Meaghan Wetherell

Oh, I just listened to @maryanningsrevenge.bsky.social and @geopetalfabric.bsky.social doing their thing about bird crop milk. I know.

We cover a lot of ground in this one: the ethics of publishing on Myanmar amber, article retraction, and whether Rob has any credibility. It's a good one. Give it a listen 👇

Without context this sounds like the most niche cryptid hunt ever

Aww, thanks! ♥️ Also glad to hear other people use the term geopetal since after making it the name of my company I have met a lot of bewildered individuals

A man wearing a shirt saying "geopetal fabric" with eight articulated bivalves arrayed around the words, but in different orientations (umbos in), and all showing the same geopetal orientation (sparry tops).

While scootching around the Interwebs this morning looking for fresh geopetal imagery, I learned of the company "Geopetal Fabric," which makes astoundingly cool geonerd apparel. I just bought this one:
⚒️
geopetalfabric.com/products/geo...

YouTube video by PBS Eons That Time the Earth Was Sticky

youtu.be/TBYGsvr0Acc?...

Our educational paleontology & geology video game storefront is now up! We are still debugging the prototype but you should go and wishlist it in the meantime:

store.steampowered.com/app/3512920/...

Cartoon of a pile of books with two legs and arms poking out from the bottom. A single book falls from above. The person says "OoOh I think I get it now." Caption text reads: "...that if you just present people with enough of the right information, then they'll automatically reach an informed decision and change their mind."

A hard truth of science communication is that knowledge and attitudes (to say nothing of behavior) are not intrinsically linked.

A panel from my 2017 comic on the intersection of science and religion, free to read: jordancollver.myportfolio.com/comics #sciart

Manifesting 🤞

I know he has been dead for 100 years but Earl Douglass wrote two papers with the same name in 1907 and I think he should be belatedly cancelled for it.

This past semester was the most stressful of my academic career. I had 180 students and about half cheated at some point in the semester

They submit weekly reflections where the questions are opinion-based, graded only on effort, don't care about grammar

SO MANY students submitted ChatGPT essays

I've had students cheat on extra credit (ones who didn't need it). It becomes a real reflex for some. Peer pressure/disapproval is one of the few things that discourages cheating but that's a hard thing to cultivate when they all know others are doing it too.

As NSF approaches its 75th anniversary on May 10th, proposed budget cuts to its programs, grants, and staffing threaten its longevity. Visit the Save the U.S. National Science Foundation website to sign up for updates and use the site's resources to advocate for NSF.

📸: Madeline Marshall

four headlines about the same research article. Most of them say "we grew human teeth in a pig mouth", which is correct. The first one says "pigs can regrow their adult teeth," which is not.

Someone was playing headline telephone and something got scrambled in the mix! AND that particular article helpfully proclaims that "pigs can grow multiple sets of adult teeth," which is interesting, but not true.

me on zoom, sad because the webcam pixelation algorithm makes it look like I have big white boogies in my nose and I swear I don't

a closeup of the pixelated ghost boogies. are my nostrils too translucent? if I cake on foundation to the side of my nostrils will the boogies go away

Hi. How do I make it so that my webcam doesn't give me ghost boogers.

Pls help.

Overruled by who??? Not me, because that is excellent

Our Annual Dinner this year includes a talk by @geopetalfabric.bsky.social! In the area? Join us as she explores how we can confuse 'weirdness' for new species in long-dead animals, and how museum collections provide clues to untangle the fossil record..

mnch.uoregon.edu/learn/annual...

New family photo with my daughter and grandson

Perfect tagline for your linkedin bio

The Fossil Keeper's Treasure: With Amazing Fossils to Touch|Hardcover Discover how every fossil tells a story with paleontologist, Amy Atwater. Open this scrapbook to learn how fossils are as precious as gold-because of what they tell us about the past. Uncovering key d...

It can be ordered here: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-fossil...

A paleontologist is outside holding a children’s book called “The Fossil Keeper’s Treasure” with a dinosaur poking its head in the background.

My first book, The Fossil Keeper’s Treasure, is out now! It’s illustrated by the amazing Nat Cardozo. Each page features embossed fossils you can touch.

Every fossil tells a story, and every scientist started out as a curious kid.

I can’t believe it’s finally here!

#fossilfriday #booksky

Confirmed with a source. Here's a screenshot of the email sent to staff today.

Finally some good news!!!

Dorsal view of Raninoides benedicti alone on black background. Photo by Arthur Anker. Very elongate, carapace at least 2x as long as wide, true crab. Small abdomen is sticking straight out the back. Claws look like wrenches and multiple distal segments of the legs look like spades. Crab is brown with orangeish mottling. Limbs have blue edges. https://www.crabdatabase.info/en/crabs/brachyura/podotremata/raninoidea/raninidae-4

Plate of colorful raninid crabs including the same image of Raninoides benedicti. Shows the variations within the "family" of frog crabs. Lyreididae. a, Lyreidus tridentatus; b, Lysirude channeri . Raninidae. c, Cosmonotus grayii; d, Flaberhina balabacensis; e, Notopus dorsipes; f, Ranilia muricata; g, Ranina ranina; h, Raninoides benedicti; i, Raninoides lamarcki; j, Symethis variolosa; k, Umalia misakiensis. Plate 39: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7895/

Psst: carcinization is not inevitable!

R is for Raninoides, one of the best examples of DEcarcinization. It's a true crab, but its body is elongated and the abdomen sticks out. The wrench and spadelike appendages, and torpedolike body, are good for burrowing (see video, next skeet)

#CrabAZ 🦀🧪🦑

Hah! Well then, I had forgotten that I didn't know if plesiosaurs had scales!

Last element I added was this little fish, Toarcocephalus, which happened to be published around the time I worked on this image. It helps to highlight the scales that otherwise might come across as random texture. Here the fish paper.
palaeo-electronica.org/content/2024...

This is my favorite part! And also I had forgotten that plesiosaurs had scales

But it's in the title! Misleading.

Finding Lake Chewaucan by Meaghan's Games Reconstruct and travel to the Pleistocene.

We're moving our educational game to Steam, but need to know the minimum computer requirements to run it. So if you have a windows computer, especially a crappy one, could you please play the prototype and tell me if it's ungodly slow on your system? geopetal.itch.io/finding-lake...

Results from the Flocking #paleostream!
Ophthalmosaurus, Spriggina, Bothriolepis and Homunculus.