Elizabeth M Dowding
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thefairestfowl.bsky.social
Elizabeth M Dowding
@thefairestfowl.bsky.social
330 followers 190 following 85 posts
Rocks.
Devonian.
Bliss.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
dralexdunhill.bsky.social
Want to do a PhD linking palaeontology, ecological modelling and polar ecosystems? Look no further than this NERC GW4+ DLTP funded project with @rowanwhittlebas.bsky.social at @bas.ac.uk & @bristolpalaeo.bsky.social and others (inc me).

www.bristol.ac.uk/media-librar...
www.bristol.ac.uk
November 12, 2025 at 3:47 PM
thefairestfowl.bsky.social
Truly iconic. Read to filth. Recommended pairing: a glass of red wine.
brittanytrang.com Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 24d
A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫
James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers
James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.
www.statnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
susannashore.bsky.social
I spotted this on Mastodon and I find it horrible, not least for the speed with which this has happened.
A post on Mastodon by small cypress (@small_cypress@indieweb.social): As an art teacher I was worried AI would come up as an issue of "why should I learn how to draw when I can use AI instead." But the real issue is that my middle schoolers CONSTANTLY believe all art I show them is AI. Digital art. Photography. Oil paintings from the Western canon. "A human couldn't do that" Being convinced that humans can't make great art is kind of terrifying
November 4, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
orlabe.bsky.social
🚨We have exciting new webinar series starting next Wednesday @1730 BST!

Join me as we discuss the #ERCStartingGrant with our panel speakers who have recently obtained this funding.

Anyone is welcome to join this webinar - register here 👇
us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
October 22, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
emmadnn.bsky.social
Let Palestinians lead: Researchers warn against ‘top down’ solutions as ceasefire is agreed in the first phase of a peace deal.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Rebuilding Gaza: don’t sideline Palestinian scientists, say experts
Researchers warn against ‘top down’ solutions as ceasefire is agreed in the first phase of a peace deal.
www.nature.com
October 11, 2025 at 9:25 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
evanurquhart.bsky.social
Before transitioning I was a respectability-politics lesbian. Even post-transition my career, my manner of dress, and my work is very palatable to the mainstream.

Because of that I think it's particularly important to talk about why I reject respectability politics and you should too. Short 🧵
edidin.bsky.social Jay Edidin @edidin.bsky.social · Aug 26
respectability politics will see us all killed
August 26, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
xkcd.com
Geologic Periods

xkcd.com/3120/
Comic. [3-column table with headers Period, My Favorite Part, and My Biggest Complaint] [Row 1] P: *Precambrian*, MFP: Life develops, MBC: Snowball Earth episodes [Row 2] P: Cambrian, MFP: Trilobites!, MBC: Evolution could stand to calm down a little [Row 3] P: Ordovician, MFP: Earth might have had rings, MBC: Scary volcanic eruption in North America [Row 4] P: Silurian, MFP: First land animals, MBC: Earth’s newfound mold problem [Row 5] P: Devonian, MFP: Big mountains in Boston, MBC: Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was *armor* [Row 6] P: Carboniferous, MFP: Cool forests, MBC: Bugs too big [Row 7] P: Permian, MFP: Pangea, MBC: Google “The Great Dying” [Row 8] P: Triassic, MFP: Tanystropheus [dinosaur with extremely long neck next to tiny person for scale], MBC: Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan [Row 9] P: Jurassic, MFP: Birds, MBC: Parasitoid wasps [Row 10] P: Cretaceous, MFP: Raptors, MBC: Raptors [Row 11] P: Paleogene, MFP: Pretty horseys!!!, MBC: Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum [Row 12] P: Neogene, MFP: Forests of *Dracaena* Dragonblood Trees, MBC: Zanclean Flood [Row 13] P: Quaternary, MFP: Burrito invented, MBC: Whoever picked this name for the third period of the Cenozoic
July 28, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
afredston.bsky.social
one signature of human impacts on the planet (esp climate change) is ecosystems becoming less unique—a process called "biotic homogenization".

it turns out that isn't happening in the global oceans!

colossal new synthesis led by @zoejean88.bsky.social on marine fishes:

doi.org/10.1371/jour...
Most marine communities around the world do not have any change in beta-diversity. Some are becoming more homogenous, but some are also becoming more differentiated. Fig. 1 from Kitchel et al. 2025 PLOS Climate.
July 9, 2025 at 9:22 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
friel.bsky.social
Bland, Joshua et al. 2025. Comparison of diverse mandibular mechanics during biting in Devonian lungfishes. iScience, Volume 28, Issue 7, 112970.🐟🧪

www.cell.com/iscience/ful...
Time-calibrated phylogenetic tree of lungfishes, showing the greatest species diversity during the Devonian period
July 9, 2025 at 12:45 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
cisneros.bsky.social
Poderia uma simples hashtag ajudar a restituir o fóssil de dinossauro roubado do Brasil e em posse por um museu alemão? Sim. Este estudo mostra como a campanha #UbirajaraBelongstoBR criou um novo tipo de luta contra o colonialismo na ciência.
gc.copernicus.org/articles/8/1...
#IrritatorBelongstoBR
#UbirajaraBelongstoBR: social media activism against (neo)colonial practices in palaeontology
Abstract. Social media has revolutionised the engagement between scientists and the public, offering platforms to challenge unethical practices and advocate for change. In December 2020, Brazilian pal...
gc.copernicus.org
July 11, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
jsarmentocabral.bsky.social
Hiring/Seeking a *permanent* programmer in ecological modelling at my lab @unibonn.bsky.social. We mechanistically model plant communities, island biogeography, species range dynamics, eco-evolutionary feedbacks, diversity gradients, tropical forests, vascular epiphytes. Pls rt! shorturl.at/Bzzdt
Programmer in Ecological Modelling
Full-time, permanent, EG 10, Reference number: 2025/72
shorturl.at
July 10, 2025 at 7:00 PM
thefairestfowl.bsky.social
LET’S GOOOOOOOOO

Monumental effort here. Congrats and thank you!
russellgarwood.co.uk Russell Garwood @russellgarwood.co.uk · Jul 9
Hello palaeontologists. After a bunch of work @thepalass.bsky.social has a new website. We're still fiddling to get emails working, but if anyone wants to check it out and report e.g. broken links, feedback would be warmly welcomed

palass.org

🫡🧪⚒️
July 9, 2025 at 9:03 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
drcraigmc.bsky.social
🧵New paper + open database drop!
The Marine Organismal Body Size ( #MOBS ) Database is now live—85,000+ marine species, from plankton to whales, with standardized size data.
A huge leap for biodiversity, conservation, and climate science. #science #marinelife onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
MOBS 1.0: A Database of Interspecific Variation in Marine Organismal Body Sizes
Motivation Body size is a fundamental trait influencing an organism's life history, ecology, physiology and evolutionary dynamics. While extensive body-size databases exist for terrestrial vertebrat...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
June 5, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
arctomet.bsky.social
China shares fossil treasures with the world - Dodson - The Anatomical Record - Wiley Online Library anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
China shares fossil treasures with the world
China has been a rich source of fossils for nearly a century, beginning with the discovery of so-called Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis), known today as Homo erectus pekinensis in the mid 1920s. ...
anatomypubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
May 30, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
hendersi.bsky.social
A three year postdoctoral position is available in my group, investigating plant centromere structure, function and evolution @camplantsci.bsky.social
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/51488/
Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) - Job Opportunities - University of Cambridge
Research Assistant / Research Associate (Fixed Term) in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
www.jobs.cam.ac.uk
May 30, 2025 at 12:13 PM
thefairestfowl.bsky.social
Such a great and exciting place to work. Have a stab!!!

<}}}}:}=
May 29, 2025 at 5:10 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
gillianrbrown1.bsky.social
Paxson (2025): "Science has contributed to... discrimination through biological essentialism, either by assigning specific undesirable biological characteristics to socially-normed... groupings or... assigning a genetic basis for these phenotypic differences." 🧪
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Teaching developmental biology to drive social change: Pedagogy that challenges biologically deterministic views on phenotypic variation
Discrimination against groups of people based on socially-normed phenotypic variations is commonplace in many societies. The stigmatized phenotypic va…
www.sciencedirect.com
May 28, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
eesaupe.bsky.social
🚨🚨🚨!Post doc opportunity! 🚨🚨🚨
35 month post doc on niche modelling of migratory whales in my lab with Katrina Jones. Job advert below:
my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...
Please get in touch with questions!
May 29, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
andrejpaleo.bsky.social
For anyone interested in extinctions and macroevolution more generally here is the recording of the hybrid symposium on approaches to extinctions which was held in Vilnius a month ago.
sites.google.com/view/mathssx...
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio #Geology
Ma(th)ssX - VU Symposium
Hybrid Symposium "Approaches to Mass Extinctions" Vilnius University, April 2nd, 2025 Organizer: Prof. Andrej Spiridonov The full program and abstract
sites.google.com
May 27, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
everydaylouie.bsky.social
ancient friends
a stylized 3d render of a kid drawing at a table, surrounded by ancient fish and sea creatures of the devonian and silurian.
May 26, 2025 at 1:27 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
njpjustice.bsky.social
On National Sorry Day we honour the Stolen Generations survivors on the anniversary of the Bringing Them Home report. But nearly 30 years on, most recommendations are still outstanding. Urgent action is needed to support survivors to age with dignity and respect.
May 25, 2025 at 10:36 PM
thefairestfowl.bsky.social
Sometimes in a fossil policy workshop you have to take a strong stand.

@thepalass.bsky.social
European Australian lifts leg onto window sill and holds aloft a Workshop invitation.
May 16, 2025 at 9:58 AM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
jacquelyngill.bsky.social
Paleobiology is highly relevant to global change science, as we wrote in a collaborative lab paper led by my former postdoc:
Advancing terrestrial ecology by improving cross-temporal research and collaboration
Abstract. Ecology spans spatial and temporal scales and is inclusive of the history of life on Earth. However, research that occurs at millennial timescale
academic.oup.com
May 14, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Reposted by Elizabeth M Dowding
fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social
Our report on employment is out in Paleobiology
(They did let us append that the paper was accepted before the election/changes to NSF and other granting agencies)

Employment in paleontology: status and trends in the United States | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core - www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Employment in paleontology: status and trends in the United States | Paleobiology | Cambridge Core
Employment in paleontology: status and trends in the United States
www.cambridge.org
May 14, 2025 at 11:41 AM
thefairestfowl.bsky.social
How’s the serenity?

#theCastle
May 10, 2025 at 2:16 PM