Jacquelyn Gill

@jacquelyngill.bsky.social

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Scientist researching Earth’s past for a better future. Writer and podcaster for the planet. Climate, extinction, biodiversity. Chaotic good professor. She/her. Team Musk Ox. 🏳️‍🌈

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Thank you, Jacquelyn! And yes, there were so many wonderful Mesozoic mammals and related beasts. I wrote some more about them here, especially how interactions between Mesozoic beasts were more influential in their evolution than mammals vs dinosaurs.

Other Mammals, Not Dinosaurs, Kept Our Ancestors Downwww.smithsonianmag.com The asteroid impact that ended the Cretaceous gave our mammalian ancestors, the therians, an edge over their mammalian competitors

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Jacquelyn Gill

For a detailed history & philosophy of science perspective on this question, my recent students & I have a paper forthcoming in @thebjps.bsky.social on this: "Are We in a Sixth Mass Extinction? The Challenges of Answering and Value of Asking" bokulich.org/wp-content/u...

bokulich.org

I haven't done one of these in ages, and never on Bluesky, so: Hi! I'm a paleoecologist. I use the fossil record to help us understand biodiversity, ecology, and climate change in the present. Until 4 pm ET, you can ask me anything-- the last ice age, Dungeons and Dragons, tea, academia, anything.

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Ok you know I've started saying "I skeeted" and I still hate it so you know what? This is BLUESKY. When I have posted I have PRECIPITATED.

I agree with this, but also...I know so many scientists doing incredible public science outreach who are really good at it, but struggle to reach an audience. We're on social media, creating podcasts, filming TikToks, writing books, creating games, etc. www.science.org/doi/full/10....

We need better and more PopSci by scientistswww.science.org Any scientist knows that to be a good scientist, they must conduct thoughtful research; generate high-quality, verifiable results and analyses; and get them into circulation in the scientific communit...

Boosting this! I’m still recruiting for two positions!

The BEAST Lab (Biodiversity & Environments Across Space & Time) is looking to recruit 2 #graduate #students for Fall, 2024: 1. MS Position: Systems Approaches to Understanding the New Arctic 2. MS or PhD Position Learn more from @jacquelyngill.bsky.social docs.google.com/document/d/1...

BEAST Lab: Funded Positionsdocs.google.com

It's official: I've been promoted to full professor by the University of Maine! Congratulations to all my colleagues on their tenure and promotion today. I'm so lucky to get to work with such amazing people.

Thirty-four faculty members receive tenure and/or promotion - UMaine News - University of Maineumaine.edu At the University of Maine and University of Maine at Machias, 33 faculty members have received tenure and/or promotion this spring. The annual announcement recognizes outstanding achievement in teach...

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I appreciate hearing from @jacquelyngill.bsky.social in this article about how ideas with weak evidence can take on a life of their own Gift link, so no paywall for 30 days. www.nytimes.com/2024/03/05/m...

The Comet Strike Theory That Just Won’t Diewww.nytimes.com Mainstream science has done its best to debunk the notion, but a belief in a world-changing series of prehistoric impacts continues to gain momentum.

We've long known that ferns were the first to establish after the ☄️ that killed the 🦕. They're also some of the first species to arrive after 🌋. In a new paper, led by former BEAST Lab postdoc Lauren Azevedo-Schmidt, we suggest that ferns may play a special role in ecological recovery.

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Are any of the stars you see in the night sky already dead? Probably not. Individual stars visible to the naked eye on a good night are all within a few thousand light years (*maybe* tens of thousands, depending), & stars live on average many millions or billions of years. They’re likely all okay!

Even just the idea that *any* stars you see in the night sky have died already is super unlikely but somehow a very common notion

@amywestervelt.bsky.social You may already have seen this, but just in case not, I present, for your “enjoyment,” this uncritical gem from the NYT:

Why Are Influencers Pretending They Were Invited to an Oil Rig?www.nytimes.com Several popular accounts on social media are pranking their loved ones by saying they’ve been invited to create offshore spon-con for Exxon Mobil.

Last December, a Duke University Magazine article explored the "uncertain future" of the Duke Herbarium, one of the most important collections in the US. The scientific community has recently learned that Duke has decided that this facility will be closed. This is bad, and here's why.

Nowhere to Grow | Duke Magdukemag.duke.edu On a tour of the Duke University Herbarium, biology professor Kathleen Pryer, herbarium director, stops with curator Michael Windham at the cabinet where they keep the type specimens. An herbarium is ...

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Did you know @jacquelyngill.bsky.social and I are making a podcast? Jax and Phoebe Make a Planet is coming soon! We've got a trailer, so listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts - here's a link to the Apple version: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/j...

Evacuate where?? There’s nowhere for them to go. Aid is being blocked. Since October, over 27,000 people—a majority of them civilians, and 10,000 of them children—have been killed by bombs that US tax dollars are helping to supply. Bombs targeting hospitals, schools, and daycares. #CeasefireNOW

Netanyahu directs military to draw up plan for "evacuation of the population" from Rafaht.co

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Important context for non-scientists: It is actually *really difficult to get a scientific paper retracted.* e.g., new evidence indicating scientific misconduct, profound misportrayal of methods/results, or deeply flawed methodology. Don't treat this lightly. www.npr.org/sections/hea...

Research at the heart of a federal case against the abortion pill has been retractedwww.npr.org A research paper that raises questions about the safety of abortion has been retracted. The research is cited in a federal judge's ruling about the abortion pill mifepristone.

I 💚 this post by @drandrewthaler.bsky.social to the Dungeon Masters of the world: if you care about climate change, we need you...to run for office! "...If you can’t convince policymakers to take their responsibilities seriously, then the next best option is to become the policymakers."

Roll for Climate Initiative: A Dungeon Master’s Guide to Running for Local Public Officewww.southernfriedscience.com Hello Friends, do you like Dungeons and Dragons? What’s your favorite class and why is it Circle of Spores Druid? In the campaign I run for my family, my daughter was sent to rescue the mayor…

Women academics are more likely to be married to other academics, which means that partner accommodations are an equity issue. This Tenure, She Wrote post is a decade old, but still very relevant.

“Solving” the Two-Body Problemtenureshewrote.wordpress.com The two-body problem is a classical mechanics one, in which the motion of two interacting particles must be determined. I’m not a physicist, so I don’t know how hard it is to solve. In career terms…

"Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should." I'm excited to talk about the ethics of de-extinction (like woolly mammoths!) in discussion with the SJSU Deptartment. of Philosophy. Open to the public! 6:30 pm EST. 🧪🦣🧬

We always wondered why there were certain intervals where there were gaps in the vertebrate fossil and archaeological records. After this discovery, we were finally able to fill in those missing sections in the fossil record.

Dendrochronology xkcd.com/2847

From "global warming" to "crisis," the language we use to talk about climate change and its impacts has evolved, largely as we went from forecasts to reality. I talked with @shannonosaka.bsky.social of @washingtonpost.com for this story:

Why many scientists are now saying climate change is an all-out ‘emergency’www.washingtonpost.com Scientists used to avoid phrases like “climate emergency” and “climate crisis.” No longer.

I’m thrilled to be giving the 30th Kuehnast Lecture at the University of Minnesota on Thursday! Thank you to the University of Minnesota’s Department of Soil, Water, and Climate for the invitation. It looks like my talk will be streaming on Zoom, too (registration required).

30th Kuehnast Lecture featuring Dr. Jacquelyn Gill | Department of Soil, Water, and Climateswac.umn.edu

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Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC 📈📉 #climatesky www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC - npj Climate Actionwww.nature.com npj Climate Action - Economists are not engaged enough with the IPCC

This is why “humans are bad for nature” is an unscientific stance when it comes to conservation. It’s not the presence of people that’s the problem. It’s colonialism and extractive relationships with nature. Those aren’t universal practices.

"Research shows that lands managed by Indigenous people—both through legal title and informal, customary ownership—have lower deforestation rates than similar lands managed by other forest users..." 🧪 www.wri.org/insights/ama...

Indigenous Forests Are Some of the Amazon’s Last Carbon Sinkswww.wri.org Forests managed by Indigenous people in the Amazon are a strong carbon sink, removing a net 340 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere each year, equivalent to the U.K.’s annual�...

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someone once told me if you present a paper at oxford and everybody yells at you, it's actually a decent paper but if everyone immediately stops talking to you that's how you know you bombed. it's a dick move for presentations but i think it's exactly what we should be doing to these accounts.

block him. Don't let these people gain traction. If we all block people like this as soon as they pop up they will never get traction They feed off of "dunking", it puts more eyes on their hate. Starve them of oxygen so they fizzle out all alone. These ppl live on hate engagement so don't engage.

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Last night I was at the first preview of THE BOOK THIEF musical about the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany and today I woke up to the fact that 13 of my books have been banned in Volusia County FL. Want to know more about the kind of person behind the bans?

She challenges one school book a week. She says she’ll never stop.www.washingtonpost.com The majority of all school book challenges in the United States came from just 11 people. Meet Jennifer Petersen.

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Tomorrow, Tomorrow, This goes live tomorrow, It's only a day away!!!

Coming soon: Weeds in the Wastewww.kickstarter.com A solo storytelling TTPRG about tending a garden in a post apocalyptic wasteland.

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Antarctic scientists showed tiny, early signs of a new accent after spending all winter in isolated groups talking to each other. Cool to see exactly how the process of language divergence starts #langsky

Linguists Hear an Accent Beginwww.scientificamerican.com Residents of an overwintering station in Antarctica provided linguists with evidence of the first small changes in speech that may signal the development of a new accent.

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Fascinating read in AGU EOS about scientific colonialism and the specific case of the fossil, Irritator challengeri 🧪 🦕 ⚒️ Again, I’m buoyed by the energy and bravery of the scientists taking on this fight, many of whom are early career and/or from the global south. eos.org/articles/ill...

Illegal Fossil Export Is More Than an Irritator to the Global South - Eoseos.org More than 2,000 researchers have signed an open letter requesting the repatriation of a dinosaur fossil to Brazil. Some say the case highlights a pattern of scientific colonialism in paleontology.

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Our new story: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas secretly participated in Koch network donor events – a breach of judicial norms that one federal judge said “takes my breath away.” www.propublica.org/article/clar...

Clarence Thomas Secretly Participated in Koch Network Donor Eventswww.propublica.org Thomas has attended at least two Koch donor summits, putting him in the extraordinary position of having helped a political network that has brought multiple cases before the Supreme Court.

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Last week, I asked the first-year undergrads in my Kids and Society seminar to tell me about the upsides and downsides of remote learning. Their responses might surprise you--particularly for what they reveal about students' attitudes toward chatGPT, cheating, and AI. 1/