How did the ostrich cross the ocean? This fossil holds clues! This is the holotype of Lithornis promiscuus at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. This heron-sized bird lived in a swampy floodplain in Paleocene Wyoming. #FossilFriday thread (1/4)

Made it to the Sunshine Coast to visit @cjclemente.bsky.social and (soon) @taylorjmdick.bsky.social for the next three months! We'll full be doing physics simulations and robot experiments in Chris's lab, and even some fieldwork studying the locomotor biomechanics of wild emus and kangaroos

‼️📄 Two new papers out today in @jexpbiol.bsky.social lead by @jamescharles90.bsky.social, all about locomotion and load-carrying across different working dog breeds! ⤵️ 🐕 🏋️‍♂️ 🦮 (1/4)

I'm recruiting a PhD student to join the lab at @gtsciences.bsky.social in Fall 2026! Broad taxonomic and topical freedom under the umbrella of vertebrate joint form and function. Information here: www.manafzadeh.com – please share 🦴🩻

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...

Hi all, me, @richardjbutler.bsky.social and the amazing UK-US-Moroccan team are delighted to announce that.. we have a new specimen of Spicomellus AND IT'S WAY WEIRDER AND WAY COOLER THAN WE EVER IMAGINED!!

We were recording an outreach video at @naturalis.bsky.social, when I realised we accidentally recreated the T rex chicken meme (with an emu of course ❤️ 🐦❤️)

This new #RSOS study explores the biomechanical and behavioural significance of tails in sauropod #dinosaurs, focusing on the caudal series of the Late Jurassic species Giraffatitan brancai: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... #palaeontology @daniajinn.bsky.social @pashavanb.bsky.social

We just published a Giraffatitan tail wagging paper, led by @daniajinn.bsky.social! Interested in bone-on-bone range of motions? Have a look! Fun fact: the Jurassic Park's Brachiosaurus was at least partly based on Giraffatitan

For everyone at #ISB2025 interested in musculoskeletal modeling, I'm giving a talk about MuSkeMo, my model construction and visualization tool, Tuesday 11:30 in Room A1 (Session 6A - Musculoskeletal Model Personalization). MuSkeMo is my tool for musculoskeletal model construction in Blender.

Why does this look like a live Looney Toons cartoon?? 👀😅🤣

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🪶🦎

Josephine Low interviewed me for ICB, discussing the challenges of studying the biomechanics of dinosaurs (and other animals) 🎉🦖🎉

#SEBconference goers, have you found the whale and the elephant upstairs?

Enigmacursor, the new neornithischian dinosaur described by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social & @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social, made the Dutch news today! Here's me miming approximately how much bigger Enigmacursor would be than my dog Ash (in his TV debut!) @naturalis.bsky.social

Recently, the NL Society for Evolutionary Biology awarded me the "Best Paper Award", and Dutch Physics Magazine gave me the "Picture your research" award, both for our grounded running paper. I often worry that evo biomechanics is too niche for both fields, so this was very encouraging!

From birdwatchers and bird rehabilitators to canal watchers and river litter scientists, citizen scientists are everywhere! 🦆This weekend, read more about my research in the national newspaper @nrc.nl. 🇳🇱 #bird #wildlife #WildlifeRehab #plasticpollution #citsci

Published today in Biological Reviews: "New perspectives on body size and shape evolution in dinosaurs" - the biggest paper from my PhD (my favourite chapter, too). doi.org/10.1111/brv.... Here's a thread outlining some of our key findings. (1/10)

Autonomous locomotion simply with tubes as limbs, and no brain? 🎈🤖 Yes, through physical synchronization! Our article is out today in Science (@science.org) Article: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Authors: @albertocomoretto.bsky.social, H.A.H. Schomaker, J.T.B. Overvelde More below 🧪 ⚛️ (1/6)

Ever wondered why chickens & pigeons bob their heads while walking?🐔 Our biomechanist/palaeontologist PhD candidate Pasha van Bijlert (UU/Naturalis) explains the science behind this quirky behaviour in his latest experiment with chickens on a treadmill! Full video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxew...

🚨New publication alert!🚨 A big one! It might just be my *biggest* one: doi.org/10.1093/iob/... IMPORTANT THREAD! From the moment Dave Blackburn set me loose at the Florida Museum, I had a marvelous time using diffusible iodine-based contrast-enhanced CT (diceCT) to create anatomical datasets 🧪1/6

Why do birds bob their heads? Why is their running style different to ours? Just want to see untrained chickens on a treadmill? Watch this video we made! It's in Dutch, but with English subtitles. Watch till the the blooper reel to see me get interrupted by loud chickens youtu.be/cxewQ1GYcA4?...

Fun problem: 2 mammals are identical except for limb extensors mechanical advantage (G) Which jumps higher above standing? Muscles have same force length properties. Ignore force velocity properties. Vertical forces only, external force is gravity Poll to follow in the comments 👇🏻 #biomechanics

Hoe gaaf is dit. Ook tof om de bijdrage van @pashavanb.bsky.social te lezen. @dinocastnl.bsky.social hopelijk bij jullie snel meer info! Dinovondsten leren ons meer over wereld van nu: 'Elk onderzoek is nuttig' www.nu.nl/wetenschap/6...

@tomomahoney.bsky.social wrote a piece for the @uk.theconversation.com about our study on Australopithecus (Lucy)'s running performance, led by Karl Bates Worth a read!

Come to Helsinki this summer! This is going to be a very interesting conference for anyone interested in biomechanics, very much looking forward to it!

Simulations reveal the ideal mix of size and muscle strength for high speed creatures. journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/... Thanks @J_Exp_Biol for the great write up on our recent @NatureComms paper @cjclemente.bsky.social @FriedlDeGroote

Ever wondered how birds stand up? Our paper explores how emus use their muscles to stand up. We found that these large, flightless birds use large muscle fibre length changes, activations and forces. My 1st PhD chapter, out now in @jexpbiol.bsky.social! journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

New paper in @cellpress.bsky.social Current Biology by Karl Bates ea. Karl's physics simulations (validated in a human model) suggest that although Lucy could run - top speed was limited, not leaving much headroom for endurance running. www.cell.com/current-biol...

Most birds use a funny running style: grounded running. It's a paradox: GR costs more energy than normal running, but animals usually minimize costs. Do birds waste energy? We resolve this with a model of the emu (the best bird). Published in @science.org Advances last Sept (reposting my x 🧵s) 1/18

Trix the T. rex is feeling festive

Our new paper announcing a freely available database of 3D scans of primate skeletal material--a major effort led by Sergio Almécija & his team at the American Museum of Natural History. 🧪 🏺 #paleosky #anatomy #primates #anthropology #morphology #zoology #paleoanthropology #openscience

Are you a dog lover looking for a PhD? You're in luck, becuase we are advertising a BBSRC-funded project that combines evolution, morphology, and biomechanics, and actually helps #dogs live better lives! Check it out here: www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🚨📢Paper alert! Real progress on identifying why residual force enhancement occurs in skeletal muscle! This was a study I dreamed about since grad school. Please share! 🔬💪🧪 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Rick Lieber's team shows, with elegant experiment and modelling, how there is room for improvement in modelling human gracilis muscle biomechanics; and by implication muscle forces in general. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A fun collaborative paper out in Nature on RAVEN: a bird-inspired robot that uses it’s legs to propel flight take off. An example of how robots can test ideas about integrated function in animals. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Haven't logged on here in a while, but for some reason my follows jumped up. Thanks a lot! I'm going to be more active here - expect 3D physics simulations of how modern animals and fossils move, and other sciencey things! For now - here's my emu blooper reel from our recent bird running study

Model developed by @pashavanb.bsky.social academic.oup.com/icb/article/...

Onze @pashavanb.bsky.social publiceerde over waarom (vooral) emoes zo raar lopen. Australië heeft in de jaren '30 de oorlog verklaard aan de emoe, en de emoe's hebben nooit een vredesverdrag getekend. Info over de vijand is in dat land dus altijd welkom:

Spent last week doing a muscle dissection of a crocodile at NHM Denmark - thanks a lot @markscherz.bsky.social for enabling this! This big boy had a Caudofemoralis of over 300g! Thanks also to @lauraminifera.bsky.social for letting me take over your couch 😅🐕

Trix the T. rex vs the JP jeep - who would win? Come to my talk at #SVP2023 to find out what my newest musculoskeletal (physics) simulations suggest. I'm on Saturday at 9:15 (Fair warning: I'm not actually going to animate the jeep in front of T. rex. Probably) #FossilFriday @naturalis.bsky.social