iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre @charmouthhcc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

From dinosaurs to insects, from new species to fossilised skin, found by professional collectors or 5 year old children, there have been some truly phenomenal discoveries on this site. To find out more about the fossil collecting code or to view these fossils then please visit fossilcodes.org

fossilcodes.org

fossilcodes.org – The West Dorset & Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliffs National Nature Reserve Fossil Collecting Codes and Recording Schemes

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Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre @charmouthhcc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

We're proud to unveil, after working closely with Natural England and the University of Birmingham, a new website dedicated to the fossil collecting codes and the database of over 650 specimens recorded with us at the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. 🧵⬇️

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Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre @charmouthhcc.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

We're celebrating 25 years of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site this year, and part of that is 25 years of recording the incredible scientifically important finds from West Dorset and East Devon! 🧵 ⬇️

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Professor John R. Hutchinson @johnrhutchinson.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Grant agreement signed! Advertising 4 new jobs (3 year contracts w/potential to extend +2 years) on ERC #CROCOLOCOEVO grant next week-- stay tuned for details. 2 postdocs 1 technician 1 research administrator who can do science communication Start date flexible but could be as soon as 1 November!

Picture of right hindlimbs and pelvis of Terrestrisuchus (long skinny legs) and Crocodylus (modern croc; beefy and stubby), from 3D computer models

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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking.

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review. Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage. To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.

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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

🚨Postdoc job alert: Come work with my paleontology & evolution group in Edinburgh! Researcher in Cognitive Evolution Over Deep Time. You'll study how brains & neurons have evolved over time, and predict neuron count in extinct species! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DTC355/p...

jobs.ac.uk

Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time at The University of Edinburgh

Apply for the Postdoctoral Research Associate in Cognitive Evolution over Deep Time role on jobs.ac.uk, the top job board for academic positions in higher education. View details and apply now.

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Hey @stevebrusatte.bsky.social, great to see your new book on sale at Calgary airport. A gripping romance involving an "unfairly hot" Oxford professor (modelled on Roger?). Why the pen-name, though??!

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Up at 4.30am for a run across the prairie under the stars before heading to the airport at the end of our Dinosaur Provincial Park field trip.

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Today in Dinosaur Provincial Park we have found evidence of tyrannosaurids, dromaeosaurids, hadrosaurs (including skin!), ceratopsians, ankylosaurs, and a whole host of other reptile and fish groups. What an amazing place!

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The Geologists' Association @geolassoc.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Join us at The Geological Society Burlington House on Friday, 2nd October for our next free evening talk: Thirty years of discovery at the UK's largest dinosaur track site in North Oxfordshire by Professor Kirsty Edgar, University of Birmingham. Non-members are welcome free of charge.

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The Fossil Files Podcast @thefossilfiles.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

What did the Jurassic actually sound like? A team of scientists in the UK and China used fossil insect wings, lasers, FEA, AI models, DNA and more to recreate a 'palaeo-acoustic soundscape' of a Jurassic Forest. www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h41...

youtube.com

Reconstructed katydid ancestor calls from the Jurassic

YouTube video by The Brighter Side of News

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Brilliant first day for our University of Birmingham field course to Dinosaur Provincial Park 🇨🇦.

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Andy Farke @andyfarke.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Some Monday morning thoughts on museum closures, spurred in part by the recent Academy of Natural Sciences, but not necessarily specific to that. <thread>

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This year our University of Birmingham Palaeontology Field & Museum Skills trip is in Alberta 🇨🇦. Incredible first day at the Royal Tyrrell Museum with a behind the scenes tour from Caleb Brown & then time in the galleries of maybe the best dinosaur museum in the world.

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Richard Dearden @euphanerops.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Fan of weird end-Permian-surviving fossil sharks? Check out our preprint describing the first endoskeletal fossils of Carnian jalodontiform Keuperodus brodiei. #FossilFriday doi.org/10.64898/202... Led by Ryan Tokeley (no bsky), based on his great masters project work @nitroshutter.bsky.social

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Buckle up guys: I've got a story for you about my recent experience submitting a paper to Scientific Reports, a @natureportfolio.nature.com journal. I certainly won't be submitting there or peer-reviewing for them again, and I suggest you don't either, unless you enjoy your privacy being breached!

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The Wainwright Prizes @wainwrightprize.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

The WINNER of the 2026 Children's Wainwright Prize for Non-Fiction is... Otherlands, Thomas Halliday, illustrated by Gavin Scott (@puffinbooksuk.bsky.social) #WainwrightPrize #StoriesThatConnect

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Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

"High-quality revisionary taxonomy must be grounded in experienced character evaluation and homology assessment, concept delimitation, and contingent analytical judgment, skills that are developed over years of immersive engagement with natural history collections" 👏👏👏

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Did a 16 mile run today in the company of three episodes of @fossilrob.bsky.social & @tweetisaurus.bsky.social including this one. Highly recommended (the podcast not the running).

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Journal of Systematic Palaeontology @journalsystpal.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Transforming turtle systematics: challenges, opportunities and the path ahead by Evers and Joyce 🔗 buff.ly/9dnDRTc #PaleoSky #turtles #systematics #phylogeny #morphology View the full series here: Perspectives on the Systematics of Fossil Organisms: Challenges and Opportunities: buff.ly/qiJ0XUO

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Hady George @houdzgeorge.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Welcome Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda! I'm delighted to introduce you to a new species of protomammal. Hailing from the Triassic of Tanzania, this is the first record of Dinodontosaurus outside of South America, and it informs on the origin of dinosaurs. Here's a thread summarising our findings 🧵

Life reconstruction of two Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda individuals by Gabriel Ugueto

Skull and jaw of the holotype of Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda. Original photos by Jonathan Jackson

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

This is another contribution to our series of review papers on the systematics of major groups. We asked world experts to give us their take on the state of the art, and where their field would be going in the next decade. Prof Susan Evans on lepidosaurs 👇

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Gemma Benevento @gemmabenevento.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Delighted to finally share our paper examining Paleogene mammal faunas and global and regional environmental change in Central Asia.... www.nature.com/articles/s41... @nielsmeijer.bsky.social @sgn.one @idiv-research.bsky.social

An infographic showing the fossil localities map in Central Asia, and a graph showing the timing of mammal faunal changes alongside geological proxies for global and regional environmental change.

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Peter Falkingham @peterfalkingham.com · 09/09/2026

It's big, it's tridactyl, and it's Hell Creek, so we reckon this is an adult Tyrannosaurus rex trackway. Paper here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Turtles. They're weird. Where did they come from? We find out in today's #FossilFiles. This one is hot off the press. We only recorded it this morning and it's out for your listening pleasure already! @fossilrob.bsky.social is my turtle hero. share.google/a5Aale2SzYyS...

share.google

The Fossil Files: Where did turtles come from?

The origin of turtles has long been a scientific mystery. Not only do they have super weird things going on with their ribs, head, and teeth, but also its unclear if they were more closely related to ...

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Big job opportunity in Johannesburg - Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Wits University: irec.wits.ac.za/OA_HTML/OA.j...

irec.wits.ac.za

Job Details

UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, JOHANNESBURG

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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Just devastating. The oldest natural history museum in America will suddenly close its doors at the end of the month. With budget cuts, flagging govt and political support, high overhead costs...I fear this fate may befall many of us. www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/a...

nbcphiladelphia.com

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University to close museum on Sept. 30

The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University will close its museum in Philadelphia on Sept. 30, 2026, NBC10 confirmed.

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Absolutely INCREDIBLE news that our work on the 'Dinosaur Highway' in Oxfordshire & the 'punk rock dinosaur' Spicomellus in Morocco has been shortlisted for STEM Research Project of the Year 2026 by the Times Higher Education awards! the-awards.co.uk/2026/en/page...

the-awards.co.uk

THE Awards 2026

The THE Awards are the biggest celebration of UK and Irish higher education, recognising excellence across academia, professional services, leadership and management.

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The Fossil Files Podcast @thefossilfiles.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

This #FossilFriday, Susie is dino hunting in the Gobi Desert - here she is with a sacrum of the sauropod Nemegtosaurus. Listen out for next months bonus episode about Susie Mongolian adventures! 🇲🇳🇲🇳🇲🇳

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Professor Anjali Goswami FRS @evoswami.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Absolutely delighted to have been awarded the Faraday Prize! Scientific research is critical for solving the challenges that humanity and the planet currently faces, but ensuring that diverse communities are engaged in & benefit from science are just as important as the work that happens in the lab.

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I’d very much welcome this if Birmingham city council was in any way capable of enforcing it. As it is, they still can’t even collect the recycling bins & their attempts to install low traffic neighbourhoods have been chaotic. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Dear culture-war motorists, look to the future. We'll all be driving at 20mph soon | Christian Wolmar

There are howls of protest from the right about plans for Birmingham to be a 20mph city. But it will be a good thing, and others will follow, says transport writer and podcaster Christian Wolmar

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Will Tattersdill @tattersdill.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

So here we go then: the result of many years thinking about how dinosaurs make science and the imagination work together. It's written for both literary critics and scientists and my dearest hope is that it will help foster an academy where we talk to each other more

Photo of a copy of 'The Social Dinosaur', out now from Bloomsbury omg

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Absolutely amazing up close sightings of pilot whales today on a zodiac trip from Chéticamp, Cape Breton. Six foot swell in high winds today so we’re all very wet but happy.

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Paul Barrett @profpaulbarrett.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

This … I’ve also funded a lot of my own fieldwork as large funding agencies don’t value basic discovery-led science as much as they should.

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

Examples of what we are doing at Birmingham to address this: - introduced new palaeontology field skills module training c. 100 students in field prospecting, excavation, ethics & legalities. - trained 100s of students and volunteers as part of three huge annual dinosaur highway excavations (1/x)

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

After success earlier this year with the most scenic hike in the Faroes, time to tackle the stunning Skyline Trail in Cape Breton.

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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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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Driving the stunning Cabot Trail through Cape Breton Highlands National Park today as climax of a fortnight of family road tripping through Nova Scotia, New Brunswick & Prince Edward Island 🇨🇦

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Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

This is a really fantastic paper from Tim Astrop at Brymbo. The fossil forest is such a cool place and surely has many more palaeontological secrets to reveal 👇

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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. Viktor Baranov🧪🦟🐛🪲 @swarmofthoughts.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Also I am not sure what does it has to do with British collections - I recently written a paper on plundering on Ukrainian fossils by colonial powers, yet, with all my animosity to say Russia, I would be hard pressed to suggest that they should loose collections FROM Russia

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Richard Butler @richardjbutler.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

So many hot takes on this about British hypocrisy. - It’s possible to both recognise the problems of our colonial past & be concerned about protecting UK heritage. The former doesn’t mean the latter should be a free for all. - What exactly are the fossil collections we are refusing to repatriate?

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