This is figure 1, which shows M. cousteaui gen. et sp. nov. from the Cambrian (Drumian) Wheeler Formation of Utah.
A 500-million-year-old fossil of a very early relative of spiders, scorpions, and mites offers insights into how this group of arthropods, called chelicerates, evolved. The fossil, found in Utah in the US, has clear claws, according to a paper in Nature. go.nature.com/3NB3Npy #Paleosky 🧪
Our April issue is out now featuring...
🔬the impact of foundational, discovery-based microbiology
🪱a nematode-trapping fungus Arthrobotrys oligospora
🏥climate change driving antibiotic resistance
👁️human eye disease linked to aquatic virus transmission
and more! 👇
www.nature.com/nmicrobiol/
Here's an awesome natural history humanities PhD opportunity, working with Cambridge University Library & our insect & archive collections here at @zoologymuseum.bsky.social, exploring the links between entomology, life writing & environmental change. Please share!
www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...
People don’t learn from history. Philip II of Macedonia told Sparta ‘If I conquer Sparta, I’ll destroy it completely &c.’ Sparta replied in one word - ‘if’. His son Alexander conquered the known world- but left Sparta alone.
On a black background of space, a blue and white Earth just before 'setting' behind the Moon, in foreground, seen from Artemis II, 6 April 2026
Totality seen from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, revealing a view few humans have ever witnessed, a dark disc surrounded by a pale solar corona.
✅ #Artemis II update: 'Earthset', 6 April 2026, and 'totality', 7 April, seen from lunar orbit, the Moon eclipses the Sun, a view few humans have ever witnessed (pics: NASA)
🔗 www.nasa.gov/gallery/jour...
@exploration.esa.int l
Things That Infuriate Journal Editors no.14: superfluous adverbial grandstanding (remarkably, strikingly, paradoxically, &c). Good results should stand on their own. Dressing them up makes editors suspect that the results are not as important as authors want them to think.
On the far side of the Moon the #Artemis2 crew have discovered a crater full to the brim with odd socks and orphaned lids from Tupperware containers.
Nature research paper: Flexible ensheathment of axons enables myelination of complex CNS networks
go.nature.com/3QcuTUy
Donald Trump at White House Easter Event next to giant Easter Bunny
‘Where’s the monster? Behind the Rabbit?’
THE WONDER OF LIFE ON EARTH - a book for inquiring minds of very all ages www.panmacmillan.com/authors/henr...
Repeated cloning cannot be sustained indefinitely in mammals, according to a 20-year study in mice published in Nature Communications. The results suggest that sexual reproduction is necessary to eliminate large-scale genetic mutations that can accumulate in mammalian clones. 🧬 🧪
Two stone tools, one narrow and pointed the other leaf-shaped, laid out on a white background.
Calling all archaeologists with expertise in British stone tools! These two just turned up among my father-in-law’s house contents. Unfortunately no provenance data. The narrow one is quite thick, diamond-shaped in cross-section, and the flat end appears to be broken.
That's home. That's us.
This image of home just came down from the Artemis II crew.
Taken after their translunar injection burn, there are aurorae at top right and lower left, and zodiacal light at lower right.
Credit: NASA/Reid Wiseman
Thank you @natashapulley.bsky.social for recommending ‘There Is No Antimemetics Division’ by by qntm. Entities that eat memory are legion in fiction (qv The Silence in #DrWho) but I’ve never seen the theme mined as creatively and disturbingly as this.
Apparently it’s Children’s Picture Book Day today. You know what’s expected of you.
🌊The collapse of Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation would result in increase of 47–83 ppm of global mean atmospheric carbon dioxide and 0.2°C of additional global warming at higher carbon dioxide background levels.🧪
@pik-potsdam.bsky.social
👉Read more here:
www.nature.com/articles/s43...
Just watched the #Artemis2 launch, live, on my smartphone, which probably has more memory and computing power than an #Apollo spacecraft.
Such times are these when the movements of the global economy depend sensitively on the off-the-cuff vaporings of a malignantly narcissistic convicted felon.
My son says there’s no intelligent life on Earth: he’s only here until the Lizard People return to claim him for their own. But my son says a lot of things.
A 500-million-year-old fossil of an early relative of spiders, scorpions, and mites offers insights into how this group of arthropods, called chelicerates, evolved. It has clear claws, and is among earliest known example of this feature in chelicerates: spklr.io/63329EysAT
#Palaeontology
The launch of Artemis 2 is expected just after 23:20 BST (18:20 local time) at Florida's Kennedy Space Center (In the Town Hall if wet)
If today’s world isn’t already depressing enough, my book on the near-imminent extinction of Hom sap is available in paperback, for your reading pleasure. For certain values of ‘pleasure’ www.panmacmillan.com/authors/henr...
2 weeks left to apply to this postdoc here at @gtsciences.bsky.social!
Full details here: www.mcguire.gatech.edu/opportunitie...
Deadline: 13th April
🦎🐦🦴⛰️
Like many science journalists this week, I'll covering the #ArtemisII mission for @nature.com. Our first story is now up! We explore the science that the astronauts will do on their flight — and how this advances beyond the Apollo era. 🧪🔭
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
I'm hiring! I have 2 open positions:
🔬 Postdoc
🧪 Research associate
We study how animal multicellularity evolved by exploring the molecular logic of cell adhesion using cell biology, 'omics, and tool-building in non-model organisms.
Come join us!
Details and application links 👇
Please repost
A friend visiting Manly, Sydney, Australia, came across one of my side-hustles.
