iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Another session of unfurling mystery geological charts at @theul.bsky.social. Here depicted: a panel from a von Zittel wall chart with dinosaur, a fragile painted plesiosaur by George Scharf, and the Rhine Falls by artist unknown — with delightful horse and carriage going across the bridge.

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Jay @kakapojay.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

I stand by this!! Paw Patrol: The Dino Movie is a well crafted movie that treats dinosaurs with appropriate respect and care as animals!

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Darren Naish @tetzoo.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Deep Time Cultures, Current Crises currently happening at #PopPalaeo. Jay @kakapojay.bsky.social has just given a ringing endorsement for The Paw Patrol movie.

Panel event at a conference, display screen in the background.

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Darren Naish @tetzoo.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Hello from the 10 Years of #PopPalaeo meeting at King's College, London

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Sign-ups for this event closing at 13:00 tomorrow (1 September), so just under 24 hours to register if you would like to come along

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I'm running a couple of online panel discussions in September, thinking about how deep time perspectives can (and can't) help us deal with current large issues These are part of a new project I've started, with the current working title of "Deep Time & the Polycrisis" (blurb below)

First part of a text document, stating:

We are currently facing overlapping crises: climate change and biodiversity loss; hardening international borders and global conflict; rising political radicalism; upsurges in health issues, including in mental health and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic; continued legacies of colonialism and extractivism; fossil-fuel dependency; and scepticism towards expertise. In recent years, the term ‘polycrisis’ has emerged to imagine this global condition, seeing all these (and other) issues as connected in complex and unexpected manners, for which old frameworks of understanding and ways of acting are no longer adequate (Morrin and Kern 1996; Tooze 2022). To engage with the manifold challenges we face, we do not just need technical solutions, but new modes of thinking and expression.

This project contends that one way of building communities and new understandings to address the polycrisis is through bringing in deep time: the geological timescales of Earth history, which stretch backward and forward millions of years. Knowledge of deep time provides possibilities for new modes of thinking, but also poses challenges, being implicated in many of the issues confronting us. This project uses the cultural position of the deep-time sciences as the basis for new collaborations and transformative research linking the humanities and the sciences.

Second part of the same text document stating:

Recent research has shown how the sciences of deep time have been implicated in many of the problems we now face. On a basic level, our fossil-fuel and extractive economies grew from their development, with the mining of coal depending on geology (Zizzamia 2019). Geological surveying has also historically been a tool of territorial and colonial control, and palaeontological ideas defined race and inequality (Chakrabarti 2021; Yusoff 2024). Many museum fossil collections have colonial roots, and ‘parachute science,’ where Western scientists take material from developing countries, still continues (Raja et al. 2022). To understand how we got to where we are, we need to engage with histories of geology and palaeontology.

But there are equally strong arguments that the deep-time sciences allow us to engage with the polycrisis. Deep time provides the only illustrations we have of earths with different climates and levels of biodiversity. Thinking about the earth’s long history – involving timescales and processes which confound human imagination – can be terrifying, but can also promote future-orientated and long-term perspectives (Bjornerud 2018; Hanusch 2023). Many scholars are also attempting to link deep time with non-Western understandings, thinking about how they might work collaboratively (Bashford et al. 2023). In the face of situations where we need to think on different scales – of time, space and process – and hold multiple possible pasts and futures in mind, thinking with deep time potentially allows ways of doing so.

This project brings these issues together, engaging with the question: how can we simultaneously come to terms with the troubling histories of the deep-time sciences, while developing their potential to engage with the crises that we now face?

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Darren Naish @tetzoo.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Ok, time for a thread about what I saw yesterday at #CrystalPalace. As you can see, just about everything has been repaired and re-painted, and in places (like the previously misidentified Xiphodon) re-positioned. It looks fantastic and you have to check it out, even if you've visited before...

View of some of Crystal Palace models from top of the hill.

3D print of pterosaur head being held in front of actual models way back in the distance, Iguanodon at left.

Local mural on side of building celebrating Crystal Palace prehistoric animals. Art by Nacho Welles.

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

On Thursday 3 September, at King's College London, we'll have a panel discussion entitled "Deep Time Cultures, Current Crises," thinking about how art & culture around deep time can (and can’t) help us engage with the current world Full info: shorturl.at/ufxe2 & sign-up link: shorturl.at/CklAN

A poster for the event "Deep Time Cultures, Current Crises," a panel discussion at King's College London, Thursday 3 September 2026, 18:00-20:00 (these words are used as the heading). On the left is an image by artist Mark Witton of Tiktaalik, a fish-like amphibious creature, in a swampy environment looking at a sunset. On the right are images of the five discussants: Jay Balamurugan, Emy Moss, Elsa Panciroli, Jamie Perera and Mark Witton

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Nanjing Paleontological Museum has an in-house traditional Chinese artist, Li Chen, creating paintings of famous Chinese dinosaurs. These are from 2022 exhibition "From Dragon to Bird" and can be purchased in the museum as postcards or book《从龙到鸟系列科学艺术化石复原图》

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Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

A mosaic of ‘Marley the Ilford Mammoth’ made from plastic bottle tops by artist Caitlin Atherton commemorates a mammoth skull excavated in 1863 from Uphall brick pits, Ilford. It’s a steppe mammoth, which lived c 200,000 ka 🦣 londongeopartnership.org.uk/wp/wp-conten... #londongeology

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

Massively looking forward to the 10 degree temperature drop when I come up to Edinburgh tomorrow (and the conference too, of course)

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Sadiah Qureshi 🦈 @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Permanent lectureship in Modern British History at the University of Manchester. FT, £42-58k, closing date 30 June 26, starting Sept 26 onwards. For international people, this is equivalent to a tenure-track Assistant Lectureship. www.jobs.manchester.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai... #SkyStorians

jobs.manchester.ac.uk

Lecturer in Modern British History (post-1800):Oxford Road

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King's CHoSTM @kingschostm.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

@caitjan.bsky.social’s Healthy Scepticism will be published this June, and we are hosting a party! 🥳🥂 📌 17 June, 17.00-19.00, Strand Campus, London. Register via Eventbrite in the link below. @kingshistory.bsky.social @kingsartshums.bsky.social #histmed #histsci #histtech #histstm

eventbrite.co.uk

Book Launch Party: Healthy Scepticism by Caitjan Gainty

This event marks the publication of Caitjan Gainty’s Healthy Scepticism, a vital new account of medical distrust for our contentious times.

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UCL Science and Technology Studies (STS) @stsucl.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

We’re hiring! We are recruiting for a Lectureship in Global History of Science to join our Department from September 2026. For more info and to apply, please visit: bit.ly/3R94V58 Closing Date: 9th June 2026 #WeAreSTS #Science #Historyofscience #Globalscience

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

If you're in Cambridge next week, why not drop by the @pintofscience.uk festival? On Wednesday 20th at The Tivoli I'll be talking about 'Edwardian Women in Palaeontology: The Art of Graptolites', which is enough to make anyone reach for an Aperol spritz (pintofscience.co.uk/event/small-...) #pint26

The Parkes-Lapworth microscope, equipped with large stage and camera lucida for studying small fossil invertebrates,

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Andrew Seaton @andrewseaton.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Reminder that the deadline to submit a proposal for Modern British History and the 'Environmental Turn' is 15th May - details below:

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

University of Pittsburgh Press are having a sale for this month, so you can pick up a copy of my book, The Age of Mammals, for a standard hardback price of $42 (rather than the usual more academic price of $70) Link here, and code is 29INT40 : upittpress.org/books/978082... #FossilFriday

upittpress.org

The Age of Mammals - University of Pittsburgh Press

|9780822947806|International Paleontology in the Long Nineteenth Century|When people today hear “paleontology,” they immediately think of dinosaurs. But for much of the history of the discipline, dram...

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

In Tübingen this week, and encountered some fossil agglomerations, and long-necked and toothy beasts, in the university palaeontology collections

Photograph of a view up a concrete staircase with black metal cannisters, at the top of which is a huge agglomeration of fossil ammonites

A museum display of two mounted Plateosaurus (bipedal long-knecked dinosaurs), with more fossil bones at their feet. In the background are two paintings of the animals in life

A side in view of a big Liopleurodon skeleton in a museum- a skeleton of a marine reptile, with lomg jaws with sharp teeth and big flippers

A face on view of a Gorgonopsid skeleton, with open jaws showing its big teeth

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Ben Miller @extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

A transformative moment in museum history. Seriously, so much about how museums relate to their audiences changed after this. 🐏

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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 09/04/2026

Visiting these guys again? What am I, some sort of consultant on their restoration? Oh, right.

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

A connection I hadn't realized before - palaeontologist Harry Govier Seeley (1839-1909), best known for his work on pterosaurs and dinosaurs, was the cousin of the imperial historian John Robert Seeley (1834-1895), author of 'The Expansion of England' Also struck by the resemblance!

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Dr Jill Whitelock @jillwhitelock.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Fully funded PhD studentship: ‘Recording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’. Closes 3 May. With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

ccc.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge University Library, University Museum of Zoology and the University of Cambridge - Collections Connections Communities

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Darren Naish @tetzoo.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

My long review of the 2025 edition of Dougal Dixon's The New Dinosaurs has just been published in Historical Biology. What is the 'use' of Speculative Zoology and how does this book connect to the history of dinosaur research? www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YTPSK... #SpecZoo #SpecBio

tandfonline.com

The New Dinosaurs: an alternative evolution

Published in Historical Biology: An International Journal of Paleobiology (Ahead of Print, 2026)

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

"Fossils (February)" by the English surrealist Tristram Hillier. This 1955 painting was commissioned by Shell for the Shell Book of Nature, Fossils, Insects and Reptiles. From Ark UK: Government Art Collection. You Can Be Sure Of Shell... #FossilFriday

Stark painting of a still life containing fossils and books, including Charles Lyell's Elements of Geology.

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King's CHoSTM @kingschostm.bsky.social · 02/03/2026

📣Interested in pursuing a postgraduate degree in the history of STM? Wishing to apply to our Hans Rausing Scholarship? Then this webinar is for you! Pursuing a research degree in the history of STM Thursday 12 March 17.00-18.00 (GMT) Register via Eventbrite ⬇️ #histsci #histtech #histmed #histstm

eventbrite.co.uk

Webinar: Pursuing a research degree in the history of STM

A webinar to orient prospective students on pursuing an MA and PhD in the history of STM, and how to apply to the Hans Rausing Scholarship.

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Richard Fallon @richardfallon.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

A very special #FossilFriday. Thanks to @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social, one of the c19th's greatest works of palaeontological literature is now properly digitised: Thomas Hawkins's beautiful, epic, semi-unhinged Memoirs of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri (nhm.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/44...)

Lithographs of Hawkins's sketches of Ichthyosaur anatomy, with handwritten attotations.

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Presenting the background and my general thoughts about a new developing project next week....

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

New book out by my colleague on the development of the idea of intelligence - had a preview, and it's very good!

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Very glad to see they have survived!

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Applications are still open for these doctoral scholarships in history of science at KCL (which can cover a preparatory History MA & international fees) I'm always happy to receive enquiries from people interested in working on history of palaentology, geology, anthropology, natural history & so on

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Dr. Viktor Baranov🧪🦟🐛🪲 @swarmofthoughts.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

We submitted a manuscript ,dealing with impacts of war and colonialism on geodiversity of #Ukraine. I am not at liberty to discuss unpublished research - but I want to highlight some published sources and amplify Ukrainian voices, and impact of war on #fossils in UA @nataliajagielska.bsky.social

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Retro palaeoart: Polish (1929, interwar) popular science palaeontology book "O czym mówią kamienie?" ("What do rocks tell us"), with charming illustrations. Written by Józef Siemiradzki, a Professor of Geology at the University of Lviv.

O czym mówią kamienie? a theropod attacking a saurpod

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Julia Laite @julialaite.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Wonderful news from Birkbeck's School of Historical Studies. We're hiring not one but TWO open-ended, full-time roles: Medieval Studies, and History of Art! cis7.bbk.ac.uk/home.html#fi...

cis7.bbk.ac.uk

Current Vacancies - Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

Some #FossilFriday reading - a new publication by Victor Monnin entitled Critical History for Tomorrow's Paleontology It thinks about how historical research can connect with issues in palaeontology: www.cambridge.org/core/element... And it's free to download until 10 February, so get it quick!

shorturl.at

Critical History for Tomorrow's Paleontology

Cambridge Core - Palaeontology and Life History - Critical History for Tomorrow's Paleontology

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King's CHoSTM @kingschostm.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

We have an exciting line-up for term 2, with book manuscripts workshop (@davidedgerton.bsky.social) project talks (@chrismanias.bsky.social), book launch (David Brydan) and paper discussion (@mrweatherburn.bsky.social). See more in our website: www.kingschostm.com

Poster with events hosted by the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at the Department of History, King's College London, between February and March 2026.

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 21/01/2026

The book "Palaeontology in Public" is one year old today! 🦣🦖🦕🎂🎉 We've apparently had 7,756 downloads (!!), so many thanks to @uclpress.bsky.social for publishing it and making it open access, and to all the contributors, and to everyone who has read it so far

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Matheus Duarte @alvesduarte.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Two weeks left to apply for a postdoc position on my project! I'm looking for historians, anthropologists, STS and Global Health researchers with a broad interest in #Brazil, #rural populations, #health, #medicine, and #zoonosis. For more information👇

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Chris Manias @chrismanias.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

A #FossilFriday request for history of palaeontology in Poland identification help! I'm trying to figure out who the palaeontologist in the below photo is. It was taken in Warsaw in the late-1960s, and the arms are (of course) the Deinocheirus arms found during the Polish-Mongolian expeditions

A black-and-white photograph of a woman palaeontologist with dark hair in a white coat, working inside a pair of very large clawed fossil dinosaur arms, which are held up by thick twine

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Lisa Onaga @lisaonaga.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Center for Art, Science, and Biocultural Ecologies Directorship call! This Center in Singapore also collaborates w Max Planck Inst. History of Science @mpiwg.bsky.social. Pls share w folks committed to putting interdisciplinary research results into action! #HistSci #art #EnvHum Deadline 5 Feb

ntu.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com

Associate/Full Professor of Curatorial Practice

Director of Centre for Art, Science and Biocultural Ecologies (CASBE) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore Young, research intensive, and outward-looking Nanyang Technological University, Singa...

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