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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Lana Sinapayen @sinalana.bsky.social · 21h

If you haven't yet, come see our poster designed by my coauthor Harrison.
Tl;dr: if some lifeforms were going around terraforming planets, we could detect them* even without a working definition of "life" or "habitability"

*terms and conditions apply

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 6d

Just caught up on this fascinating paper in Science in August. It reports evidence of strong selective pressure from breeding of horses around 5000-3000 years ago in Central Asia. One reason it's interesting is that the selection is *really* strong... /1
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Selection at the GSDMC locus in horses and its implications for human mobility

Horsepower revolutionized human history through enhanced mobility, transport, and warfare. However, the suite of biological traits that reshaped horses during domestication remains unclear. We scanned...

www.science.org

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 6d

Know trebor mints? Founded by, amongst others, Robert Robertson. Trebor is Robert spelt backwards.

How has it taken me decades to notice this?

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Micah @rincewind.run · 7d

an extraordinary person with an extraordinary legacy who nevertheless didn’t take herself too seriously

when Gary Larson published this cartoon, she was in Africa and her institute was horribly offended and drafted a complaint

the whole thing was defused when she returned - she found it funny

Far Side cartoon with a female chimpanzee grooming a male chimpanzee

“Well, well - another blond hair. … Conducting a little more ‘research’ with that Jane Goodall tramp?”

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Prof Susie Maidment @tweetisaurus.bsky.social · 8d

AMAZING JOB ALERT!!! Dorset Council are recruiting a World Heritage Officer to support the management of the Jurassic Coast! Would suit an Earth Science graduate with an interest in digital comms and content: deets here: www.jobs.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/vacancies/32...

World Heritage Officer in Dorchester | Dorset Council

View details and apply for this World Heritage Officer vacancy in Dorchester. Join a passionate and collaborative team at the heart of Dorset's environmental and heritage work. As part of the Dor...

www.jobs.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 11d

OK, head above water briefly and can say a few things about a paper that came out a few weeks ago in @royalsocietypublishing.org on Platysomus and kin.

University of Michigan News @umichnews.bsky.social · 20d

U-M researcher @friedmanlab.bsky.social helps identify the first time fish evolved a toothy, tongue-like structure, an early innovation in the way fish eat. #Science
Learn more: https://news.umich.edu/310-million-year-old-fossil-takes-a-bite-out-of-fish-evolutio

310-million-year-old fossil takes a bite out of fish evolution

U-M researcher discovers an early innovation in the way fish eat

news.umich.edu

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Andrej Spiridonov @andrejpaleo.bsky.social · 12d

"differences in squamate fossil record completeness stem from ...anatomy/body size and affinities of different ...groups to specific lithologies and depositional environments."
doi.org/10.1017/pab....
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio
Toxiferans: snakes and mosasaurs the kings of the squamate fossil record 👇

Squamate species abundance through time. Occurrences and abundances of major squamate lineages, mapped onto the time-calibrated combined-evidence hypothesis of squamate relationships from Simões et al. (2018).

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

The Palaeoverse Community @palaeoverse.bsky.social · 19d

🚨Palaeoverse Lecture Series🚨
🗓️25th September 2025, 15:00 UTC🗓️

Join us next week to hear from @nmkphylo.bsky.social and @russellgarwood.co.uk, on “The Tree of Life and Death: What do Fossil Taxa Contribute to Morphological Phylogenetics?” 🌳🐣⚰️

Register here: bit.ly/palaeoverse-...

Flyer for the next instalment of the Palaeoverse Lecture Series. The flyer features a yellow cartoon trilobite, and pictures of Drs. Mongiardino Koch and Garwood. Mongiardino Koch wears a grey t-shirt and glasses, while Garwood wears a white shirt and is holding a glass trophy.

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 20d

Live scenes, the day before the abstract deadline for a @thepalass.bsky.social conference, brought to you by the internet officer.

🧪⚒️

a cartoon character without a face is floating in the water .

Alt: a cartoon character without a face is floating in the water, and overcome by a wave with the word emails throughout.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Matt Friedman @friedmanlab.bsky.social · 23d

Out today in @commsearth.nature.com from some of my newest colleagues at UMMP: evidence that the extinction of dinosaurs led to fundamental shifts in terrestrial environments, and that this signal is recorded in facies shifts tied to the K-Pg boundary: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Dinosaur extinction can explain continental facies shifts at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary - Communications Earth & Environment

Dinosaurs promoted open habitats in the Late Cretaceous, and their extinction could have led to a radical reorganization of the landscape and ecosystem structure at the beginning of the Paleogene, acc...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Systematics Association @systassn.bsky.social · 22d

We are nearly ready to announce this year's Founders' Lecture speaker!

In the meantime time check out @maxjtelford.bsky.social's 2024 lecture: 'Are we really more closely related to starfish than to earthworms?'

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSR5...

Founders' Lecture 2024 | Are we really more closely related to starfish than to earthworms?

YouTube video by Systematics Association

www.youtube.com

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 22d

Oh boy. I am very excited to read the paper, but also so sorry to hear of Pierre's passing. What a great dedication.

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Joe Keating @evopalaeo.bsky.social · 22d

Incredibly proud and also very emotional to see this new paper published in @systbiol.bsky.social. The study was lead by Pierre Cockx, who sadly passed away in July.
academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 22d

Me reading any statement about chelicerate phylogeny not couched in uncertainty:

🧪⚒️

Samuel Johnson meme - top panel, johnson reading a book avidly, lower, him looking disconcerted

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Sean McMahon @seanhmcmahon.bsky.social · 22d

New paper led by my PhD student, Edwin Rodriguez! Building on previous work, we present a systematic description of the ONE BILLION YEAR OLD fossils of the phosphates of the Diabaig Formation, NW Scotland — including some early eukaryotes and new species... #paleontology #fossils #geology

Microscope image of fossils showing new genus and species Minimarmilla multicatenaria, with strap-like bundles comprising filamentous strands of rectangular cell-like units. The entire specimen is about half a millimetre across.

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · 23d

Well done Manchester. Don't change 🫡

An EU flag in Manchester city centre that has been put up in response to all the St George's cross flags appearing across the UK.

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Sep 3

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Robert Sansom @fossilrob.bsky.social · Sep 2

Question: What the hell is this? (thread)

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Sep 1

At the end of my fellowship in Berlin - me completing the character coding for my arachnid phylogeny v.s. me actually looking at the tree

🕷️🧪⚒️

A two panel meme - the first "I am a genius" with a happy anime face, the second, "Oh no"

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Reposted by Russell Garwood

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · Aug 30

Handsome horseshoe

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Aug 27

Restsommer: now *alles ist abgefuckt* filled with another lovely (I imagine more widely known) German word - sehnsucht.

(Thanks, I had not come across der Restsommer before)

Reposted by Russell Garwood

Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · Aug 27

German words we need in English: der Restsommer - "what is left of the summer when the season has nearly come to its end."

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Aug 22

Also, I think it's worth highlighting just how much love went into these figures: all are stippled. As is clearer in the close up of a claw below, all the shading you see is the result of ?tens of thousands of individual, 0.1 mm points hand drawn with a Rotring pen 🤯

A close up of a scorpion claw from the image I posted before showing that the thing is shaded with hundreds of individual points

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Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Aug 22

Images from this paper:

peerj.com/articles/185...

Which was completed as part of my @humboldt-foundation.de fellowship which is drawing to a close at the end of this month.

More fossil arachnids from this coming soon :)

A review of fossil scorpion higher systematics

Scorpions (Arachnida: Scorpiones) are a diverse and widespread arachnid order with a rich and deep fossil record. Here we review the, sometimes complex, historical development of fossil scorpion highe...

peerj.com

Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Aug 22

But we have a *really* good fossil record for these animals, which makes me hopeful more will turn up in the future, and we will ultimately be able to better understand their evolution.

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