iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Martin, thanks for tagging me. I really look forward to reading this!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Next semester I get to teach one of my favs - Microfossils in the Earth and Archaeological Sciences. #PaleoSky

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Teaching a 3/3 load is challenging while trying to conduct research, but teaching many different classes across a two-year rotation is the most challenging part. I've prepped nine different classes so far, none of which are seminar-style. One of those changed books and required a new partial prep!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Grades are submitted! It's such a relief to see ZERO Canvas app notifications. Best of all, for the first time in 4 years, I have no new course preps next semester. I can actually enjoy winter break! Applied Time Series Analysis was my new prep last semester, and it was brutal, but I'm proud of it!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

A lady across the street has one that she grows in a container (it’s over 6 feet tall) and then she lets it go dormant in her garage over the winter. She recently asked if I wanted cuttings and I said yes. But with kids and a dog, I’m not so sure anymore!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

That’s what I’m talkin’ about!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

CaOx morphotypes I recovered from extinct groud sloth dung! meridian.allenpress.com/tjs/article/...

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

I recently used @blueark.app to import some of my past Twitter posts that now appear below my backyard blue sky post.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Same. Initially, science Twitter was great, then of course we all know what’s happened after the sale. This space is so refreshing and reminds me of the “old days” on Twitter.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Yes, I plan on going to the IMPR in Barcelona.

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Reposted by Chad Yost

Martin Hodson @martinjhodson.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

I thought I would make a starter pack of scientists working on #phytoliths. Please share if this is of interest to you, and do ask if you want to be added! go.bsky.app/8HEDmb9

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Great idea. Thanks for doing this!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 18/11/2024

I just switched my professional/ research social presence from the dumpster fire formerly known as Twitter. Here’s a little blue sky from my back yard this past summer.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 02/09/2023

On my way to the 13th International Meeting on Phytolith Research being held at the Dead Sea Research Institute, Israel. #13IMPR

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 21/07/2023

A visit to Friedrich the Great’s summer residence in Potsdam, Germany before the start of the @icdpDrilling conference @GFZ_Potsdam

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 12/12/2022

Is #ModernReferenceMonday a thing? #Kava (Piper methysticum var. kalihi) tabular facetate leaf #phytoliths. This plant was grown, collected, and sent to me from Hawaiʻi for an archaeological/ancient agriculture project I worked on several years ago.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 12/08/2022

I’m growing Oaxacan green dent corn in a plot at the ISU community garden this summer for #phytolith, and #starchgranule reference material. We will be looking at phytolith and starch degradation after grinding, #nixtamalization, and cooking steps. @EESatISU @indianastate

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 15/07/2022

#FossilFriday ~300 Ma black shale with a fossilized #bryozoan (cf. Rhombopora sp.) and a few lithified coal clasts. Found in a creek bed when hiking with the family a few weeks ago here in Vigo Co, IN - USA. Cleaned this up with bleach, H2O rinse, and then 10% HCl. #carboniferous

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 09/06/2022

I was making some #phytolith microscope slides at home and ran out of the fingernail polish that I use to seal coverslips. My wife said “I have some, but it’s like 20 years old.” It was my preferred brand for slide making! #Wet_n_Wild

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 16/04/2022

The paleoenvironmental side of this study got its start in a 2017 seminar on defining and quantifying environmental variability led by Andy Cohen and Anne B. at the U of Arizona. @jjrowan_paleo and Andrew Du applied their genius to the mammalian...

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 03/04/2022

I am also very grateful to our department chair, Jen Latimer, who hired me as a lecturer (Fall, 2021), and spearheaded my transition into a tenure track position. I'm really looking forward to this next teaching and research phase of my career! #phytoliths

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 03/04/2022

In addition to the multitude of family, friends, and academic colleagues who have supported me along the way, I will be eternally grateful to @DiatomsATTACK, a longtime friend and colleague who brought me to ISU as a postdoc researcher (Fall, 2020).

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 03/04/2022

I am absolutely thrilled to focus on teaching and mentoring students in the EES Department, which is the home department for anthropology, geography, and geology at ISU. This is an obviously amazing fit for my expertise!

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 03/04/2022

So happy to announce that I have accepted a tenure track position as an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Systems at Indiana State University! @indianastate @EESatISU

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 14/03/2022

Had a great time visiting @Uconn last week for an invited talk in the @UConnAnthro department cosponsored by @UConnGeoscience. #phytoliths #microcharcoal @HSPDPinfo @EESatISU

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 05/02/2022

[1/2] Recently interviewed twice for completely different research projects for the NPR podcast Nature Notes produced by @MarfaRadio. The first interview was for #phytolith and #StarchGranule work from ceramic pot residue:...

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 28/09/2021

The paradox of forbs in grasslands and the legacy of the mammoth steppe esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com…

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 29/07/2021

Sincere thanks to my coauthors @loopdlupien, @Cat_Beck, Craig Feibel, Steve Archer, Andy Cohen, and the @FrontEarthSci reviewers and editors who made this worthy of publication for the special topics issue: www.frontiersin.org/research-topics…

frontiersin.org

Integrating Paleoclimate, Stratigraphy, Sedimentology & P...

What role did climate dynamics play in human evolution, t...

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 29/07/2021

This study looked at modern and paleolake sediments from the @HSPDP WTK core. An interesting finding from the paleo study: as precipitation increased, so did fire, often at precessional periodicity. This is explained by an increase in grass biomass and species adapted to fire.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 29/07/2021

This was my first phytolith and microcharcoal dataset completed for the diss, but the last published because of challenges posed by a discontinuous #phytolith record. However, by combining the #microcharcoal record with @loopdlupien‘s fabulous #dDwax record, it all worked out.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 29/07/2021

Data from the 3rd and final chapter of my PhD dissertation has just been published online: Orbital Influence on Precipitation, Fire, and Grass Community Composition From 1.87 to 1.38 Ma in the Turkana Basin, Kenya. doi.org/10.3389/feart.2021.568646

doi.org

Frontiers | Orbital Influence on Precipitation, Fire, and...

The Turkana Basin in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia...

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 18/04/2021

Although this paper has been available online since last summer, it just made it to print along with a bunch of other related BTB (Baringo Basin) @HSPDPinfo drill core papers and is free to download until the end of May: authors.elsevier.com/a/1ctQp73N%7E0…

authors.elsevier.com

ScienceDirect

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 01/04/2021

New pub with collaborators J.Mead (@MammothSite) and B.Schroeder (@SulRoss) on #ShastaGroundSloth diet and environs at 13 and 31 ka from the #TransPecos Mtns, TX. Lots of #CaOx and SiO2 #phytoliths. @EESatISU #paleofeces #coprolites doi.org/10.32011/txjsci_73_1_Articl…

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 07/03/2021

Here's another page I made for a micro/macro #archaeobotany calendar from 2013 (see 1/11/21 post). I'm teaching a course on #microfossils in the Earth and archaeological sciences this semester @EESatISU, so I thought I'd recycle this artwork for the sponge lecture. #silicasponges

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 11/01/2021

Years ago when I was working as a micro-#archaeobotanist for a private firm, we made calendars as gifts for clients. Each analyst selected a topic for several of the months. Here’s my creation featuring #phytoliths and #starchgranules from a #sedge.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 06/01/2021

Although our approach was not successful at identifying differences between essentially modern Southwest maize landraces, future studies that include morphometrics from areas in addition to or in combination with the outer periclinal surface (OPS) may prove more discriminating.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 06/01/2021

…we could not discriminate between 24 landraces of maize. This was not surprising since genetic differences were not clearly reflected in MDS space for cultural affiliation/geography (none), and endosperm type (some). Our phytolith morphometries show no clustering in MDS space.

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 06/01/2021

We found that: A) #glumes produce rondels, whereas #lemmas and #paleas do not, B) #cupules are devoid of rondels except at glume attachment points, and C) cob location affects rondel size but not shape morphometries. However…

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Chad Yost @phytolithologist.bsky.social · 06/01/2021

We set out to answer two main questions: 1) exactly what #maizecob parts produce rondel phytoliths (this was not clear in the literature), and 2) can we use computer-assisted #morphometricanalysis (CAMA) of cob rondel phytoliths to identify 24 southwestern maize #landraces.

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