Massimo Sandal

What is actually mindboggling is that in USA 17% of people order take out more than once a week and 12% go to restaurants more than once a week. I guess that's the top income segment?

Gouache painting by James Gurney showing the four legged whale Maiacetus and her calf venturing into the water for the first time together.

The holotype skeleton of Maiacetus inuus, in ventral view, showing the skull with articulated mandibles on the right, connected to neck, thorax, and lumbar vertebrae going off to the left with an articulated ribcage. Within the posterior part of the ribcage is the remarkably well preserved skeleton of a fetus, its skull about 1/5 the size of the mother's.

Happy #mothersday! The original specimen of the four-legged whale Maiacetus is a rare example of a 'pregnant' fossil. Discovered in middle Eocene rocks of Pakistan and named in 2009 with the skeleton of a near term fetus, it seemed to be presented for a head-first birth. Artwork by James Gurney.

Lead author Auke-Florian Hiemstra holds the oldest known caddisfly casing containing microplastic, dating to 1971. Photo: Liselotte Rambonnet.

A caddisfly casing with pieces of blue microplastic, dating 1986. Photo: Auke-Florian Hiemstra

NEW PAPER, JUST OUT! 👀

Insects from the '70s and '80s were already collecting microplastic, decades before the term microplastic even existed. 🤯

A thread on the surprising history of this pollutant and the incredible insect larvae that helped us uncover it. 🐛

Let's dive in! 🧵👇 1/x

Pentameroceras mirum, shell shaped like a curved teardrop, the opening is very narrow with the opening having five protruding sides like a fully open hand And one slit going to the posterior portion where the siphon would be The shell texture is orange with white wavy bands running through it and white dotted patterns Out of the very narrow opening, tiny tentacles stick out

A diva, a star
#PentamerocerasMirum
#paleoart
#oncocerid
#SciArt

YouTube video by Kiabugboy More Oncocerida from Gotland

Very nice animation of scientifically quite accurate Silurian oncocerid nautiloids

I'm Italian and I guarantee I've eaten beautifully in US :)

S.J. Hand et al. (2025)
Bone microstructure supports a Mesozoic origin for a semiaquatic burrowing lifestyle in monotremes (Mammalia)
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 122(19): e2413569122
doi: doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Sea surface warming faster than expected Satellite observations show that sea-surface temperatures over the past four decades have been getting warmer at an accelerated pace.

My postdoc advisor, Wally Broecker, said: "Climate is an angry beast, and we are poking it with sticks." Well, we are getting to the FOFO stage. 🧪 www.esa.int/Applications...

Uganda declares end of Ebola outbreak Uganda today declared the end of the Ebola disease outbreak, less than three months after the virus was confirmed in the capital Kampala.

Good news in global health! In case you missed it over the weekend…
Uganda declared the end of the Ebola disease outbreak, less than three months after the virus was confirmed in the capital Kampala.
Read more 👉🏽
www.afro.who.int/countries/ug...

Finora la cosa migliore che ho letto sul tema Bergoglio.

www.pclavoratori.it/files/index....

Pedilus lugubris An online resource devoted to North American insects, spiders and their kin, offering identification, images, and information.

here's a sharper photo of the Pedilus-Meloe interaction on bugguide: bugguide.net/node/view/10..., you can see the Pedilus really going to down on those intersegmental membranes

La siccità in Germania, di marzo.

A woman and an owl sitting on a moon crescent

Frederick Stuart Church, ‘The Witch's Daughter’, 1881
#art #moon #owl #whitch

A pair of Pteranodon with spotted wings and slender, stork-like necks soar over a blue sea on a cloudy day. Signature at bottom right reads "Heinrich Harder"

Today's random piece of nostalgic palaeoart: Heinrich Harder's Pteranodon!

Painted for the 1916 "Tiere der Urwelt" collector card series, Harder's Pteranodon is an early and iconic depiction of this most famous of pterosaurs. The spotted wings are a bizarre choice, almost like a butterfly! (1/4)

I support trans rights; I recognise and respect trans people and their right to exist the same as others; I resent and object to the tired lies that bigots promote. Trans rights are human rights.

Pikachu nella foresta dei metalupi "Preparatevi ai guai: grossi guai!": i danni delle soluzioni semplici a problemi complessi e un futuro di pelouche viventi.

"Con i falsi #metalupi di #Colossal, potremmo aver visto i primissimi passi di questo scenario. Un giorno un bambino ricco potrebbe davvero ricevere un #Pikachu come animaletto da compagnia."

@massimosandal.bsky.social fa riflettere

demonsdancealone.substack.com/p/pikachu-ne...

if you are a cis person it costs you nothing to just say today that you see & hear your trans sisters & brothers & others over in the UK today -- and around the world, too, knowing that rulings like today's ripple out in ugly ways.

Due riflession in seguito alla storia dei metalupi di Colossal. Da un lato, i danni del tecnosoluzionismo, fomentati dal marketing che si sostituisce alla scienza. Dall'altro, un futuro forse non così improbabile di esseri artificiali.

demonsdancealone.substack.com/p/pikachu-ne...

You know why European countries are so quiet about the El Salvador situation? Because they started the normalisation of extraterritorial detention of migrants and asylum seekers, often without any due process. The UK’s Rwanda plan. Italy’s attempted plan with Albania. And some still want to do it.

The world's super rich are buying all the T. rex fossils — and scientists have had enough A Tyrannosaurus rex researcher has found that there are now more scientifically valuable T. rex specimens in private or commercial ownership than in public museums, hampering research.

www.livescience.com/animals/dino...

Every time I write something I need to relearn that 80% of my process is "muddling through."

NOAA Scientists Are Cleaning Bathrooms and Reconsidering Lab Experiments After Contracts for Basic Services Expire A Seattle lab has lost janitorial services, hazardous waste support, IT and building maintenance as it waits for the Commerce Department secretary to personally approve all contracts over $100,000.

DOGE is like Lord of the Flies—children gone amok ruining everything, understanding nothing.

“For a bunch of people who are screaming about efficiency,” he said, referring to the administration’s efforts to downsize the federal government, “they’ve done the most inefficient things possible.”

Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA “This would decimate American leadership in space.”…

This really is an extinction level event for NASA's science programs.

arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

I Denisoviani rappresentano la terza umanità, oltre Sapiens e Neanderthal. Ci hanno lasciato molte tracce genetiche e pochissimi frammenti fossili, perciò ogni nuovo fossile che entra nel club è una fonte preziosa di informazioni sull'aspetto fisico, la distribuzione geografica, gli stili di vita

PR campaign may have fuelled food study backlash, leaked document shows Eat-Lancet report recommended shift to more plant-based, climate-friendly diet but was extensively attacked online

1. Whenever you see really vicious and widespread "spontaneous" attacks on scientific findings that challenge powerful economic interests, you can be assured that corporate lobbyists have been busy behind the scenes.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

People held in CECOT, as well as in other prisons in El Salvador, are denied communication with their relatives and lawyers, and only appear before courts in online hearings, often in groups of several hundred detainees at the same time. The Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as “terrorists,” and has said that they “will never leave.” Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison. The government of El Salvador denies human rights groups access to its prisons and has only allowed journalists and social media influencers to visit CECOT under highly controlled circumstances. In videos produced during these visits, Salvadoran authorities are seen saying that prisoners only “leave the cell for 30 minutes a day” and that some are held in solitary confinement cells, which are completely dark.

Now: NO ONE HAS EVER BEEN RELEASED FROM CECOT.

As far as I'm concerned this raises the ante from concentration camp to extermination camp.

That's us. Here in Trump's USA, we are sending people to extermination camps. Period.

Own it.

Trump team cites wolf ‘de-extinction’ as reason to cut endangered species list The interior secretary hailed a biotech company’s claim to have brought back the dire wolf, while the administration and GOP push to roll back species protections.

Everyone who told me "what's the harm in hyping de-extinction technology that doesn't work" can choke on a bag of black-footed ferret dicks

www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

A Wollemia tree, grown from seeds collected from trees growing in the UK, as a consequence of the wildly successful conservation programme in Australia.

Wollemia nobilis: deep time survivor 🌲🌲🌲

Perché la de-estinzione del metalupo è un falso L’azienda Colossal Biosciences ha annunciato la nascita di tre cuccioli di enoncione, un canide vissuto nelle Americhe tra 125.000 e 10.000 anni fa, ricostruito sulla base del suo antico genoma. Si tr...

Colossal Biosciences ha dichiarato di aver fatto nascere tre metalupi, animali estinti da 10.000 anni, ma la realtà è molto diversa.

E l'effetto mediatico dell'annuncio ha messo in secondo piano risultati importanti per la conservazione di specie a rischio.

www.lescienze.it/news/2025/04...

Jurassic Wolves: abbiamo davvero de-estinto i metalupi? Intervista a Massimo Sandal Davvero stiamo per acquisire la capacità di riportare in esistenza specie animali estinte anche da lunghissimo tempo? Una notizia si questi giorni sembra suggerirlo, ma la prudenza sembra quanto ma…

"Se l’approccio di #Colossal continuerà ad essere questo, allora gli eventuali “mammut del futuro” non saranno altro che elefanti indiani modificati per avere, che so io, una pelliccia piuttosto folta, o magari, per essere capaci di resistere a temperature basse."

@massimosandal.bsky.social