Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D.

Great start--some incremental efforts til we can have Hogg 2036!

Field Diaries: Using remote sensing to help restore landscapes In our ‘Field Diaries’ series, The Applied Ecologist is sharing stories from a range of different fieldwork experiences. In this post Guilherme Castro shares his research on using remote sensing to…

I just finished an exciting full year collecting data for my PhD and I wrote a quick blog post on @jappliedecology.bsky.social about why it matters🌍

@britishecologicalsociety.org
appliedecologistsblog.com/2025/10/07/f...

YouTube video by Ella Warnick Fatongia | Official Trailer

I'm co-directing an independent film w/ Ella Warnick about marine foraging, environmental adaptation, & family in Tonga, trailer:

youtu.be/3ttrOkX-esU?...

Still not finished! I have a job already, but to finish this film please support my young, up-and-coming co-director:

gofund.me/d9b24a5af

Support your local library!

This is really cool!

Not a bad view out my office window

Took a break from digging up bones and foraging mushrooms to go be swanky in public at the coolest Pagan wedding I could imagine

❤️ Love you Jordin and Joe

"Unprecedented." "This isn't us."

Please read a book. Try Joanne Barker's 2021 "Red Scare: the State's Indigenous Terrorist," to start. On pages 28-29:

"In 1703..the Massachusetts Bay Colony offered.. between 250 and 300 pounds for Indian scalps." (1/4)

My newest publication is out in @peerj.bsky.social! In this collaboration with Ana Valenzuela, Nick Pyenson & Mario Suarez we describe the most complete skeleton of the #AquaticSloth - #Thalassocnus - from #Chile!
Artwork by @alexboersma-art.bsky.social
1/6
#FossilFriday
peerj.com/articles/198...

A mammoth figurine carved from ivory, its surface weathered with age. The shape captures the essence of the animal, with a prominent trunk and sloping back. The figure is displayed on a metal stand against a dark background.

I just have to post this #iceage masterpiece from time to time: A tiny (3.7 cm) but amazing figurine of a woolly mammoth carved in mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago.

Found in the Vogelherd cave on the Swabian Jura, south-west Germany.

📷 me
🏺

It's a long process--
1. Dry
2. Shell
3. Leach (I ground them and did a hot water leach
4. Dehydrate
5. Grind

Red acorn flour was a success!

Evidence potentially supporting human-driven extinction of American megafauna by refuting one of the most commonly-cited (and tired) "climate-only" extinction talking points

The world has lost one of the biggest figures in Anthropology, Biology, and Conservation to have ever lived. Science will be an emptier place without her, and I can only take solace in knowing that she has inspired entire new generations of researchers who will continue her work. Rest in peace, Jane

Unexpected, yet sensible results are the best kind!

In any other country, if federal agents fired upon journalists when unprovoked — what would we call it?

If federal agents marched down streets demanding papers — what would we say?

Authoritarianism — let’s not pretend it’s something else when it happens in our American cities.

The Whitetail bucks are losing their velvet! #MammalMonday

Mammals Have Evolved Into Anteaters at Least 12 Times Since The Dinosaurs If you want to get by in this world, you could do a lot worse than developing a predilection for ants.

News from Episode 227:

A review of mammal evolution highlights the many times that lineages have evolved into specialized ant-eaters.

The start of Fall means it's acorn season! Trying some new methods for these red acorns

Slime molds!

YouTube video by New Scientist Our common Neanderthal ancestor could be a million years old, says Chris Stringer

youtube.com/watch?v=MA1c...

Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon Soft tissue preservation shows this genus possessed relatively broad, short wings, indicative of adaptation for slow, highly maneuverable flight near the forest floor. While some features such as the skull and skeleton are primitive, the shape of the wings resembles that of the modern-day Hipposiderids which have a similar flight habit. Many of the limb bones are in articulation. This bat probably was overcome by toxic gases from the lake while in low-level pursuit of flying insects. Source: http://www.fossilmall.com/fossils/gf117/palaeochiropteryx-messel-bat-fossil.htm

Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon This is an especially beautiful example of the famous Messel soft-body preservation. The flight membrane and the outline of the outer ears have been preserved in the finest detail by fossilized bacteria. source: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Small-bat-Palaeochiropteryx-tupaiodon-Revilliod-1917-This-is-an-especially-beautiful_fig44_329970301

Here is a pair of Palaeochiropteryx specimens from the Germany's Messel Pit for #FossilFriday. Due to the exceptional circumstances of their fossilization, soft tissues were preserved, allowing the outlines of their wings and ears to remain clearly visible.

What hasn't changed: 1. The genetics are unequivocal: sapiens and longi are not sister. 2. Advanced Homo likely emerged in Africa. 3. No, we can't use Bayesian tip dating like this. 4. No, the emergence of Homo sapiens is not pushed back. 5. The omission of African fossils continues (4/4)

B. Alternatively, Yunxian is erectus of the "superarchaic" line that introgressed into longi, hence the shared characteristics with longi, and the split with sapiens was still around 750 ka (3/4)

A. Yunxian is an early H. longi, and the sap/nean/longi ancestor lived around 1 Ma, descended from something like Daka (late H. ergaster). That would make heid another sister species, rather than the common ancestor. Same for antecessor (2/4)

The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans Diverse forms of Homo coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene. Whether these fossil humans represent different species or clades is debated. The ~1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 fossil from China is impo...

After two days of reading, thinking, and reading again, I think there are two possible ways to interpret the Yunxian cranium (note that @johnhawks.net and others have already shared some great, and often overlapping ideas): (1/4)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Taste like them too

Check out this new interview with one of my colleagues at the @nhmu.bsky.social!

Today's casual foraging: Hickory nuts!

I'm just seeing lots of media claiming that this "re-writes" human evolution. It does not. Does it mean that H. sapiens split with Neanderthals/Denisovans >1 Ma? Probably. Does it mean that our common ancestor was H. erec/erg, not H. heidelbergensis? Very cool! But it all still goes back to Africa.