Blog survey results!

It's hard for me to even believe this, but I've been writing Pseudoplocephalus for over 5 years now. I'd been an avid reader of many science blogs for a couple of years before I decided I wanted to try it out myself, and I decided to jump in finally because I was going to be spending three and a half months working and traveling around Korea, China and Mongolia back in 2010 on an NSERC-funded study abroad kind of thing. I figured that blog updates would be the best way to show what I was doing to friends and family, and if I liked it, I'd maybe keep writing about my research afterwards.

As I started writing here, I decided pretty quickly that I wanted to use Pseudoplocephalus as a science outreach tool (as opposed to keeping a grad school diary for my own benefits, etc.). At this point, my general goals with the blog are:

1.  Providing summaries of my research papers for nonspecialists, especially for papers that are paywalled.

2. Showing what it's like to be a research palaeontologist, for people who aren't scientists. (And, to be visibly female while doing so.)

3. Promoting the research environments of the various institutions I've worked at, to help increase the public's appreciation of research in museums and universities.

4. Talking about other issues of interest to me, like where palaeontology intersects with popular media and social justice issues. For this goal, I'm interested in reaching both scientists and nonscientists.

So, am I accomplishing any of those goals? I took part in Paige Jarreau's science blog survey and some of you were kind enough to fill out the survey, so here's a little bit of what I learned and how it relates to what I'm doing.

How are people finding my blog?

At least in terms of the people who answered the survey, most people seem to get to my blog via Facebook and Twitter, as well as the blogrolls of other palaeontology sites. But, about 20% of the respondents had only read one or two posts on my blog, suggesting that a fair number of people stumble across it without necessarily being deeply embedded within the palaeoblogosphere. Most of the survey respondents said they often seek out information about science online, and nobody said they rarely or never seek it out. Apparently, several of you were motivated to keep reading because you like my writing style, so thanks! That is nice of you to say!

How are people using my blog?

Many of the survey respondents read Pseudoplocephalus to keep up with the latest palaeo news and to find information that might not be reported in traditional media, so, cool. A bunch of you also wrote in that you come here to learn about ankylosaurs, so yay! Most of you do not come here for emotional support, which is also good, because ankylosaurs are terrible emotional support-givers. I recommend you check out Captain Awkward for the top-shelf adulting advice. Overall, I'd say the way people seem to be using my blog is in line with why I'm writing what I write.

Who are you people, anyway?

Several of the survey respondents noted that they know me personally. I AM BEING WATCHED, THANKS ANONYMOUS FRIENDS FOR CREEPIN' ME OUT. But seriously, that's not unexpected, and thanks creepy anonymous friends for filling out my survey. Out of the 102 people who filled out the survey, 67% identified as male and 31% identified as female. The biggest age cohort is YOUNGER THAN ME which is giving me SOME KIND OF FEELINGS. Most of you are also Caucasian, which means I need to do a better job of reaching out to non-white people or making my blog an inviting space for underrepresented minorities in science to come and have a look. I am not totally sure how to do this, so I guess I have some research ahead of me!

I am also apparently in good blog company because lots of you guys read blogs that I also like to read too, like Tetrapod Zoology, SV-POW, Laelaps, and Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs. In that same question (list up to three other science blogs that you read regularly), I noticed that blogs written by dudes far, far outnumbered blogs written by ladies in the blogs you submitted. Does this indicate that there are fewer blogs written by women in the palaeoblogosphere (or at least dinoblogosphere)? Are people more likely to think more highly of blogs written by men than women, or just more likely to remember blogs written by men?

Lastly, it was interesting to see the self-identified occupations you all listed – while it is not surprising that many of you are grad students, palaeontologists, or other scientists, it was heartening for me to see that non-scientists are also reading the blog, at least sometimes. Another goal kind of accomplished!

So, am I meeting any of the general goals I keep in mind when I'm writing here? Kind of. At least in terms of people who felt compelled to complete the survey, I'm largely speaking to an audience of scientific peers. BUT, I'm also reaching at least a few people who are not trained scientists, and I suspect a lot more of the casual hits my blog receives each day are not from dedicated scientists. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey – many of you left awfully nice comments for me, which really made me feel like this continues to be worth doing, so thanks for the ego boost. It's been interesting to see who this blog is reaching and why people are reading it! I don't know how long I'll keep this blog going, but I don't have any intention of stopping soon and I'm glad I have an audience of people who think it's worth following.

This Way to the Dinosaurs

Welcome to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science! The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Meeting's welcome reception was held here last week. This museum is trying out some interesting and different exhibition ideas that I haven't seen too often elsewhere, so let's take a look at some highlights. One of the most interesting design elements is the visible escalators poking out the side of the building. Back in 2013 at the Korea-Mongolia International Dinosaur Project Symposium, Tony Fiorillo gave a really interesting presentation on the design of this museum, and talked about how a lot of people never make it off the first floor of a museum, which is also usually where the dinosaurs are. So at the Perot Museum, the dinosaurs are on the top floor and you are immediately shuttled upstairs (it's actually kind of hard to *not* go to the top floor first!), and then you work your way down the museum to exit. 

The dinosaur exhibits feature some interesting species that aren't found in a lot of other museums - here's a modern take on Tenontosaurus, and the still unnamed Proctor Lake 'hypsilophodontid' (somebody name that guy, already!).

My favourite exhibit in the whole museum! One of the only places where I've seen the North American-Asian faunal interchange visualized in an exhibit. Tarbosaurus is in Asia, and its close relatives are in North America (I can't remember exactly which taxon is featured here, but perhaps it is Bistahieversor based on its geographic position?). Also whoa, Beringia sure looks strange from this polar vantage point.

Another interesting thing the museum has done is to place modern animals alongside the dinosaurs for comparative purposes. Here we've got predators and prey - a mountain lion and a deer, and Tyrannosaurus and the sauropod Alamosaurus (off to the left of my photo).

A similar approach is taken in the Alaskan dinosaur corner - here's the herbivorous Edmontosaurus Ugruunaluk...

...and its extant analogue the caribou (Rangifer!). I wasn't totally sold on this approach, but I was intrigued by the mixture of extant and extinct, and of modern and ancient ecosystems, so maybe I just need to ruminate on it a little more.

I'm a sucker for Sinclair dinosaurs, what can I say.

Does the mould for the Ankylosaurus exist anywhere still??? DO WANT.

At one end of the dinosaur hall you take a set of stairs up to the bird exhibit! I liked this a lot, both because the bird exhibit had some cool interactive stuff, but also because I like the symbolism and narrative structure to traveling upwards towards birds from dinosaurs - it's like moving up the phylogenetic tree, and gaining flight.

From up in the rafters, you get a nice view of the dinosaur gallery, and a great vantage point for examining the gigantic Alamosaurus (real vertebrae are tucked down at ground level behind the skeleton from this angle). Alamosaurus is a weird and biogeographically interesting creature, representing a re-emergence of sauropods in North America after a lengthy hiatus throughout much of the mid Cretaceous. 

ELSEWHERE IN THE MUSEUM...

Rocks and minerals! With gigantic mineral shapes! (My favourite is the giant malachite clump in the back.)

Brains! There's a really fun section on medicine and human anatomy.

Phylogenies! Can you find where humans are located on this giant tree of life?

Outside the museum, we were bid farewell by these very fine green leapfrogs, which surely must be great fun to play with if you are smaller than I am.

More Texas adventures forthcoming - stay tuned!

If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to contribute to research on science blogging by filling out the survey! It only takes a few moments to complete and you can enter to win prizes!

Wading With Dinosaurs

It's that time of year again! Time to talk palaeontology with a 1000 of my closest friends in a convention centre somewhere far, far away! That's right, it's the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, this time in Dallas, Texas. This year I tried out an SVP meeting field trip for the first time. We chased dinosaurs and their friends through the mid Cretaceous near Dallas!

First stop - Jones Ranch

While the morning was still cool, we ventured out to the Jones Ranch quarry, where the remains of several Sauroposeidon were excavated. Originally called Paluxysaurus, these bones belonged to several large sauropods from the Twin Mountains Formation, which is about 113 million years old or so. I was pretty impressed by the size of the quarry - I'm standing maybe 5 feet in front of one of the quarry walls, and looking towards the other.

Second stop - Dinosaur Valley State Park and the Paluxy River/Glen Rose trackways!

Dinosaur Valley State Park is one of those iconic dinosaur places that I'm sure is on many palaeontologist's bucket lists. If you've visited the American Museum of Natural History, you will probably have seen some of the trackways cut out of this very river - a piece of the tracksite was taken back to New York for display and hangs out underneath the Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus? Now I forget which specimens are which!). 

 The trackways are in the Albian aged Glen Rose Formation, and the rocks represent a lagoon or shallow marine environment. I guess dinosaurs liked the occasional day at the beach, as well! There are two kinds of trackmakers here, and here's one of them - a large theropod, probably something like Acrocanthosaurus.

And here's the other trackmaker, a large sauropod, possibly something like Sauroposeidon. In case that one is hard to make out, the hind foot print is about a foot to the left of that person's shoe, and is the large smooth depression with a series of vertical shadows at the front - those are the claw marks from a sauropod's hind foot. The front feet made totally different tracks, which look kind of like crescents or half-moons.

Intrepid field trip leader James Farlow heads into the river to sweep of a larger track surface. Most of the trackways are submerged, and you can see some of them in the foreground in this picture - look for the alternating big teardrop or circle shapes!

Most of us waded in and took turns sweeping slime out of the footprints and standing in them. 

The cool water felt pretty good on a hot Texas afternoon!

 

And this post wouldn't be complete without mentioning the great opportunity to see a different era of palaeontological history, in the form of original Sinclair World's Fair dinosaur statues!

Third stop - Arlington Archosaur Site

The Arlington Archosaur Site is a huge quarry in the Cenomanian Woodbine Formation that is located in an active housing development site - pretty soon, this will be part of some lucky people's backyards! It's a neat parallel to the Danek Bonebed in Edmonton, which is also located right within the city. Many volunteers have contributed thousands of hours to help excavate the remains of crocodilians, the early hadrosaur Protohadros, and more. This site has only been worked for a few years, so expect lots of discoveries and publications to come. Find some ankylosaurs, guys!

 The AAS volunteers had cold beverages and dinosaur trackway cookies waiting for us! Y'all are too nice. What a great way to end the day.

Many many thanks to the field trip leaders Chris Noto, Thomas Adams, and James Farlow for taking us on this romp through the mid Cretaceous - it was a great mix of classic sites and new discoveries, and a great start to the conference!

Snapshots from the Field Museum

Last week I got a chance to visit the Field Museum in Chicago for the first time! It's a great big museum with lots of cool stuff, so I figured I'd share a few impressions from my lunchtime jaunts through the exhibits. Let's get started with all the fossil exhibits outside of the main fossil hall (there are several, but some of them are kind of hidden away!).

SUE

Sue the Tyrannosaurus is most definitely not hidden away, and occupies a place of pride in the museum's main entrance hall. Sue is undeniably a great fossil, although I (and I suspect probably some other palaeontologists as well) have mixed feelings about this fossil: it's incredibly well preserved, but the intense backstory to Sue's acquisition is filled with several unpleasant twists and turns. I'm glad Sue found a home in a museum, but I wish it hadn't been placed up for auction - Sue's auctioning may not have directly led to the trend of putting dinosaurs up for auction for millions of dollars, but I feel like it set a bad precedent all the same.

One thing that's particularly enjoyable about this specific Tyrannosaurus skeleton are the abundant pathologies to be found. Sue has a busted/infected shin, holes in its jaw, and rough bumpy spots on its vertebrae. These vertebrae near the end of the tail have a big mass of crinkly bone around them. It's obvious Sue got up to some trouble during its life, and it's interesting to speculate on the causes of the various oddities in the skeleton (and indeed, others have!).

 Extinct Madagascar

Sadly, this exhibit is tucked so far out of the way that basically nobody had wandered back there besides me (you need to go through the conservation gallery to reach it). It's also a little bit specimen-sparse, a trend I've noticed recently in many museums and which I find somewhat concerning. However, I feel like it makes up for the lack of 3D objects in its cool and unusual subject matter - the extinct fauna of Madagascar. The main point to the gallery was showcasing the social media response to new images of Madagascar's prehistory, and the scientific process that went into those images. It was an interesting way to approach the topic, but might have been more compelling with video, audio, or more fossils.

It was pretty cool to see an Aepyornis (elephant bird) egg and life-size silhouette. They really were terrifyingly large and strange birds.

A highlight for me was this Palaeopropithecus skeleton - a lemur that lived and looked like a sloth.

Tracking the Reptiles of Pangea

Tucked away in the African mammals area was a room devoted to palaeontological fieldwork in Tanzania, featuring the newly described silesaurid Asilisaurus! This isn't a skeleton you're going to see in most museums - I only wish more people had been stepping into this little exhibit room to check it out.

A nice touch was showing the original fossil material in its cabinet-ready storage foam. Those are some nice fossils.

And one last fossil....

Seriously, how were these machines not in constant use? They're in the hallway leading towards the bottom-floor cafeteria, and you can get yourself a freshly-made retro Triceratops, Brontosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, or Stegosaurus. I made a Brontosaurus and consider it $2 extremely well spent, especially since it meant I got rid of a bunch of dimes and nickels I didn't know what to do with:

Next time: Evolving Planet!

Woe betide those who summon the Galactic Coelacanth

A couple of years ago I had an existential crisis when I realized that, in the time one of my papers had been in review (almost 8 months!), I could nearly have physically created an entirely new human being in my body, if I had so chosen. Thus began the saddest game in the universe that I like to play when I submit a paper: "What kind of animal could have been gestated in the time this paper has been in review?". And this became an even better running joke when one of my colleagues had a highly unusual review experience that lasted for several years, which completely exhausted the gestation times of real animals.

My amazing and lovely sister saw us talking about this on Facebook and went ahead and wrote an R script that tells you exactly what kind of animal you could have birthed while waiting for reviewer comments. And because I am always forgetting to save this amazing piece of code, I've gotten permission from Jessica to post it here for posterity. My sincere apologies to anyone who gets the Space Whale, and my deepest condolences to anyone who is graced by the presence of the Galactic Coelacanth. 

Click here for the R script!
Updated 30 June 2015: If you don't have R, you can also download a text file to see the code!