This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=517 At this years European Geosciences Union General Meeting (Vienna), I’ve been asked to be on a panel discussion describing the ways in which I think using social media and blogging can enhance academic careers. Sometimes, talks of this kind can be very echo-chambery, and there are plenty of really cool […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=549 Welcome to Day 3 of the EGU Annual Meeting. Do check the Geology for Global Development page too for some cracking updates on the sessions, particularly on the more ‘applied’ side of the geosciences, by Rosalie Testovin. This post is a quick break-down of some cool science from the morning […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=542 Day 2 in the Big Brother house (aka the European Geosciences Union General Meeting). There’s no where near enough beer, and tensions are getting high. A horde of angry horses have invaded the lower levels, and taken the President of Austria hostage, with demands of lowering the Fair Straw Tax. […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=529 NASA might be having a rain-check on its outreach activities, but that’s not why Curiosity has gone silent the last few days. Every once in a while an event known as the Mars Solar Conjunction places Mars’ orbit directly behind the sun with respect to Earth, and makes communications impossible. […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=466 How can the dead help the living? This is a question a lot of fossil-fanatics have bent a lot of time towards over recent years, partially due to a desire to make palaeontology ‘relevant’ as a modern science, and secondly to help guide our efforts in conservation biology. A new […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/2013/04/04/dwarf-crocodiles-in-munich/ My PhD consists of two parts. The first is investigating the dynamics of biodiversity across the Jurassic/Cretaceous interval about 145 million years ago. I want to see if when we consider the biases of the fossil record whether there was a ‘hidden’ mass extinction, and what were the ecological, physiological […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/2013/03/29/panic-mode-initiated/ It’s been 6 months now, and a while since I updated y’all with what it’s like in the world of a PhD-palaeontologist. In case you missed it, my intention was to open up PhD life and research a bit to expose what it’s like beyond the simple production of research […]
Seabirds are well adapted to acquire their prey. Those that feed on bivalves close to the surface have short, strong bills to break into shells and access molluscan meat, and those that feed on bivalves buried deeper in the sand have much longer, slender bills to access their prey. The association between bill morphology and […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=459 Birds are living, breathing, tweeting dinosaurs. That is scientific knowledge backed up by overwhelming evidence, but the evidence basis for it grows strong all the time. We know that they are related from a host of morphological evidence from the last 150 million years or so. Our understanding of the […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/2013/03/20/fly-my-pretties-fly/ The origin of bird flight is one of the greatest stories evolution has ever told us in the history of life on this planet. To imagine how organisms that once ran around on the ground have descendants that soar through the skies is truly phenomenal, and represents a truly great […]