Paleontologist, biologist, sometimes archaeologist from Alaska. Dinosaurs, evolution in deep time and writing. Nature is the only authority that is never wrong.
Kodiak, Alaska
Joined March 2020
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Most ducks and and gamebirds don't feed chicks but Anseranas, the Magpie Goose, does. Likewise ratites don't feed chicks, but some tinamous do. It's possible parental feeding was present in the ancestor of modern birds. If so, how far down into the tree does it go- to dinosaurs?
Nick Longrich retweeted
17th-century BC Ship Fresco from Akrotiri, showing ships traveling from one Minoan town to another. It was preserved in volcanic ash when Akrotiri was destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Thera.
Nick Longrich retweeted
First-known modern example of an ANTI-acknowledgment in a serious technical paper. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/scan/m…
As someone who spends a lot of time trying to classify bones of dinosaurs, birds and mosasaurs, I have to admit there's something oddly biological about the diversity of shapes seen here, a sort of Cambrian explosion of digital forms.
Can we finally make a theory for Darwin's "Endless Forms Most Beautiful and Most Wonderful"?
Introducing ruliobiology as a path to general theory in biology, starting with foundations for a theory of biological form
writings.stephenwolfram.com/…
Nick Longrich retweeted
Sometimes a Greek vase takes my breath away. This vase-painter depicts a stone statue of Heracles, his lionskin being painted encaustically by an artist with pigmented hot wax melted by an attendant on a brazier. Heracles comes to inspect, his dad Zeus and a winged Victory aloft.
This would make a great spinoff of Paw Patrol
JUST IN: Palmer Luckey's genetically modified military dog startup, Warhound, comes out of stealth, aiming to create enhanced canines for the U.S. military.
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This is NOT Palmer's company at all, his company Anduril is only supplying the tech for the dogs, and this is a wholly owed Collosal entiity
x.com/palmerluckey/s…
Nick Longrich retweeted
Eventually if you want to publish a book of literary fiction you'll just have to publish it yourself. Own everything. You can't fire yourself. You can quit on yourself, but that's a different thing.
Checks out. But I would argue that success as a scientist also requires a degree of nonconformity, willing to pursue novel ideas or approaches. Being a successful academic and a successful scientists are often in conflict.
Nick Longrich retweeted
A friend says:
"Academics tend to be massive conformists because success consists in the consensus opinion of one's peers. Investors or other business people tend to be much less conformist because success comes from being the first to do something no one else is doing, etc."
This is of course nonsense but it has an element of truth in it, in that Feynman had a particular way of seeing the world that made him a great scientist. Few of us may be as clever as he was, but his mental techniques and tricks can be learned. They’re described in his writing.
Nick Longrich retweeted
お坊さんなので言いますが、人と接してて「あ、この人は私のことが嫌いなんだな」「この人は私に不幸でいて欲しいんだな」「自分より下でいて欲しいんだな」って分かるあの感覚、かなり当たるから無視しない方がいい
