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Emma Dunne

@emmadnn.bsky.social
2.1K followers 767 following 101 posts

Palaeobiologist @tcddublin.bsky.social | deep-time biodiversity & macroevolution 🦎🦕 🌍 | equity & ethics ⚖️ | she/sí | labhair gaeilge liom 🇮🇪☘️ | all views my own emmadunne.github.io

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Emma Dunne @emmadnn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Love to see ecology and conservation being combined with local languages 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦪 Really highlights the importance of including languages beyond English in our research! www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
Lost oyster beds rediscovered thanks to Gaelic and Scots language
Scientists searched for the inclusion of the Gaelic and Scots words for oyster or oysters in place-names around Scotland's coast.
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Aline Ghilardi @alinemghilardi.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I’ve been thinking about why it can be so difficult for some colleagues from the Global North to understand fossil-protection laws in Brazil and in other countries where fossils are treated as part of the national heritage rather than as private property.
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Aline Ghilardi @alinemghilardi.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
🧪⚒️ www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Footprints may reveal biggest known mammal from age of the dinosaurs
Beefy tracks point to a Cretaceous critter as big as a large dog or mountain lion
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Dr Susan Greaney @suegreaney.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
My uni have just withdrawn Geography, History & Geography and Politics & Geography undergrad courses run from our Penryn campus. Terrible for Cornwall. How did the staff find out? When UCAS clearing opened at 8am 😡
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Emma Dunne @emmadnn.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
🚨 Is #palaeontology facing an ‘extinction of experience’ in relation to fieldwork? ⬇️ @whosyourmammal.bsky.social's survey shows it's not just funding issues turning ECRs away - better access to training + a significant cultural shift are needed if we want high levels of engagement with fieldwork 🦖⛏️
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Paleobiology Database @paleodb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Survey time - we want to hear from YOU! Your answers will help us better understand how the community uses and accesses @paleodb.bsky.social and will help shape future work on the database. Browsed Navigator once? Entered 1,342 taxa? Either way, we want your feedback! forms.gle/GFZukC1koFAb...
forms.gle
Paleobiology Database (PBDB) User Community Survey
Thank you for taking a few minutes to share your experiences and insights with the Paleobiology Database team! Your answers will help us better understand how the community uses and accesses the PBDB ...
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Gabriel S. Ferreira (he/his) @gsferreira.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
"interesting" that returning illegally acquired fossils to where they belong is a no no, but selling a whole collection is a yes yes 🤑 www.theguardian.com/science/ng-i...
theguardian.com
One of UK’s best fossil collections sold overseas in ‘loss to the nation’
Exclusive: Lack of funds left British museums unable to pay eight-figure sum for collection, which went to Abu Dhabi institution
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Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Shocking to discover designating AI data centres as “National Critical Infrastructure” means water companies are prohibited from restricting water to them even in times of drought. Households will lose water first. Thanks to @olliehayes.bsky.social at @globalactionplan.bsky.social for joining me
podcasts.apple.com
Data Centres vs. Drinking Water: What Matters To Us Most?
Podcast Episode · The Rest Is Politics · 30 July · 16min
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Sal Keith (she/her) @salkeith.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
RECRUITING 3 Senior Research Associates to develop responsible AI-enabled approaches to unlock animal behaviour for conservation. Roles include: 🧠 AI/Computer Vision 🐠 Behavioural Ecology 🌊 Marine Field Ecology Join @lec-reefs.bsky.social & @dsailu.bsky.social, Lancaster Uni, UK. Ads coming soon!
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Miffythegamer @miffythegamer.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Rowling looming over a progressive Irish cultural festival with her menacing insinuations & a phalanx of expensive lawyers dashing off legal letters. And all because the organisers don’t want transphobes peddling hate at their event. A nauseating spectacle of spite.
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Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Earlier this year UKRI launched a funding call to invest £40M in ONE AI lab. www.ukri.org/opportunity/... For some unknown reason they decided to fund TWO AI labs at the cost of £60M. An extra £20M. Just found. That's the equivalent of 7 more years of Jodrell Bank. www.ukri.org/news/ukri-la...
ukri.org
UKRI launches two AI research labs to stay ahead in global race
Two new labs will back British researchers to develop next generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, helping secure the UK’s position as a global leader.
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Brandon Peecook @gondwannabe.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Today is my first day in office as the new curator of vertebrate paleontology at @nhmdk.bsky.social & @ucph.bsky.social! 🇩🇰 🏛️ 🦴 🦕 😁 Starting off right with some proper Paleozoic Greenlandic friends (🐟/🐸, 🦈) and an extremely Danish office surprise! 🧱
A guy stoked outside a newly painted brown office door with a lil picture of him on it“Grace” (NHMD 72798), a particularly beautiful skull of the early tetrapodomorph Acanthostega. A light, wooden brown “rock” with a large grey orbit and small white teeth arcing below. Hand for scale. Four fingers against a swooping dark grey rock that contains the holotype (NHMD-167021) of a very bizarre cartilaginous fish. The swoop at top is a semicircular whorl of teeth from a very special animal you’ll be hearing more about.A Lego kit of a Triceratops skull
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Journal of Ecology @journalofecology.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
⏰️1 week left to apply! We're recruiting for an Associate Editor with data integrity expertise! 📊 join us in improving the clarity, transparency, & accessibility of ecological research. 🌳 more information on the role and how to apply can be found here 👉️ buff.ly/R8z4TLe
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Francesca Stavrakopoulou @proffrancesca.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Guess what? I’m at risk of redundancy. My job - and those of my colleagues in my department and across our wider faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - is one of those currently targeted for cuts. I received a personal letter today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
University of Exeter in talks to cut about 150 members of staff
The university says it is consulting with colleagues over "limited and specific potential changes".
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Linda Nordling @lindanordling.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Calling all scientists - nature magazine wants to know what you really think about your job. I will be writing about the results later this year and am keen to have lots of responses from Africa and the Global South. You can win an $250 voucher for your trouble! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Share the highs and lows of your career in science: take Nature’s global survey
Science and society are undergoing rapid change. Nature wants to know how this is affecting careers, workplace culture and salaries.
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Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Lovely, but exhausting, weekend at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. Hundreds of visitors visited the stand to learn about trilobites, how animals turn into fossils, and getting to meet real palaeontologsts! Very proud of our team, representing the very best of @thepalass.bsky.social!
A corgi learns about trilobites from Dr Emma Dunne and Dr James Witts. James McKay making palaeoart based on drawings from children. 

Dr Emma Dunne shows off her ammonite face paint in front of the Palass logoTwo children show off their palaeoart while Dr Alison Rowe is teaching about trilobites in the background.
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Lauren Wilson @lnwilson.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Body size evolution through shifting climatic conditions in Mesozoic dinosaurs
Body size evolution is commonly associated with climate change. For example, birds and mammals have been found to decrease in size with anthropogenic global warming. Recent studies have inferred dist...
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Stephen Curry @scurry.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
"Fellows shall not act or fail to act in any way which would […] bring the Society into disrepute." But this morning ministers condemned Elon Musk FRS for enabling violence on the streets of Belfast. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Would the @royalsociety.org like to comment?
Extract from linked article reads:

"Violence in Belfast that forced families to flee their homes on Tuesday night was fuelled by online commentators who would struggle to find the city on the map, Northern Ireland’s justice minister has said.

The condemnation by Naomi Long came as a UK cabinet minister said that Elon Musk also had a responsibility “not to stoke grievance”. The billionaire owner of X had used his own account to share images of a horrific knife attack in Belfast on Monday and had amplified far-right messaging about it."
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The Conversation UK @uk.theconversation.com · 02/06/2026
By December 2022, all universities in Afghanistan had closed their doors to women.
tcnv.link
What happened to Afghanistan’s female academics?
By December 2022, all universities in Afghanistan had closed their doors to women.
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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
🚨 New paper alert! Delighted to have been involved in this @nature.com study using trait-based ecosystem modelling to examine plankton extinction patterns in the first *100 years* after the Chicxulub impact event at the #Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. ☄️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Darkness and body size shaped end-Cretaceous marine extinction patterns - Nature
Trait-based ecosystem modelling shows that impact-driven darkness and body-size-dependent extinction thresholds, rather than carbon-dioxide increase or acidification, drove most of the observed end-Cr...
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Letícia Haertel @lmhaertel.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Was für ein großartiger Bericht von @luilog.bsky.social! Es ist selten, dass deutsche Medien den kolonialen und extraktivistischen Hintergrund solcher Fälle thematisieren. Definitiv lesenswert. #IrritatorBelongsToBR
kontextwochenzeitung.de
Dinosaurier aus Brasilien: Irritator geht nach Hause
Ein Dinosaurierschädel aus dem Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart soll in sein Herkunftsland Brasilien zurückgehen. Ein Beispiel neokolonialer Forschungspraktiken.
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Pedro Godoy @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
🚨 New croc paper alert! Another study led by Ana Laura Paiva (PhD student I co-supervise with Max Langer) is out today in Palaeontology! We revisit a classic question with new tools: how big were notosuchians, really? 🐊📏 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Art: @mirantakouvari.bsky.social
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Letícia Haertel @lmhaertel.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Yesterday, I posted a thread explaining (1) the problems with the 🇧🇷🇩🇪 Declaration, (2) how they are aggravated in the 🇩🇪 version, and (3) the change in the 🇧🇷 version. Make sure to read it first.👇 Now, I'll tell you what this means for the future of #IrritatorBelongsToBR & #DecolonizeScience. [1/8]
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Letícia Haertel @lmhaertel.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I've been part of the #IrritatorBelongsToBR movement since the very beginning. When the declaration announcing the German “willingness” to return it came out, however, I had serious concerns. I explained them on @diplomatiquebrasil.bsky.social and will summarize the article here. [1/13]
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Aline Ghilardi @alinemghilardi.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
www.science.org/content/arti... #IrritatorBelongstoBR
science.org
Famed Brazilian dinosaur fossil finally heads home
Germany and Brazil reach agreement over controversial spinosaurid fossil, heralding new collaboration between the two nations
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Taylor Mitchell Brown @tmitchellbrown.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Irritator challengeri, the best preserved Spinosaurus skull ever discovered, is finally heading home to Brazil! The announcement comes years after tireless attempts from Brazilian scholars to see the fossil repatriated from a German museum. #Paleontology #Spinosaurus 🧪🧪 New at @science.org
science.org
Famed Brazilian spinosaurid fossil finally heads home
Germany and Brazil reach agreement over controversial fossil, heralding new collaboration between the two nations
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Paul Stewens @p-stewens.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Finally some high-level news coverage for #IrritatorBelongstoBR!
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GraphicsSci.bsky.social @graphicssci.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Check out our blog for some great tips for improving your science graphics! Our most recent post talks about using online images and illustrations in your figures! 🧪#SciComm
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Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Really disappointed to see the #BBC coverage of the giant octopus fossil yday (by @hbriggsjourno.bsky.social) use a comment from a problematic palaeontologist who lost a major grant for bullying... They don't even work on fossil cephalopods! There are lots of us out here, use Google to do better.
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Anne-Laure D 🌿 @aldpaleo.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The editorial board of Geobios aims to support 2 early career researchers (PhD or postdoc) in #palaeontology, #palaeobiology, #palaeoecology, #palaeobiogeography, (bio) #stratigraphy or #biogeochemistry. Each award is 500€. Deadline May 31. All the information: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/geob...
sciencedirect.com
News - Geobios | ScienceDirect.com by Elsevier
Read the latest articles of Geobios at ScienceDirect.com, Elsevier’s leading platform of peer-reviewed scholarly literature
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Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Calling all fossilologists! Can anyone help identify this? It was found loose in a drawer, no data or providence. What on earth could our little weird friend be? Please RT for reach because it's flummoxing us!
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Benjamin Mills @bjwmills.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Final call for late abstracts for this year's Life and Planet meeting! lifeandplanet.com
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Niki Hubbard, PhD 🐙🦀 @nikihubbard.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates
Close up with a beautiful nudibranch on a rocky reef. The lower half of the image is a palette of swatches made from the nudi's vibrant colours.
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Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I am so unbelievably proud to present 8 years of hard work: the worlds oldest octopus is not an octopus... Pohlsepia is actually a really rotten Nautiloid (but oldest soft tissue nautiloid ever found!). 🐙❌ royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
A picture of a small concretion (rock) with a white blob in the middle. this blob was described as the worlds oldest octopus and called Pohlsepia. Our research shows that hidden under the rock are teeth that confirm it is a nautiloid (a relative of modern nautiluses).An artistic rendering of the rotting Pohlsepia on the seafloor 310 million years ago. Sharks, fish and arthropods lurk in the background
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Michael Landis @landismj.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
New preprint on the recent history of phylogenetic biogeography, with co-authors Isabel Sanmartín and Joel Cracraft, now up on EcoEvoRxiv: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...
Figure of historical timeline for ideas in the manuscript. Caption reads: "An evolving view of phylogenetic biogeography. Each period (arrow) corresponds to one of the four periods discussed in the main text. The ordering of themes within each period does not precisely correspond to when key ideas were introduced or popularized."
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GraphicsSci.bsky.social @graphicssci.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Why not check out our portfolio? We design figures, journal covers, graphical abstracts and more! 🧪 Graphics designed for scientists, by scientists! #SciComm Find us here: www.sciencegraphicdesign.com
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Erin E. Saupe @eesaupe.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.
my.corehr.com
Job Details
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Dr Thomas Clements @taphonomist.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
The beautiful preservstion of trilobite compound eyes will never cease to amaze me. On this little 400ish million year old Phacops you can see all the little lenses - each one a rigid calcite mineral crystal! Together they had excellent 360° vision, perfect for finding lunch on the seafloor.
A grey rock that has a beautiful fossil trilobite. The rock is rough, but the trilobite sections are smooth. One of the main features is a compound eye, made of of many lenses.
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Mikki Brock @mikkibrock.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
I don't see this said enough: the widespread use of generative AI is not only making our jobs as educators harder logistically, but also emotionally. It is genuinely sad to be suspicious of students when you have spent so much time building a pedagogy based on trust and not being a cop. It sucks.
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Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
We can learn unimaginable amount of things bout the history of life, climate, geosystems and the processes of evolution from the fossil record. But we need strong database curation and financing infrastructure. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio
Graphical representation of the current database landscape and a possible idealized scenario for the structure of the palaeobiological database landscape.Table 2 | A roadmap to sustainable funding
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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Very interesting - seems that like ammonites, some belemnites may also have survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. ☄️☠️ Unlike ammonites which only persisted a few 100 thousand years they lasted a long time - into the Eocene at least! 🤯
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Pedro Godoy @pedrolgodoy.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Our paper on the phylogenetic nomenclature of Caimaninae is the Editor’s Pick in Historical Biology! 🐊 Glad to see the topic highlighted. www.researchgate.net/journal/Hist...
researchgate.net
Historical Biology - Editor Pick by Mark Young
Cidade et al. undertook a comprehensive treatment of the phylogenetic nomenclature of Caimaninae (which includes extant caimans). Rey et al. undertook morphometric analyses of Antulsporites spores fro...
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Hady George @houdzgeorge.bsky.social · 05/03/2026
I’ll start to regularly post photos of Lebanese fossils alongside links to charities supporting the thousands displaced in this war. Even the smallest donations can save lives Fossils on display at Memory of Time, Jbeil, and you can donate here: gofund.me/24a3cee49
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Bryan Gee @koskinonodon.bsky.social · 06/03/2026
👋 Back for #FossilFriday with more data on where/what new species get published! Updated data and scripts: github.com/bryanmgee/ne... Nature/Science: ⬆️in coverage through 1995 PNAS: 🆕, new species through 2000 Current Bio: 🆕, new species through 2006 Palaeontology: 🆕, new species through 2010 🧵👇
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Alessio Capobianco @acapomorphic.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
New paper out from @hoehna.bsky.social Lab, led by the brilliant @bjorntko.bsky.social! We applied the Pesto software (Kopperud & Höhna, 2025) to look at lineage-specific shifts in diversification rate on large, densely-sampled phylogenies across the Tree of Life doi.org/10.1093/evle...
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Emily Troyer @fishfetisher.bsky.social · 04/03/2026
Snails have this really cool structure called a radula that they used to scrape hard surfaces for food. It's quite entertaining to watch 😅
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Charlotte Brassey @cbrassey.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
We’re interested in folks applying from all manner of disciplinary backgrounds. Biology, zoology of course. But also computer science, remote sensing, architecture. If you’re keen to work with LiDAR and point clouds, we’d like to hear from you!
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Bryan Gee @koskinonodon.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Last week, amidst the hoopla over a new Speen, @fishfetisher.bsky.social suggested a review of naming papers in fancy journals in response to a post by @daveyfwright.bsky.social - I got bored after work and now I have (some) data! 🧵👇 #FossilFriday #CharismaticTaxaAreOverrated
media.tenor.com
a close up of a dinosaur 's head with green eyes
Alt: a close up of a Spinosaurus head with green eyes from Jurassic Park
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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
I mean, yes, fun dinosaur stuff is fun dinosaur stuff. But Myhrvold is mentioned in the recent batch of Epstein files over 1000 times (far more than Horner). Some of the correspondence between the two is very chummy and concerning. See: www.seattletimes.com/business/loc....
seattletimes.com
Records show deeper ties between Epstein, ex-Microsoft exec
Emails show a yearslong relationship from at least 2010 through 2018, according to documents released to the public last week.
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Mark Witton @markwitton.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis. www.newscientist.com/article/2516... I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.
newscientist.com
New fossils may settle debate over mysterious sail-backed spinosaurs
Spinosaurs have sometimes been portrayed as swimmers or divers, but a new species of these dinosaurs bolsters the idea that they were more like gigantic herons
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