James Witts
@jdwitts.bsky.social
2.8K followers 920 following 160 posts
NERC Postdoctoral Researcher in Palaeoecology @nhm-london.bsky.social Fossil-wrangler (mostly in the Cretaceous, dabbling in the Jurassic, Paleogene, and more recent), big fan of (southern) high latitudes. Ferroequinologist. Views are my own.
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Reposted by James Witts
seismatters.bsky.social
👀
devezer.bsky.social
As an aside, "Excellence" must be the single-most overused, empty, boilerplate word used in academic bureaucracy and it's typically a stand-in for "We don't know what we want so you should do everything".
devezer.bsky.social
Admin email from university: "Share your ideas: Help shape operational excellence at U of I"

Soliciting ideas for how to improve operational processes.

Except...

The form doesn't work—the form created by the Operational Excellence team.

Yeah.
Reposted by James Witts
andybrockman.bsky.social
Everybody makes money out of academic authors except the authors...News.

Wiley is the latest academic publisher to reach a multi-million deal to allow access to its content to AI developers, with no opt out, let alone payment, for the authors who created that content.
Wiley set to earn $44m from AI rights deals, confirms “no opt-out" for authors
The US publisher is the latest to capitalise on deals to give tech firms access to its authors’ content to train their Large Language Models (LLMs).
www.thebookseller.com
Reposted by James Witts
danielsohege.bsky.social
British politics is basically a doom spiral of increasingly unhinged hostile policies.

Reform says something unhinged
⬇️
Labour counters with their own unhinged policy
⬇️
Tories shout from back they'll be even more unhinged
⬇️
Reform announces different unhinged proposal in response
⬇️
And repeat...🔁
Reposted by James Witts
djbirddanerd.bsky.social
10 years ago, our co-edited Topics in Geobiology volumes on #Ammonoid #Paleobiology came out:

From anatomy to ecology:
doi.org/10.1007/978-...
From macroevolution to paleogeography: doi.org/10.1007/978-...

In the last months of 2025, i will explore new discoveries on these topics in a thread:
Ammonoid Paleobiology: From anatomy to ecology
This two-volume work is a testament to the abiding interest and human fascination with ammonites. We offer a new model to explain the morphogenesis of septa and the shell, we explore their habitats by the content of stable isotopes in their shells, we discuss the origin and later evolution of this important clade, and we deliver hypotheses on its demise. The Ammonoidea produced a great number of species that can be used in biostratigraphy and possibly, this is the macrofossil group, which has been used the most for that purpose. Nevertheless, many aspects of their anatomy, mode of life, development or paleobiogeographic distribution are still poorly known. Themes treated are biostratigraphy, paleoecology, paleoenvironment, paleobiogeography, evolution, phylogeny, and ontogeny. Advances such as an explosion of new information about ammonites, new technologies such as isotopic analysis, tomography and virtual paleontology in general, as well as continuous discovery of newfossil finds have given us the opportunity to present a comprehensive and timely "state of the art" compilation. Moreover, it also points the way for future studies to further enhance our understanding of this endlessly fascinating group of organisms.
doi.org
jdwitts.bsky.social
jdwitts.bsky.social
I'd never even heard of Charlie Kirk until he was killed. Neither had most 🇬🇧 people I know in Real Life. 🙄
jdwitts.bsky.social
I'd never even heard of Charlie Kirk until he was killed. Neither had most 🇬🇧 people I know in Real Life. 🙄
Reposted by James Witts
polarrobs.bsky.social
🧵🧪 In session on policy and societal requirements at the Royal Society discussion meeting today, Prof Hans-Otto Pörtner, former Co-Chair of the IPCC Working Group II, stated that he thinks keeping global temperature rise "below 1.5 [°C above pre-industrial] is probably now out of reach".
Reposted by James Witts
iandunt.bsky.social
As a society, our financial system around information is insane. It is the kind of system you would create if you wanted everyone to go insane.
scientificdiscovery.dev
In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.
Reposted by James Witts
laurentformery.bsky.social
Sea urchin metamorphosis is maybe one of the most radical event in developmental biology. In just about an hour, these little pluteus larvae completely reorganize their entire body plan.

Very happy that this video got awarded an honorable mention by #NikonSmallWorld 😃
Reposted by James Witts
Reposted by James Witts
olivertlord.bsky.social
Conference Alert!

@minersoc.bsky.social at 150: Past Discoveries and Future Frontiers

➕ Mineral Physics Special Interest group session: "Evolving mineralogy of the Earth system: interactions within the crust, mantle and core"

🌐 University of Manchester

🗓️ 23rd-25th June 2026

🔗 minsoc-150.org
Reposted by James Witts
jobium.bsky.social
If Reform wins the next election, it will be because Labour paved the road for them by pursuing anti-immigrant and transphobic Reform-lite policies, instead of challenging and rejecting this hateful, self-destructive populism.

To Reform I say fuck you, to Labour I say do fucking better.
alasdairmackenzie.bsky.social
At the risk of repeating myself: there’s no bargaining with these people. What they’re calling for now is mass expulsions of long-term residents deemed insufficiently economically productive. There’s no way these demands won’t get even more extreme by election time.
Farage vows to scrap settled status, placing thousands at risk of deportation
Reform UK plans to force non-citizens to apply for visas with high salary thresholds and no access to NHS services
www.theguardian.com
jdwitts.bsky.social
There's something magical about steam trains at night.
A steam engine carrying a 'London - Paris Night Ferry' headboard under a starry sky. A steam engine running through a station at night. Clouds of steam from a steam engine at night surround a signal. A large green steam engine waits at a station at night.
Reposted by James Witts
bachlennart.bsky.social
1/n
This study led by @aaronferderer.bsky.social tested how 5 diatom species respond to broad ranges of seawater carbonate conditions. Goal was to determine carbonate chemistry niches and to inform Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement (OAE) and Ocean Acidification (OA)

🌊

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Carbonate chemistry fitness landscapes inform diatom resilience to future perturbations
Diatom growth rates are determined by concentrations of CO2 and H+ across broad carbonate chemistry landscapes.
www.science.org
Reposted by James Witts
iandunt.bsky.social
Pretty much the prefect video for our times. They insist their tech is about to reach the level of self-awareness but it still autocorrects were for we're.
shacknews.com
LiveAI demo fails on the first prompt at Meta Connect 2025. #Meta #AI #LiveAI
Reposted by James Witts
aurelmondon.bsky.social
It will come as a shock to some (many?) Bluesky users but there is a world beyond the US
Reposted by James Witts
spissatella.bsky.social
If your work involves Big Palaeo Data, you should be *begging* people to publish little local studies of new observational data, jfc. Without that you have absolutely bupkiss. I say this as someone with a foot in both camps:
jdwitts.bsky.social
Please keep going Ed - you are a rare voice of sanity in our current politics.
Reposted by James Witts
chalksea.bsky.social
A good day in the field logging and sampling at high resolution new site containing a record of #Cretaceous 'Ocean Anoxic Event 2' (can you spot it?) near Ringstead, #Dorset yesterday. Plenty of finds for #FossilFriday including sharks, sea urchins, sponges, belemnites and fish!
A large quarry with a face made of chalk, a dark grey band runs across the center of the face. The sky is blue. A fossil echinoid with a scale bar and arrow pointing to the fossil. A fossil belemnite embedded in rock with a scale bar. A fossil gastropod (snail) with a tape measure for scale.
Reposted by James Witts
jburnmurdoch.ft.com
British NIMBYism is truly a sight to behold.

“We are rejecting this solar farm, because one time I saw an electric vehicle on fire, which reminded me that decades ago a coal mining disaster killed lots of children”.
Reposted by James Witts
chalksea.bsky.social
Great to be in Hannover at the 12th #Cretaceous Symposium! @jdwitts.bsky.social is presenting an overview of our #Chalk project @nhm-london.bsky.social @ucl.ac.uk
A poster on the work of the Chalk Sea Ecosystems project.
jdwitts.bsky.social
Great to be here in Hannover 🇩🇪 this week for the 12th International #Cretaceous Symposium! Looking forward to a week of interesting research and meeting colleagues. 😊
A large building with a banner welcoming participants to the 12th International Cretaceous Symposium 2025. A large lecture theatre with screens welcoming participants to the 12th International Cretaceous Symposium 2025 at Leibniz University, Hannover.
Reposted by James Witts
oldenoughtosay.com
this has literally never failed me
oldenoughtosay.com
so my PERSONAL favourite way to fuck with Americans is to be like “this building is from 1520!” Or whatever and they’ll go “wow we don’t have anything that old!” And I’ll go “yes you do” and just stare at them