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]
Three-dimensions of palaeontological awesomeness
Scientific publishing is entering a new era, with digital content becoming more and more important in a world where data is openly and freely shared. In palaeontology, we’re not being left behind. Along with this shift, 3D fossils are adding a new breadth to the field, both in a scientific and educational context. A great example is the British Geological Survey’s immense 3D fossil project. I thou ...[Read More]
SVP Day 3
OK, day 3, still alive. The first session this morning was on saurischians dinosaurs, the major group that includes sauropods and theropods. My supervisor, Phil Mannion, was the first talk I was awake enough for (*cough*), and gave us a run-through of sauropods from the infamous Late Jurassic (~150 million years old) Tendaguru formation from Tanzania. With new revisions, the sauropod fauna from he ...[Read More]
SVP Day 2
So again, I missed most of the morning, spending it in the UK Embassy getting an emergency passport. Unfortunately, this means most of the Romer Session, where early-career (thanks Phil for correction) students present for an award, was missed. Obviously, with the lack of Wi-Fi and live-tweeting, the session might as well have been conducted in a black hole. I managed to catch the last talk though ...[Read More]
SVP Day 1
So after definitely not losing my passport, I managed to make it into one of the sessions for the first day at SVP, the Society for Vertebrate Palaeontology’s annual meeting over in Los Angeles. The session was on the impacts of ontogeny, or growth and development on our understanding of dinosaur relationships and biology. The only one I managed to catch was on the sauropod dinosaur, Lufengosaurus ...[Read More]
What do we know about the origin of flowering plants?
This is a guest post by Dan Peppe. He is an Assistant Professor in the Geology Department at Baylor University. His research interests are focused on reconstructing ancient climates and ecosystems in North America and East Africa and on developing new and improved palaeoclimate and palaeoecological proxies using methods in paleobotany, sedimentary geology, and paleomagnetism. More information a ...[Read More]
Green tea and Velociraptors turns into beer and dwarf crocodiles
I’m in Berlin. I’ve just managed to find a chicken donner kebab, and am pausing research briefly to write this. I’m currently on leave from London, with a ridiculously hectic couple of months ahead: I’ve just been to Munich to see a dwarf crocodile specimen, Alligatorellus beaumonti (from Bavaria), which conveniently happened to coincide with Oktoberfest, and am now here to ...[Read More]
Geology beyond science
This was originally posted at: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/earthbound/geology_beyond_science So people who read this blog (*one person cheers off in the distance*) may have noticed that my partner-in-crime, Jane Robb, recently abandoned me to the fusty claws of Nature. *sniff* Fear not though! Jane is pursuing awesome things now with the European Geosciences Union, the other organisation I ...[Read More]
Plotting for the Earth. Sciences.
This was originally posted at: http://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/earthbound/plotting_for_the_earth_sciences So a cool paper came out a while back about using plots when attempting to construct stories as a mode of communicating in Earth Science. I cannot, as always, emphasise my frustration when someone writes an article that’s supposed to be broadly educational, and sticks it behind a paywall. ...[Read More]
No Daily Mail, a 230 million year old amphibian is not a dinosaur..
The Daily Fail have struck again, this time the poor victim being the rather cool fossil, Metoposaurus diagnosticus. Metoposaurus is an amphibious, er, amphibian from Germany, Italy, Poland and Portugal, and a member of a group called temnospondyls. However, three times in an article published yesterday, the innocent amphibian is labeled as a ‘dinosaur’ – what did it ever to to d ...[Read More]