David Levering

This year I've read Simon Sinek's Leaders Eat Last and Start With Why (SWW was the better of the two, IMO) and am now moving on to some youth development psychology with Dr. Becky Kennedy's book Good Inside.

Got book recs for helping develop better leaders and young scientists? Drop 'em below!

Damnit, is this guy just a different flavor of Fetterman?

Arrest them.

we dont have the money for universal health care but we have tons of money for concentration camps and a surveillance society

YouTube video by GeoSplore How Will We Resolve the Ethics Issues in Paleontology? - A Discussion Between Paleontologists

New YouTube video with @sternbergcamps.bsky.social! How Will We Resolve the Ethics Issues in Paleontology? - A Discussion Between Paleontologists

#paleontology #ethics #science #community #scicomm #svp
youtu.be/1UGGJGr0uKI

Don’t forget that tomorrow is the @societyofvertpaleo.bsky.social new town hall - An Explanation of SVP’s Ethics Policies and Practices. “It is anticipated that the town hall will last approximately one hour.”

(Thursday), February 26, 2026, at 10:30 AM PST / 1:30 PM EST

Camps Director David Levering (@biogeoverse.bsky.social) with some tips on asking for letters of recommendation for your applications! This is relevant to jobs and internships, scholarships, college/grad school applications, and of course applications to Sternberg Science Camps!

#paleontology

Let’s do a pre-snowfall AMA! ❄️

Have any (respectful) questions? Drop them here ⬇️

Solid answer. Respect.

Mosasaur swimming at the surface with a group of summer camp kids plus the adult leader riding on its back. Three Nyctosaurs fly over them.

New art commission from the fantastic @clanaghan.bsky.social!

Camp’s instructor and Cal Berkeley doctoral student Emily Bōgner outlines the process for accessing a museum research collection to collect data!

This summer Emily will run our Research Academy Kansas program!

#paleontology #fossil #sciencecamp

(Edited by Sophie Cajune.)

This is an interesting story @nytimes.com

It was even more interesting when I broke it a week and a day ago in The Intercept which you did not cite or mention.

One of the world's biggest funders of palaeontology is Epstein's buddy George Church (he founded the $10 billion USD "de-extinction" company Colossal). Many palaeontologists work for Church on: mammoth, dire wolf, dodo, thylacine, moa, etc.: edition.cnn.com/2026/02/19/p...

Hi. I love you all so much, but I don’t have the time or bandwidth to have individual meeting with people on how to start your own science non-profit.

My advice is: 1) hire someone with experience, 2) hire a very good lawyer, 3) resist the pressure to tone down your mission.

❤️✊🏼

Delayed #FossilFriday 🧪🧬😡

Jurassic Shitpost

Policies and cultures that fail to engender trust, safety, and equity amongst our most vulnerable absolutely must be overhauled to meet the reality we find ourselves in. If we are not prioritizing the security of our entire community to flourish over the whims of the powerful, then we are failing our future.

This is a post about the United States, and academic paleontology.

“I Have Lost Everything”: The Toll of Cities’ Homeless Sweeps Cities often take belongings — including important documents and irreplaceable mementos — when they conduct sweeps of homeless encampments. ProPublica gave notecards to people across the country so th...

We asked people who lived in homeless encampments that were cleared out in city “sweeps” to write about what object was the hardest for them to lose.

“They took my baby pictures and my moms obituaries,” a man in California wrote.

(Published Dec. 2024)

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

I literally had never heard of the guy until the beginning of this month. I’m not saying that to excuse lack of prior action or continuing to give him professional access, but the info is definitely traveling farther on this wave of Epstein email logs being released.

He Was a Climate Activist. One Day, the F.B.I. Came Knocking.

I spoke with the NYTs about how climate activists are increasingly being targeted by the Trump Administration, why, and what is the likely outcome (which didn't make it into the piece). @xrglobal.bsky.social @xrnyc.bsky.social @climatedefiance.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/n...

Gods these Epstein Class people are so weird and gross 🤢

Not the kind of person you want to coauthor with or accept funding from...

Former Microsoft executive’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein comes under scrutiny Seattle Times business reporter Alex Halverson has written about connections between Epstein and former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold.

If the paleo community is going to be serious about Horner’s connection to Epstein, we also have to be serious about Myhrvold’s, because guess who contributed photos of animals mating to Epstein’s birthday book and has been appearing in new paleo papers this year - including the new Spinosaurus.

New Spinosaurus!!

I've known about this discovery for over a year, but I'm glad everyone can witness the fun unicorn.

But... the paper was coauthored by someone who is all over the Epstein files. And in the US, we're doing nothing with that info.

Because everything is broken and stupid.

I am also pretty stunned that
Myhrvold’s name wasn’t pulled from authorship prior to printing given the Epstein connection revelations. Presumably this will be the last time his name appears on the author list of any respectable publication… Right?

Threat in Your Medicine Cabinet: The FDA’s Gamble on America’s Drugs A ProPublica investigation found that for more than a decade, the FDA gave substandard factories banned from the United States a special pass to keep sending drugs to an unsuspecting public.

A ProPublica investigation found that for more than a decade, the FDA gave substandard factories banned from the United States a special pass to keep sending drugs to an unsuspecting public.

(Published June 2025)

Trust makes the organization. Everything I've read and listened to about leadership, project management, teaching... All of it shared trust in leadership as fundamental to success.

If honest deliberate trust-building isn't part of your operation, you're just undercutting yourself and your goals.