Back in the Late Cretaceous, the USA was divided. Not politically, but by a vast continental sea called the Western Interior Seaway, splitting the continent into two separate landmasses. The western one of these, known as Laramidia, played host to some of the popular dinosaurs like Parasaurolophus, or ‘Elvis’ in Pete Postlethwaite dialect, and the ceratopsian Chasmosaurus. One of the cool things a ...[Read More]
In which we explain how camel ankle bones relate to the fate of global ecosystems.
This was originally posted at 4th Dimensional Biology by Brianna McHorse and Edward Davis. Reblogging because awesome (with permission). I’m taking time away from comic book blogging to do some actual SCIENCE BLOGGING. Just last month I published a paper in Palaeontologia Electronica with my esteemed colleague Brianna McHorse (who blogs over at Fossilosophy). It’s called “A method for improved ide ...[Read More]
My year in 2013
Inspired by Martin Eve (link), I decided to make a documentation of academic-related stuff I’ve achieved in 2013. The last year was mostly occupado by the first year of my PhD, but other academic-ish stuff too as complimentary activities to research. This is kinda like a personal diary of ‘achievements’, as well as a documentation of the extent of work-procrastination. As such, p ...[Read More]
The 12 days of PhD Christmas
Twelve Dinners Delivered (to the lab) Eleven Papers Prepping Ten Bugs-a-Bugging Nine Ladies Dancing (but not with you) Eight Bunsens-a-Burnin’ Seven Dance Solos Six Words a Minute Fiiive Grants Rejected Four Calling Mates (“I’m busy“) Three Absent Supervisors Two Days off a Year (maybe) And a h-index of nooought. Merry Christmas everyone!
To bird or not to bird..
In 2012, the controversial case over whether or not Archaeopteryx lithographica, perhaps the most iconic dinosaur species of all time, was a bird was settled. Apparently. (free pdf) This was an important analysis for two reasons. Firstly, it countered a previous study showing that Archaeopteryx was more closely related to dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Deinonychus, and secondly used advanced, sor ...[Read More]
It’s been a while..!
In a post two months ago, I promised that I’d keep you updated with how my research is progressing. Needless to say, I’ve done a pretty poor job of that, unless you follow me on Twitter! I must apologise – the workload while travelling was severely under-estimated, and I’ve barely had time to catch a nap. I’m writing to you now from Lyon, where I finally had a day off ...[Read More]
The underworld thief returns from the dead
So I don’t normally blog whenever a new dinosaur pops out the pages, but a new one, Acheroraptor temertyorum received quite a welcome back to the living world with this exquisite illustration by Danielle Dufault. I’ve asked for her permission to post on here, and it’ll appear on the front cover of Naturwissenschaften (December issue, probably), so defo worth checking out a hard c ...[Read More]
I need your clothes, your boots, and your copyright.
James Lewis is a PhD student at Imperial College London in the field of Planetary Geochemistry. When not blowing up gas cylinders, or hunting for jarosite, he can be found wandering the streets of London as an amateur photographer. James also suffers from Thesisitis, a common condition among third-year PhD students. He can be found on Twitter as @jmtlewis. When I was applying for PhD projects two ...[Read More]
Theropod skulls: a note of caution
Morphometrics is a horrible word, but refers to a technique that is gaining increased traction in palaeontology in recent years. It essentially is a way of measuring anatomy, or specific aspects of anatomy. An extension of it is called geometric morphometrics, and this relies on using co-ordinate points on fossils to analyse things like shape variation. The newly minted Dr Christian Foth had a stu ...[Read More]
A new power is rising…
This post originally appeared at: http://the-briefing.com/a-new-power-is-rising/ People always under-estimate the power of the fossil record. There has always been this stigma surrounding it that it is too poor, or too biased to read ‘properly’, and is consequently of no use. I still hear this quite a bit, and there are a couple of reasons for it. Over the last ten years or so, there has been a su ...[Read More]