This was originally posted here. Mass extinctions are insanely catastrophic, but important, events that punctuate the history of life on Earth. The Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary, around 145 million years ago, was originally thought of to represent a mass extinction, but has subsequently been ‘down-graded’ to a minor extinction event based on new discoveries. However, compared to other i ...[Read More]
Which palaeontology stories in 2015 captured the public’s imagination?
This was originally posted here! Happy New Year everyone! It’s that time of year when all the summaries of an amazing year of research are coming out, and goodness, what a year it’s been! The folk over at Altmetric have been kind enough to summarise the top 100 articles of 2015, measured by their altmetrics scores – a measure of the social media chatter around articles. All the d ...[Read More]
How to write to your MEPs about European Copyright reform
This was originally posted here. I mentioned in a previous post how important it is for researchers to equip themselves with knowledge about copyright issues (like this), and to become active in the struggle against publishers in retaining fair re-use rights for research. In the European Commission, this has been quite a high-profile debate this year (see here for example), with some preliminary r ...[Read More]
New fossil croc on the block
This was originally posted on the PLOS Paleo blog Crocodiles are freakin’ amazing animals. They’ve been around for about 250 million years, and throughout this time have survived two mass extinctions, and at least twice decided to hitch up and take to the seas. Their historical diversity, and general weirdness, was vast compared to what we see in modern crocs, which are on the face of it all fairl ...[Read More]
Getting into open science
This was originally posted at: https://thewinnower.com/papers/2301-my-open-science-story It never really occurred to me not to be open. From the moment I started my PhD, I made a promise to myself that everything I did would be open and transparent. By this, I don’t just mean access to published papers – I wanted the data, and the information that I was generating to be freely available, and under ...[Read More]
Crocodiles feeling the heat of extinction
New research on crocodiles shows that a combination of changing sea levels and temperatures were responsible for driving their biodiversity over millions of years. Living crocodiles are threatened by climate change, with 10 out of 23 species at a high risk of extinction. As ectotherms, animals which require external sources of heat to function, they are sensitive to changes in temperature. With 2- ...[Read More]
Nessie dwarfed by new Scottish crocodile
Yes, Nessie had to be in the title. Am I sorry? A little. But not enough to not use it. Colleagues from the University of Edinburgh and myself have described the first Scottish crocodile fossil! It’s from the Isle of Skye, from a time known as the Middle Jurassic, and dates back around 160 million years ago. Based on a partial bit of a jawbone (the dentary), it’s hardly the most specta ...[Read More]
New species of ‘river dolphin’ reveals their ancient marine origins
A new species of extinct dolphin closely related to modern Amazonian ‘river dolphins’, but which dwelled in ancient oceans, is helping to solve the mystery of how and when dolphins adapted for life away from the sea. Freshwater dolphins are endangered, largely due to human activity. In modern ecosystems, only five or six species remain, and among these, the Yangtze ‘river dolphin’ was declared ‘fu ...[Read More]
New open science competition through ARCS
The ARCS (Advancing Research Communication and Scholarship) have launched a new ‘open scholarship’ competition. The aim is simple: describe your ‘open science story’, and you could win $1000! In particular, the competition is aimed at finding success stories – how has practicing any form of open science helped you advance or enhance your career in some way? All submis ...[Read More]
The rise of open research data
This was originally posted at: http://exchanges.wiley.com/blog/2015/08/26/the-rise-of-open-research-data/ As a junior researcher in the UK, it has given me great pleasure over the last few years to see the dramatic development of open access publishing. Most major research funders in the UK now require public access to published research articles in one form or another, and many other research int ...[Read More]