’re already off to a great start! #FossilFriday

The final paper of my UoS postdoc is out now in PNAS! How to detect developmental plasticity in the fossil record: Featuring @tomezard.bsky.social @jamesmulqueeney.bsky.social @katsamenis.bsky.social @clivetrue.bsky.social @thefosterlab.bsky.social among others www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Are you looking for a PhD project starting this year? I have a funded (UK rates) project on mammal skull diversity and function, looking at skull allometry and how mammal heads adapt to trade-offs in tissue demands during growth 🦌🦘🐘🦥 Please share and apply: www.liverpool.ac.uk/courses/buil...

Our paper describing the Range Extender element which is required and sufficient for long-range enhancer activation at the Shh locus is now available at @nature.com. Congrats to @gracebower.bsky.social who led the study. Below is a brief summary of the main findings www.nature.com/articles/s41... 1/