EGU Blogs

Podcasts

Social Media for Science Outreach – A Case Study: That social media thang

This was initially posted at: http://www.nature.com/spoton/2013/04/social-media-for-science-outreach-a-case-study-that-social-media-thang/ as part of a series of case studies exploring how academics use social media.

Jon began university life as a geologist, following this with a treacherous leap into the life sciences with a course in biodiversity and taxonomy. Now undertaking a PhD in tetrapod biodiversity and extinction at Imperial College London, there was a brief interlude were Jon was sucked into the world of science policy and communication. He blogs at https://blogs.egu.eu/network/palaeoblog/, tweets as Protohedgehog and co-runs an [infamous, probably] podcast series called Palaeocast. Jon can usually be found procrastinating in pubs, trying to exchange bad science, usually about dinosaurs, in exchange for food and beer.

Tell us a bit about you and your social media project

I’m currently a PhD student at Imperial College London, investigating the biodiversity patterns of tetrapods (anything with four limbs/wings/flippers) about 145 million years ago to see what we can figure out in a macroevolutionary sense, and whether we can find a ‘hidden’ mass extinction in the fossil record. I commit some of my time to 3 major social media platforms: blogging, tweeting, and podcasting, with a bit of Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and others on the side.  These activities are less of a project, per se, and more just stuff I do in parallel, and often with overlap, with my PhD research.

[Read More]

New Palaeontology podcast series

Palaeocast is a little side project I co-run with Dave Marshall and Joe Keating. It’s a new podcast series focusing on Palaeontology (shocking), and about getting the science directly from the scientists. We recognise that science is a process, not a series of facts, and wish to convey this process; the methods, the ups and downs, the snake bites, the everything, and really open up the world of Palaeontology.

Our logo – cool eh!

We’ve got 4 episodes currently up, and more on the way!

Episode 1: The earliest fossils and the hunt for extra-terrestrial life, with Dr. Leila Battison (NASA)

Episode 2: The giant trilobite, Isotelus rex, with Dave Rudkin (ROM, Canada)

Episode 3: Amber, and parasitism in the fossil record, with Dr George Poinar (OSU, USA)

Episode 4:The fossil forests of ancient gilboa, with William Stein (NYSM, USA)

Please do check them out, and give feedback! If you have any suggestions for future episodes, drop a comment here, and we’ll see what we can do.