Fervent devotees of this blog might recall the time when I got mildly frustrated with Wiley in how they handled one of the major research papers from my PhD (this beast). The tl,dr is this: Wiley messed up the proofing stage repeatedly, adding several months of delays at this stage. Wiley incorrectly delayed the publication by three […]
While back in London recently for my PhD viva, the opportunity came up to speak with the Communications Office at Imperial College about some of my research. Naturally I pounced at the chance to discuss my research and broadcast it to a wider audience. The short audio for the interview is now online here, and […]
Chaaaaange places! Sometimes, when extinction hits it’s not quite the dramatic ‘great dying’ we might think of where animals choke their final breaths out in the desolate, lifeless wastelands. Sometimes, it’s more like the Mad Hatter’s tea party from Alice in Wonderland: chaotic, messy, no major character dies, but you can be sure that something […]
Mass extinctions are insanely catastrophic, but important, events that punctuate the history of life on Earth. The Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary, around 145 million years ago, was originally thought of to represent a mass extinction, but has subsequently been ‘down-graded’ to a minor extinction event based on new discoveries. However, compared to other important stratigraphic boundaries, like […]
This was originally posted at: It rises from the dark waters like some behemoth from the deep, and lets out a blood-curdling roar. It’s feeding time. One of the most iconic scenes from Jurassic Park III is where the long-snouted, sail-backed giant theropod dinosaur Spinosaurus emerges from underwater to try, yet again, to eat our […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=939 In a post two months ago, I promised that I’d keep you updated with how my research is progressing. Needless to say, I’ve done a pretty poor job of that, unless you follow me on Twitter! I must apologise – the workload while traveling was severely under-estimated, and I’ve barely […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=856 Seed dispersal by animals is incredibly important for plants to help them occupy new areas of land and reproduce. Usually, this happens using bugs, birds, or intrepid kittens, but probably the last animal on this planet you’d expect to disperse seeds is crocodiles – you know, those big beasties that […]
This was originally posted at: http://blogs.egu.eu/palaeoblog/?p=825 I’m in Berlin. I’ve just managed to find a chicken donner kebab, and am pausing research briefly to write this. I’m currently on leave from London, with a ridiculously hectic couple of months ahead: I’ve just been to Munich to see a dwarf crocodile specimen, Alligatorellus beaumonti (from Bavaria), which conveniently […]
Crikey, it’s been 3 months already?! *panics* At Imperial College, new PhD students have to produce an initial plan of study within the first three months of setting off, and submit it for independent assessment. Having uploaded mine just now (not in the slightest bit late..), I figured I’d share it here! It’s a broad […]