#fossil research

[psuedocrab]

Drum jawbone front and back perspectives bio-illustrations from my microfossil undergrad research this semester ✨🐟

[amnhnyc]

This spectacular Stegosaurus…

🦴 measures 11.5 ft (3.5 m) tall and 27 ft (8.2 m) long. 🦴 is mounted in a defensive pose, with its spiked tail raised in the air. 🦴 lived 150 million years ago in what’s now the western U.S.

Thought to be the largest and one of the most complete Stegosaurus specimens ever uncovered, Apex is now on view in the Museum’s Kenneth C. Griffin Exploration Atrium. This exhibit is included with any admission.

[garlicgravy]

@chaellooo that's actually funny cause I drew something like this a few days ago! 😭

[dragonwysper]

No I need to make a fucking post about this because I just stumbled on this paper, and this is insane.

Going to be talking about and sharing images of various insects. You have been notified.

So y'all know fleas. The little parasitic insects.

Yeah. Those guys.

Well. This study did genetic analysis on fleas (and several other insects) to find out what these guys derive from. Because up to this point, fleas have been just these weird little things in their own order that are... somewhere??? in the Antliophora clade. Previous scientists have thought maybe they're some weird offshoot of Diptera (true flies), because they do actually have vestigial little wing casings.

But this study, and the genetic analysis they did, revealed that fleas are not especially similar to Diptera. They're actually most similar to Mecoptera. Scorpionflies.

That's right. These guys.

Which is completely and utterly insane to me. You're telling me these big, super unique and specialized, weird-ass bugs, somewhere down the line, created an offshoot of these tiny little insects that lose their wings in favor of hopping around, that parasitize vertebrates and feed on blood? Scorpionflies did that??

Idk this is just. So so interesting to me. The Big wide beautiful world of entomology.

Here's that study. I think you'll have to make an account on the site in order to read it (though I can also just send any interested folks the file I downloaded, since I successfully made an account), but it is SO fascinating.

[lumiy-a]

random advice of the day from your local fossil: take everything you can from your university years.

if you're lucky enough to have the means to go to university, you should really make the best out of it. this is likely the last chance you have to make studying your full-time job (okay, or part-time job if you are less lucky and need to work in the meantime - you have all my respect if you do that).

don't sleep on those exams, take your time to prepare them and rock that shit. it's the one chance you have to learn the background and theory of the topics you have chosen and that interest you. of course, you can always learn and study topics in life, but later you'll have a job and adulting to do, and spending your time learning about organic chemistry will feel like a massive burden when you come home after a long working day and your brain is tired.

also, maybe people don't say it often enough at university, but phd programs exist. if you like what you're studying, you can do research about it. if you're in stem, the phd years are the ones where you'll learn the most and even if you won't stay in academia, the scientific thinking will always stay with you and help you survive in a world made of nonsensical claims and misinformation. i think the world needs more people who know how to do research.

also! if you're in stem, don't forget that you can do a phd also in industry or in collaboration with a company. it's rarer, but it exists, and it might be your exit ticket from academia later.

[rabbit-rays]

trainersona....he mostly hangs around in caves and only really uses half his team to battle

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Daniel Cusick, Chelsea Harvey and Scott Waldman at Politico:

The Trump administration wants to effectively break up NOAA and end its climate work by abolishing its primary research office and forcing the agency to help boost U.S. fossil fuel production, budget documents show. The move, outlined in a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, carries forward President Donald Trump’s broader goals of slashing federal spending, gutting climate research and unleashing U.S. energy production. But it also represents a dramatic shift in NOAA’s mission. NOAA has long served as the nation’s preeminent climate and weather agency, and the new marching orders would downsize those functions in the pursuit of a “leaner NOAA,” the memo says. It calls for a sharp spending cut at the agency.

NOAA would get about $4.5 billion in its next budget, down from roughly $6.1 billion in its 2025 enacted budget. Key to the cutback is the elimination of NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which facilitates studies of the planet’s oceans, atmosphere, climate, weather patterns and other Earth systems. The changes were outlined in a budget proposal shared this week with POLITICO’s E&E News by three current and former agency employees. The memo broadly calls for a shakeup within the Commerce Department, where NOAA is housed, to help balance the federal budget. “Reaching balance requires: resetting the proper balance between Federal and State responsibilities with a renewed emphasis on federalism; eliminating the Federal Government’s support of woke ideology; protecting the American people by deconstructing a wasteful and weaponized bureaucracy; and identifying and eliminating wasteful spending,” the memo says. The OMB document — called a “passback” memorandum because it notifies agency officials of what to expect in the forthcoming fiscal year — also indicates NOAA’s operations, research and facilities (ORF) budget would be cut by 38 percent, from $4.8 billion in 2025 to $3.47 billion in 2026.

[...] The document reflects OMB Director Russ Vought’s proposal in Project 2025, the conservative policy handbook, to break up NOAA and dramatically shrink its mission while ending its work on climate. Vought wrote in Project 2025 that NOAA should be disassembled because it is the “source of much of NOAA’s climate alarmism” and said the “preponderance of its climate-change research should be disbanded.”

[...] The document also outlines a significant shift in the mission of the remnants of NOAA that will survive. That does not include any work on climate change, according to the document. “Passback eliminates functions of the Department that are misaligned with the President’s agenda and the expressed will of the American people,” the document states. It forces “significant reductions to education, grants, research, and climate-related programs within NOAA.”

The Project 2025-ization of our government continues, as the Trump Regime outlines plans to carve up NOAA and smother climate research.

[lil-gingerbread-queen]

When Trump was president, we called him "the President of the idiots" in France because only idiots could vote for that man. If he wins AGAIN, I'm extending it to more of y'all, because I saw how stupidly y'all behaved on social media, and y'all acting stupid is putting in danger so many of your people, you should be ashamed. And that's not even talking about the worldwide consequences of your idiocy.

[madmwyrd]

So, my brother and I watched Dinosaur (2000) relatively recently, and besides the fact that it's a bad movie with horrendous character design, one thing pissed him off more than anything else: the movie's use of the word "carnotaur".

Now, to him, this word was just an infuriating attempt at saying "carnivore", which in context, makes sense. What neither he nor I knew at the time is that this is not the case. Carnotaurs are real dinosaurs. And they're really cool.

Carnotaurus sastrei, the only one of its genus, is one of the few dinosaurs we have with some of its skin preserved. We know from those preservations that it had scales, which is one of the things we assume generally about dinosaurs that we have very little evidence for. Carnotaurs also were the only known carnivorous dinosaurs with horns, which is why it's named after a bull. The other half of its name (carno-) means "meaty", and even just looking at the skeleton, you can tell that it was one THICC ASS BOI.

I'm at least 90% certain this motherfucker looked like a sausage with teeth and thighs. We all clown on the T-Rex for its tiny arms, but look at this motherfucker. We're talking whale pelvis levels of vestigial here.

Another cool thing is that geographically, the movie having these as the main hunters makes more sense than having Tyrannosaurs. T-rex lived in what is now North America, whereas these death bratwurst lived in South America. We know that the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs landed in the Gulf of Mexico, and given that we see in the movie that very asteroid hit the earth, I don't think it takes place in what would one day become California.

All this to say, Elliot, I know more about dinosaurs than you. Suck it.

[pepperpepi]

Heya! You seem to be interested in fossils and paleontology, but I would rather disagree on last post, especially reblog with fact about living fossil terminology. I know, it's really big debate in science "fandom", if you want to call it that, but I would tell you a little correction about this termin. https://youtu.be/H6F_N5ZtPc4?si=CSiCv1PUiHLsrig- - hey, there even a good video about that, I would really recommend to watch it for better understanding! I have some research in this area, so I thinked the more you know, then better. Sorry if I startled you, or if my words were too harsh, but I think enthusiasts should share theirs little knowledge with each other!

OHHH DUDE!!! thank you SO MUCH for informing me!!

I definitely have only a slightly below surface level understanding on fossils and i'm always open to learning and understanding about them! :D thank you so much for the video and the new knowledge!!

[psuedocrab]

Other miscellaneous sketches of microfossils from the research this semester: drum vertebra, bowfin tooth, and crab claw fragment !

[tff-praefectus]

Mosasaur flipper

[amnhnyc]

Research alert! A new study finds that an extremely well-preserved fossil of Triarthrus eatoni, a trilobite found in upstate New York, has an additional set of legs underneath its head! What did researchers learn from this discovery? Find out with Museum Curator Melanie Hopkins, who coauthored the research. Read more.

[simpsforscience]

The strokes from Evolution's paintbrush🖌️ created a kaleidoscope of animal body symmetries. 🎨 Triradial symmetry is the rarest and most intriguing of them all !😃 Swipe➡️ to dive deeper🤿 into this rarest marvel of the animal world.To know more about the ancient animals, follow our monthly 🗓️series - Zoofabulous Time Trek!

📸Image credits:

1. Apokryltaros, Wikimedia commons

2. Aleksey Nagovitsyn, Wikimedia commons

3. Ghedoghedo, Wikimedia commons

4. Nobu Tamura, Wikimedia commons

[pkmncenterguy]

If you let your clefairy lead you on a walk you will acquire very many cool stones and also several anxiety attacks. Milkshake tried to lead me straight into bewear territory. Then DID lead me down a very steep cliff. I needed a ride pager to get back to my house but I found like 40 hard stones and a fossil? So.. win?