Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
@dlarson.bsky.social
Collection Manager and Researcher at the Royal BC Museum. Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Ph.D. studying lizards, dinosaur teeth, and fossil turtles. MtG, TTRPG, and boardgame enthusiast. He/him
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
#FossilFriday (well, #SubfossilFriday): bush moa Anomalopteryx didiformis at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
January 9, 2026 at 1:48 PM
#FossilFriday (well, #SubfossilFriday): bush moa Anomalopteryx didiformis at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
January 9, 2026 at 7:02 AM
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Had to stop a meeting with collaborators today to say I was not okay with any genAI being used for any part of the writing process (including generating title and keyword suggestions) and while it went well, I hate i have to say "it's me or the LLM" as an ECR 🙃
January 9, 2026 at 12:04 AM
Had to stop a meeting with collaborators today to say I was not okay with any genAI being used for any part of the writing process (including generating title and keyword suggestions) and while it went well, I hate i have to say "it's me or the LLM" as an ECR 🙃
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Footprint morphology sheds light on running strategies in non-avian theropods. Sci Rep 15, 44217 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Footprint morphology sheds light on running strategies in non-avian theropods - Scientific Reports
Scientific Reports - Footprint morphology sheds light on running strategies in non-avian theropods
doi.org
January 8, 2026 at 9:23 AM
Footprint morphology sheds light on running strategies in non-avian theropods. Sci Rep 15, 44217 (2025). doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
A look back on every new dinosaur named in 2025: new-dinosaurs.tumblr.com/post/8048376... Which ones are your favorites? 🧪🪶 (📷Chinzorig et al., Hechenleitner et al., Zissoudisctrucker, Morais et al.)
January 7, 2026 at 7:10 PM
A look back on every new dinosaur named in 2025: new-dinosaurs.tumblr.com/post/8048376... Which ones are your favorites? 🧪🪶 (📷Chinzorig et al., Hechenleitner et al., Zissoudisctrucker, Morais et al.)
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Sure, they've made an environmentally catastrophic mass hallucination disinformation plagiarism Clippy that will destabilize the world, but also their other goal is to replace human workers entirely and let us humans starve. A boycott of AI is the most important boycott of your entire life.
"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."
Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive?
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?
www.windowscentral.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:17 PM
Sure, they've made an environmentally catastrophic mass hallucination disinformation plagiarism Clippy that will destabilize the world, but also their other goal is to replace human workers entirely and let us humans starve. A boycott of AI is the most important boycott of your entire life.
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A hidden diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous Europe - Nature
New results indicate that rhabdodontids and the previously described Ajkaceratops are actually distinctive European ceratopsians, a group better known from Asia and North America.
www.nature.com
January 7, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
happy(?) new year everyone, for my first piece of 2026 I wrote about Grok's *still*-ongoing CSAM blitz and the troubling, embarrassing silence of lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K. who've spent the past year censoring the internet for the sake of "child safety" yet are saying and doing nothing about X:
Something Abominable Is Happening on Elon Musk’s X. Everyone in Congress Should Be Ashamed.
An app the U.S. and U.K. governments use has devolved into a source of A.I. porn. Lawmakers are keeping dangerously mum.
slate.com
January 6, 2026 at 6:28 PM
happy(?) new year everyone, for my first piece of 2026 I wrote about Grok's *still*-ongoing CSAM blitz and the troubling, embarrassing silence of lawmakers in the U.S. and U.K. who've spent the past year censoring the internet for the sake of "child safety" yet are saying and doing nothing about X:
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
We could all learn a lot from Finland's approach
It's brilliant that they're just adding AI education to the existing media literacy curriculum
www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/ar...
It's brilliant that they're just adding AI education to the existing media literacy curriculum
www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/ar...
Finnish children learn media literacy at 3 years old. It’s protection against Russian propaganda
The battle against fake news in Finland starts in preschool classrooms.
www.ctvnews.ca
January 6, 2026 at 12:09 AM
We could all learn a lot from Finland's approach
It's brilliant that they're just adding AI education to the existing media literacy curriculum
www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/ar...
It's brilliant that they're just adding AI education to the existing media literacy curriculum
www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/ar...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
One guy tried, unsuccessfully, to blow up a plane with a bomb in his sneakers, and everybody had to take off their shoes at the airport for the next 20 years.
Chatbots have a collective body count equal to Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez, and they're trying to put them in schools.
Chatbots have a collective body count equal to Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez, and they're trying to put them in schools.
30 years ago they were like we have to ban song lyrics for the children but it’s full steam ahead for the here’s how to do drugs until you die machine
“ChatGPT started coaching Sam on how to take drugs, recover from them and plan further binges. It gave him specific doses of illegal substances, and in one chat, it wrote, ‘Hell yes—let’s go full trippy mode’”
www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
www.sfgate.com/tech/article...
January 6, 2026 at 1:37 AM
One guy tried, unsuccessfully, to blow up a plane with a bomb in his sneakers, and everybody had to take off their shoes at the airport for the next 20 years.
Chatbots have a collective body count equal to Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez, and they're trying to put them in schools.
Chatbots have a collective body count equal to Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramirez, and they're trying to put them in schools.
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Report from Georgia that gives a picture of what’s happening with influenza.
Flu hospitalizations 2024: 427
Flu hospitalizations 2025: 1176
Flu deaths 2024: 0
Flu deaths 2025: 27
Flu hospitalizations 2024: 427
Flu hospitalizations 2025: 1176
Flu deaths 2024: 0
Flu deaths 2025: 27
Georgia sees rise in hospitalizations, deaths due to aggressive flu strain - The Current
Georgia has seen a significant increase in flu-associated hospitalizations and deaths since October, with the CDC recommending the flu vaccine for people over six months old, including pregnant women ...
thecurrentga.org
January 6, 2026 at 1:10 AM
Report from Georgia that gives a picture of what’s happening with influenza.
Flu hospitalizations 2024: 427
Flu hospitalizations 2025: 1176
Flu deaths 2024: 0
Flu deaths 2025: 27
Flu hospitalizations 2024: 427
Flu hospitalizations 2025: 1176
Flu deaths 2024: 0
Flu deaths 2025: 27
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
January 5, 2026 at 6:59 PM
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
love taking Microsoft surveys about AI, just sweatily begging me to confirm that maybe it’s useful
December 2, 2025 at 8:21 PM
love taking Microsoft surveys about AI, just sweatily begging me to confirm that maybe it’s useful
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
“We’re no longer on the gentle part of the hill. We’re on a much, much steeper portion of that hill. So we think that the projections perhaps are a bit too conservative, and that we will see disappearance of ice much, much quicker.”
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
Glaciers in Western Canada shrank at near record rates in 2025
Western Canada glaciers lost around 30 gigatonnes of ice, marking one of the worst annual losses on record
www.theglobeandmail.com
January 4, 2026 at 4:27 PM
“We’re no longer on the gentle part of the hill. We’re on a much, much steeper portion of that hill. So we think that the projections perhaps are a bit too conservative, and that we will see disappearance of ice much, much quicker.”
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Every time I look at a proboscidean skull I feel like I’m taking an anatomy test.
January 3, 2026 at 3:53 AM
Every time I look at a proboscidean skull I feel like I’m taking an anatomy test.
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
..
What's darkly funny about this is when I started this program two years ago, all the courses had extra units tacked on covering issues like algorithmic bias, data ethics, and misinformation. So they are trying to be responsive to emergent technology issues, but somehow the valence got flipped here
Do not love how my master's classes now have unnecessary units on "AI", about how "AI can reduce repetitive work in topic {X}", especially when the work in question is stuff that what people call "AI" today most definitely cannot do
January 4, 2024 at 4:05 AM
..
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
SCOOP: Nine RCMP officers broke into Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam’s house on Christmas Day.
While they were executing a search warrant regarding his stepdaughter, Adam says they seized and damaged his property.
www.albertanativenews.com/rcmp-break-i...
While they were executing a search warrant regarding his stepdaughter, Adam says they seized and damaged his property.
www.albertanativenews.com/rcmp-break-i...
RCMP break into Chief Allan Adam’s home on Christmas - Alberta Native News
By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter (ANNews) – Chief Allan Adam of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation was in Fort Chipewyan celebrating Christmas with his...
www.albertanativenews.com
January 3, 2026 at 2:11 AM
SCOOP: Nine RCMP officers broke into Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam’s house on Christmas Day.
While they were executing a search warrant regarding his stepdaughter, Adam says they seized and damaged his property.
www.albertanativenews.com/rcmp-break-i...
While they were executing a search warrant regarding his stepdaughter, Adam says they seized and damaged his property.
www.albertanativenews.com/rcmp-break-i...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
"‘It’s surreal’: US sanctions lock Intl Criminal Court judge out of daily life. Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards or access everyday services (Uber, Alexa, Ticketmaster...) in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary." www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
‘It’s surreal’: US sanctions lock International Criminal Court judge out of daily life
Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards, transfer money or book everyday services in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary
www.irishtimes.com
December 13, 2025 at 2:18 PM
"‘It’s surreal’: US sanctions lock Intl Criminal Court judge out of daily life. Canadian judge Kimberly Prost is unable to use credit cards or access everyday services (Uber, Alexa, Ticketmaster...) in what she calls an attack on the independence of the judiciary." www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
First #FossilFriday of 2026!
To celebrate, check out this beauty on my desk today: a neural arch from a juvenile Apatosaurus cervical vertebra.
This lovely specimen was collected by Museum crews from the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in 2025.
To celebrate, check out this beauty on my desk today: a neural arch from a juvenile Apatosaurus cervical vertebra.
This lovely specimen was collected by Museum crews from the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in 2025.
January 2, 2026 at 11:36 PM
First #FossilFriday of 2026!
To celebrate, check out this beauty on my desk today: a neural arch from a juvenile Apatosaurus cervical vertebra.
This lovely specimen was collected by Museum crews from the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in 2025.
To celebrate, check out this beauty on my desk today: a neural arch from a juvenile Apatosaurus cervical vertebra.
This lovely specimen was collected by Museum crews from the Mygatt-Moore Quarry in 2025.
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Also, when reporters start talking about the chatbots this way, it is imperative to remind them they are basically asking a toaster for comment. They should be a lot more embarrassed about this than they currently are.
“Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.
“Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.
January 3, 2026 at 3:06 AM
Also, when reporters start talking about the chatbots this way, it is imperative to remind them they are basically asking a toaster for comment. They should be a lot more embarrassed about this than they currently are.
“Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.
“Grok told CNN…” no it didn’t. You typed stuff into an unreliable calculator.
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
Ex-Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun has Lunch with the FT and in one of those instances so rare that you know he didn't sign an NDA, says exactly why as.ft.com/r/e503690d-8...
January 2, 2026 at 1:32 PM
Ex-Meta chief AI scientist Yann LeCun has Lunch with the FT and in one of those instances so rare that you know he didn't sign an NDA, says exactly why as.ft.com/r/e503690d-8...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
#FossilFriday Snout of Nanotyrannus. Image credit: N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences 🧪⚒️
paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/t...
paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/t...
January 2, 2026 at 8:56 PM
#FossilFriday Snout of Nanotyrannus. Image credit: N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences 🧪⚒️
paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/t...
paleonerdish.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/t...
Reposted by Derek Larson, Ph.D. 🇨🇦
RFK Jr. ordered the CDC to terminate their flu vaccination ad campaign immediately after taking office.
Just in case anyone was curious about his silence in the face of what is emerging as an unusually severe flu season and why he’s not out encouraging vaccines.
Just in case anyone was curious about his silence in the face of what is emerging as an unusually severe flu season and why he’s not out encouraging vaccines.
Robert F Kennedy cancels flu vaccination ad campaign and key vaccine policy meeting
The new US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to halt its publicity campaign encouraging uptake of this year’s seasonal flu vaccine...
www.bmj.com
January 2, 2026 at 5:34 PM
RFK Jr. ordered the CDC to terminate their flu vaccination ad campaign immediately after taking office.
Just in case anyone was curious about his silence in the face of what is emerging as an unusually severe flu season and why he’s not out encouraging vaccines.
Just in case anyone was curious about his silence in the face of what is emerging as an unusually severe flu season and why he’s not out encouraging vaccines.