New preprint out! Using ~75k environmental OTUs + 77 fossil calibrations, we reconstructed a Proterozoic timeline of eukaryote evolution. Our results show crown eukaryotes were already diversifying >1.6 Ga, long before the first undisputed fossils (~1.05 Ga). 🔗 DOI: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Just spent a lovely hour talking to @jacquelyngill.bsky.social & @phoebefossil.bsky.social for their forthcoming podcast series which will be SUPERB @makeaplanetpod.bsky.social (you'll have to listen to find out my favourite kind of pie 🥧) www.makeaplanetpod.earth

It's over. Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut. www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...

Definitely a 12-person interspecies polycule

Today on #givingtuesday I'm continuing to support the Paleontological Research Institution. As a former employee and current board member, I know how incredible this place is - a resource for anyone who cares about our earth's past and its future: priweb.donorsupport.co/page/FUNWALK...

The late Miocene possibly had lower athmospheric pCO2 than we have right now (but higher than pre-industrial), but that was enough for there not to be permafrost in North Greenland. Once a local threshold is reached, that is enough sometimes. 🧪 Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Last day of class (on Zoom cause of the snow) and my Paleobiology students are discussing the “dire wolf” and Colossal Biosciences and they are NOT HAVING IT

On Dec. 7, we’re taking you to Albany, Georgia, and telling a story as we never have before. In a new 5-part series, ProPublica’s @gingerthompson.bsky.social pursues one question: “Why are people in Albany so sick when its most powerful institution is a hospital?”

Sooo here's a little public records request I just made to the University of Oklahoma.

Cheers to the person who leaked the initial changes www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

So Harvard is keeping this guy, but Claudine Gay had to step down over ginned up plagiarism accusations and bad-faith accusations of anti-Semitism. Got it.

Sixty days left to save the Museum of the Earth. Please donate if you can, and share. This is not only one of the most important fossil collections in the world, it also home to the world’s best plushies: Paleozoic Pals! www.priweb.org/mortgage-cam...

Double supernova 🤩 🔭 www.eso.org/public/image...

This right here, this exact sentence, is THE problem in American political journalism. The IRA *was* cheap energy and good jobs! That was the whole bill! Democrats did precisely what political pundits are telling them to do and the pundits just ignore it.

Podcast interview with Warren Allmon about the financial challenges the Paleontological Research Institution / Museum of the Earth is facing and what's we're all at risk of losing: capitolpressroom.org/2025/10/31/u...

Not since 1935 has anyone experienced a storm like Melissa. Melissa's record wouldn't have happened without climate change, which made the hurricane's winds about 10 mph stronger, according to a rapid attribution analysis by Climate Central. yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/10/cata...

I promise we're still here, and we're still working hard! And now we're on instagram at MakeAPlanetPod. We CANNOT WAIT to share the first episodes with you...thank you all for your patience. xoxox, Jax and Phoebe

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA 10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

📖❤️ NEWS: You can now pre-order my book! "Unlocking Justice confronts America’s unfair legal system with data—and humanity." It's accessible, optimistic, and in the spirit of Ida B. Wells, who said “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” I wrote it for each of you. Also, ⬇️

Boston and Camberville! See you Thursday! I am 99% done with this epic book and so excited to blather with @peterbrannen.bsky.social about it at @harvardbookstore.bsky.social

My employer, Williams College—A PRIVATE INSTITUTION—has its flags at half-staff for Charlie Kirk. There is a MA state proclamation but it applies only to public/state/military buildings. We are not any of those. What. The. Actual. F***. I am sick to my stomach. www.mass.gov/info-details...

I feel like I am taking crazy pills. Charlie Kirk’s ultimate goal, which he said time and time again, would have been the suppression, through threat of violence and the use of state power, of the rights of those he disagreed with, including freedom of expression. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...

Grateful for this thoughtful and generous review! Captures some of the admitted madness of the book

I am SO CLOSE to being ready to submit a paper that's been more than a decade in the making. It will be (I think) an important contribution, and was done with the help over 12+ undergrads and a bunch of collaborators over many years in the field and the lab. Sometimes, science is slow.

I'm hoping to take 1 MSc & 1 PhD student next year in the areas of Phylogenetic, Computational, and/or Evolutionary Paleobiology. Please reach out if you are interested in joining the @oupaleobiology.bsky.social, especially if interested in working on fossil echinoderms. Link for more info below. 🧪

This fall I'm teaching a new mini-course for our senior thesis students and the first class is about organizing your thoughts / ideas & getting writing done - what tools & tips do you all use? I want to give them a broad array of ideas & options beyond things like outlines & scheduling writing time.

Being on social media is fine but if it’s getting in the way of you doing deep reading and deep thinking, then your balance of how you spend your time is off Lots of interesting threads here and none of them are a substitute for reading a good book or essay

When you are living under a eugenicist dictatorship hell bent on disabling and killing as many people as possible, lying to get a vaccine is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT MORALLY JUSTIFIED

Happy pub day to @peterbrannen.bsky.social and The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything! Thanks for knowing how much this inscription would piss me off 🥰 #notboring #stillabillion

I've spent all morning making ggplot cross plots of confusing min/geochem on billion year old+ rocks and I have no idea what's going on but GOSH DO I LOVE DOING IT. Anyway if anyone wants to explain to me why there's an inverse relationship btwn TOC & kaolinite hit me up @chrisjunium.bsky.social

Happy publication day to @peterbrannen.bsky.social ! The Story of CO2 is the Story of Everything. And really, it is. This book is astounding, weaving together the whole history of Earth with our modern climate predicament. If you're into science, history, politics...check it out!

“Anyone who tells you they know what even 4° C of warming or more in a century will actually mean—or what that will look like on a planet gripped by ice ages for the past 3 million years—is full of shit. Especially if they’re an economist.” Wise words from @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s great book.

OK so I've been pretty quiet on here for quite some time. I'm still trying to figure out how best to use this place in a way that is generative, sustainable, and (at least sometimes) fun. Here's a sea lion I met last week at Carmel River Beach on a family trip to CA.

AND I'm getting to read the book early because I am prepping for this event in just a few weeks! Boston area friends - come out! @harvardbookstore.bsky.social @peterbrannen.bsky.social

People. This book is SO GOOD. Truly -- I am about 70% the way through and the way Peter explains and synthesizes and expands and provides fresh perspective is truly stunning.

Very happy to share that @squeakybuffalo.bsky.social, with artist Anna Scime and scientist Neil Patterson J, has been selected as one of the 15 cohorts for the Open Interval Program, part of the Simons Foundation's Science, Society & Culture division. www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/05/19/n...

Another scoop from Jeff Mervis (@policyhound.bsky.social): NSF's ~1400 grant terminations have disproportionately affected PIs from groups underrepresented in science: women, racial & ethnic minorities, & those with disabilities. 1/3 www.science.org/content/arti...

We are excited to join BlueSky at the this exciting time for the program. The Living Snow Project is going global in 2025! Anyone anywhere (in mountainous and polar places) can help us study snow algae ! #LivingSnowProject #WatermelonSnow #CitizenScience #ClimateScience #SnowAlgae #glacierblood

After writing a book about very young fossil reefs, I got to learn about very old fossil reefs while reporting this story for @nautil.us featuring ⚒️🧪science by @phoebefossil.bsky.social and her collaborators and edits by @kristenfrench.bsky.social nautil.us/in-search-of...

🚨 Our terminated NSF grant tracker now includes 434 grants that were terminated last Friday. We think this is all of them for now. Link to the tracker: airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... Huge credit to @noamross.net for this. Contact me via Signal at sdelaney.84 for questions or corrections.

NOAA just announced a long list of datasets that are going away🧪⚒️🌊: www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/docume... Download what you need asap and send comments to: [email protected]

My amazing department at Williams College is hiring a 3 year full time visiting assistant professor in ocean/climate/surface processes! apply.interfolio.com/166059 - we will begin reviewing applications May 2nd - feel free to reach out w/ questions.

In 15 yrs of reporting, I've never had so many health & biomed researchers & outreach orgs tell me they're afraid to talk w/press or barred from speaking bc of new comms policies. I understand the fear of losing funds. I don't know if silence does more harm than good. If you can speak up, pls do.

Not sea glass but fragments of plastic car tail lights, indicators and brake lights, probably washed into storm drains after heavy rain, eventually making their way to the sea. #oceanplastic

My colleague Rohit Bhattacharya and I wrote an op-ed in our campus paper to call attention to the impact on federal cuts to science and academia and encourage our students to keep paying attention: williamsrecord.com/469399/opini...

Today, a broad coalition of scientific professional societies who represent over 92,000 scientists are speaking out against the politicization and demonization of Federally funded science and government scientist jobs. It was an honor to help the Union of Concerned Scientists with this! 🧪🌎

We need #2025MMM now more than ever. Lets goooo!!!!

All websites that depend on NOAA data should display something like this. earth.nullschool.net

And more pure goodness from my brave little (adopted) state. A deep #Vermont burn.