iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 8h

Oh retractionwatch.com/2026/10/02/p...

David Ho, a climate scientist at the University of Hawaii, responded to our request for comment on the paper by saying he was not interested in reading it. “I’m sorry, but I’d rather keep my brain cells,” he said.

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Michael Hickerson @hickerlab.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

How much of the tree of life did you eat? Phylodiet scores a meal by phylogenetic diversity: type what you ate and it builds the dated tree of the organisms in it, from ~3,300 edible eukaryotes, back 2 billion years. Last night's dinner, below. 🧵 mjhickerson.github.io/phylodiet/app/phylodiet.html

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Thomas Cullen @thomascullen.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

With all the news of museums being closed and/or defunded, I feel the message of our paper on the importance of natural history research (and the collections housing those specimens) is just as relevant (or more) today as it was when it was published. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I became a biologist because of a museum exhibit. Real artifacts tell stories that are more powerful than anything we can get from scrolling. They are part of our engine for training the next generation of scientists. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/the-awesomen...

scienceforeveryone.science

The awesomeness of museums

Genuine artifacts tell the richest stories that fill our souls. And they fuel the scientific enterprise.

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Chris MacQuarrie @cmacquar.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Do you have any idea what page charges are on illuminated manuscripts? And don't get me started on the chargebacks from those monks for ink and hard wooden benches...

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Geology Johnson @geologyjohnson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The North Yorkshire alum industry almost literally took the piss out of Rome.

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Tom Sharpe @tomsharperocks.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Scottish geologist James Hutton immortalised in Permo-Triassic red sandstone, Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh. So radical in his ideas that they’ve put him in a cage. @nationalgalleries.bsky.social

Red sandstone statue of a man in coat, breeches and a hat, holding a rock.

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Some #FossilFriday views from the @nhm-london.bsky.social fossil #echinoderm collections. Feat. some beautiful Jurassic ophiuroids and crinoids (brittle stars and sea lilies), and one of the beautiful original hand-written specimen registers.

A fossil ophiuroid (brittle star) preserved on a slab of grey rock with a finger for scale.

Some complete Jurassic crinoids (sea lilies).

A big red book - one of the NHM hand-wrotten specimens registers for the Fossil Echinoderm collection.

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Prof Chris Jackson @seismatters.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

lol this is some people’s view of London too 😂

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Dr. Katie I. @hellyeahcorks.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Having to holler that the deep sea is *not a dumping zone you can just stick stuff in and forget about* since the 1950s (perhaps before? I'm unsure here). 🤦‍♀️ JFC.

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Peter Brannen @peterbrannen.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

[Norman Rockwell town meeting guy]: I still think 1.5°C of warming is bad

Screenshot of paper showing 1.5C is catastrophic for coral reefs

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Willem Huiskamp @willemh.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

45 years ago the problem of climate change was already being discussed in very clear terms. Particularly bleak is the figure showing warming projections; we took the worst path.

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Lots to agree with in this thread by @andyfarke.bsky.social - but this especially.

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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Hot Take for #FossilFriday - the quest to make paleontology "useful" and "relevant" and "high impact" has backfired spectacularly. A hypothetical "Big Data Approaches to Deep Time Ecosystem Services" almost always end up largely disconnected from actual fossils. (thread) <1/n>

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Katharine Hayhoe @katharinehayhoe.com · 23/08/2026

I've heard thousands of climate denial arguments over the last few decades. But do you know they all fall into one of 5 categories? 1. It's not real 2. It's not us 3. It's not bad 4. We can't fix it 5. You can't trust the info/experts Source: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A classification tree showing the breakdown of climate denial arguments.

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

This is important too from @thenerve.news. If you read that viral news piece from one anonymous student reproduced in Unherd, Times & Telegraph & pumped out as FB/Insta ads, you need to read this. What Professor Jason Arday's students actually thought: www.thenerve.news/p/jason-arda...

thenerve.news

Students remember Jason Arday: ‘People would say how much they were looking forward to his classes’

A viral article by an anonymous student suggested the academic was a “terrible” teacher. Undergraduates at Durham, where he taught between 2019 and 2022, tell fellow alumna Michaela Makusha that their...

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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Here's Jason Arday's death - and the media's role in it - trending on social media, again. And yet it's *nowhere* in the mainstream media today. It's "fallen" out of the news cycle in the same way that Russian scientists "fall" out of windows. 🔗

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Qagggy! @qagggy.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

UK transit nerds are next level.

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Prof Lisa Schipper 🌍🍉💪 @lisaschipper.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

No, MDPI, of course you have not received a response from me, I always delete emails from you upon receiving them.

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Andrea Corpolongo, Ph.D. @archeanandrea.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

I teach this when I cover climate change in "Intro to Geoscience Education". The class is for education (not science) majors, and the students appreciate the historical context regarding our knowledge of the greenhouse effect. I think they view the "controversy" a little differently afterwards.

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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

Well, if it’s 15 August, it’s the 830th anniversary of the birth of St Anthony of Padua, which means it’s time to post this excellent @aventuraobscura.bsky.social tweet from the old place ‬

A tweet with an image Anthony of Padua presumably performing some kind of miracle on a seashore, but it looks like he’s waving his arm in admonishment at what may be a dolphin which is pulling a “mum, this is so unfair” face. The caption reads: St Anthony chastises a sea beast for being a knob, Arnold Böcklin, 1892

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Daniel Benneworth-Gray @danielgray.com · 14/08/2026

UK right now:

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Erin Dillon @erinmdillon.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

How many #sharks should there be on a coral #reef? Our new publication in Science tackles this question using thousands of fossil shark dermal denticles—tiny, tooth-like scales that are shed and preserve in sediments—from Panama's two oceans. Check it out here: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

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Joschua Knüppe @joschuaknuppe.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Result from the López de Bertodano Formation #paleostream! I have been looking forward to this one for a while as it combines some fascinating aspects of the latest Cretaceous. This formation was deposited in Antarctica and I hear you all: "wait a sec, that's not what I...

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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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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

On why fieldwork and museum collections work is still absolutely vital to palaeontology. It’s an uphill battle to fund it though.

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Joe Keating @evopalaeo.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

⚠️Please repost!⚠️ Over 99% of species that ever lived are extinct. Without palaeontology, the new Natural History GCSE will only cover a snapshot of life's history. We're making the case for fossils in the new GCSE 🦴🐚🌿 teach.ocr.org.uk/palaeontolog... The consultation is open now! Have your say👇

teach.ocr.org.uk

GCSE Natural History - Palaeontology - Joseph Keating

Joseph Keating puts forward a case for including palaeontology in the new GCSE Natural History curriculum due to its unique deep-time perspective.

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Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

Anoxic events have a buildup to them, notably in the early days of land plants, with nutrient flow from land slowly rising as wet areas expand over ~800 kyr prior to the main event. 🧪⚒️ Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic…

Conceptual model for orbitally paced vegetation, regolith, and nutrient dynamics. (a) Illustrative astronomical forcing and inferred nutrient-loading pulse at the end of a 2.4-Myr eccentricity minimum (in pink). (b) Schematic weathering trend. (c) Latitudinal bands of inferred vegetation expansion and contraction near the ITCZ margin (adapted from Sablon et al., 2025). Study site marked in red. (d) Conceptual evolution of vegetation cover, regolith development, erosion, and nutrient release before, during, and after an anoxic event.

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

#FossilFriday from the @nhm-london.bsky.social echinoderm collections - a clutch of Cretaceous echinoids and a little slice of Ordovician sea floor.

A drawe filled with sspecimens o Echinocorys - an echinoid from the Cretaceous of the UK.

A close-up of a rock covered in fossils (mostly bryozoans and pieces of echinoderm).

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Julien Kimmig @jkimmig.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Welcome to the CAMBRIAN FECAL REVOLUTION. We didn't name it the Cambrian fecal explosion for obvious reasons. I'm happy to share this paper on fecal matter and its role in Cambrian ecosystems. So if you want to read a really shitty paper (50 days free access): authors.elsevier.com/a/1nYg8cZ3X7...

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Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Glad to share our new study at @natcomms.nature.com which resulted from several workshops on the early warning signs of mass extinctions and coordination of macroevolutionary vulnerability and the states of carbon cycle and temperatures. www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪⚒️ #Geology #Paleobio #EvoBio

Recurrence-based identificationofPhanerozoicmega-climate states and
early-warning structure

Phanerozoic vulnerability across five mega-climate states

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Prof Chris Jackson @seismatters.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Whenever I get asked about my views on climate change, the energy transition, etc, I always stress that whatever pathway lies ahead, the public have very, very good reason not to believe the motives of many if not most *energy* companies…

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Bob Nicholls Art @bobnichollsart.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

NEW PAINTING TIME! Here is "Consuming the Fallen," commissioned by The Etches Collection. It features over 50 different species of marine vertebrates and invertebrates. #SciArt #PaleoArt #MarineReptiles #SeaRex #Pliosaurus #Ichthyosaurs #Jurassic #JurassicWorld #Thalassodraco #Sharks

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Paul D. Taylor @nhmbryozoa.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

#FossilFriday Sponge labelled Toulminia bullatus with stalk and roots in the NHMUK collections. Collected from the Late Cretaceous Chalk somewhere in southern England.

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Sam Brody @samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

say what you will about nineteenth century imperialists but at least they took a kind of arrogant pride in Knowing Things

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 30/07/2026

It is putting it mildly to describe these people as a death cult.

ALLISTER HEATH
Britain can't stop
climate change. Scrap
net zero and embrace
Mediterranean

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Prosanta Chakrabarty @prosanta.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation iucn.org/news/202607/...

iucn.org

From collections to conservation: the indispensable role of natural history museums

The IUCN Species Survival Commission has published a Position Statement on the vital role of biological collections in biodiversity conservation: a formal acknowledgement that natural history museums,...

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Val Syverson 🕷️ @vjpsyverson.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

plants, man. what are they even doing

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I started a new part-time role @nhm-london.bsky.social today providing curatorial cover in the Fossil Echinoderm collection. Job #1 was putting away some specimens which were scanned by a visiting researcher, giving me a chance to see some of these amazing Paleozoic #crinoids (sea lilies)!

A slab of grey rock covered in fossil crinoids.

A weird holdfast for a Paleozoic crinoid

A small piece of the Paleozoic sea floor preserved in rock, with a fossil crinoid, snail, and trilobite

A beautifully preserved articulated Paleozoic crinoid showing the arms and stem.

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Chris Gug @gugunderwater.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Cool new behavior caught on video! This is a special type of octopus known as a #papernautilus (aka #argonaut) and her shell is a little less than 5cm. Watch as she extends and retracts her fleshy mantle - at the end, she rapidly retracts it all! #blackwater #blackwaterdiving

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

This. I never get tired of the reaction when someone realises the sheer amount of information about 🌍 past we can get from 'any old rock' or 'any old fossil'. Especially when people learn we can tell the temperature of ancient oceans and continents from fossil shells. 🤯

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Prof Chris Jackson @seismatters.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Someone recently made a quip that, “if you’ve seen one rock, you’ve seen them all”. It was a joke, I guess, aimed in my direction and geologists more generally. Although I think the rock-centric way geology sometimes sells itself is foolish…this person couldn’t be more wrong…[1/2]

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Marc A. Milne @forthespiders.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

It may be surprising to some that there are thousands of undescribed species just sitting in museums awaiting description. One of the main reasons this problem exists is that taxonomy is undervalued and underfunded, a trend that coincides with the devaluing of studies on natural history.

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Cool weird facts about the first Western palaeontologists. Did you know that the palaeontologist Henry De la Beche, is cited for being the first person to depict Earth as seen from space (1834)

Etching by De la Beche that appears in the beginning of his Researches in Theoretical Geology. A depiction of Earth as seen from space, on Afroeurasia

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Geology Johnson @geologyjohnson.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

We really need to retire that phrase. How about the "Biologically Bangin' Billion", or "Boomin' Billion" or "The Acritiferous Age", or "The Eukaryeon" or the "Stem Eukaryote Diversification Interval" (SEDI)" or... *gets pulled off stage by a shepherd's crook*

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Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 19/07/2026

Could Excel be conscious? We surveyed more than Jan 1 1900 people to find out.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

RE: ‘complex cross-subsidies in HE’ the humanities (and business school) depts subsidise the more expensive STEM depts within each uni. £9.5k p/yr doesn’t touch the sides of educating a geology or chemistry student with pricey fieldcourses or labs, but an English/ history student is cheap!

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James Witts @jdwitts.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Fantastic time @lifeandplanet.bsky.social @geolsoc.bsky.social last week! The usual mix of amazing people, science, and community. Pleased to present our @chalksea.bsky.social work on marine ecosystem response to #Cretaceous environmental change. Which felt sadly appropriate during a heatwave.. 🌍🌡

The front door to the Geological Society of London with a sign advertising the 'Life and Planet' conference.

An essential part of a conference during a heatwave - a luxury post-lunch ice cream.

A laptop showing a presentation about chalk sea ecosystems during the Cenomanian-Turonian time period.

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