mastodon 4.7.3Professor of paleontology and Earth systems at Vilnius University. My interests are: theoretical paleontology, evolution, geology, stratigraphy, philosophy of biology and geology, climate from the hierarchical perspective.
Wow, what a strange macro-microbe - Thiomargarita magnifica, cm scale bacteria which is far longer than most animals. Interesting case of things approaching boundaries of possible, given their body-plans.
https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abb3634
🧪 #EvoBio
Happy International Geologist's Day! Now for real. Below are the Easter-most igneous rocks out there. The orbicular granite slabs near the Department of the Earth Sciences in Uppsala University.
The definition of the Black Swan Event
My first origami, folded with the lead by the master Yohei Sugimura from the Japan Geoscience Union 🙂
Great talk by Benjamin Bomfleur who received the Jean Baptiste Lamarck award from EGU this year. The extinct world of green Antarctica is just wonderful.
Chemostratigraphy of the mass extinction interval helps the untangling of the causality of the global crisis:
"...redox- sensitive proxies, indicating that wildfire activity intensified in response to post- OAEs oxygen rise rather than triggering anoxia."
https://www.science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/sciadv.ady4534
Common mechanisms of the Late Ordovician and Late Devonian ME:
"These transient P surges align with biodiversity loss, widespread anoxia, and seawater temperature declines, suggesting a link between P flux, ocean anoxia, and global climate shifts,"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-70701-y
Terrestriality as an exaptation?
"aquatic member of this stem lineage and demonstrates that the loss of exopods, which results in uniramous limbs, pre-dated the common ancestor of the amphibious euthycarcinoids and terrestrial myriapods"
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/293/2070/20260131/481605/A-marine-stem-myriapod-from-the-Silurian-Waukesha
A #Bretskyan_hierarchy approach in explaining the terrestrial ecosystem evolution in the Eastern Asia. Dinosaurs, pterosaurs, insects and plants -- all of them were affected and their evolution controlled by tectonics.
https://t.co/mB18Njihj3
Three great nonlinear geophysicists and winners of the Lewis Fry Richardson Medal:
Shaun Lovejoy (2019)
Daniel Schertzer (2015)
Anastasios Tsonis (2026)
Also Anastasios presents his medal lecture "On the Origins of Randomness" at EGU26.
Great talk by Jason J. Head on the use of the ecomorphology of reptiles in reconstructing past climate. Most of us are familiar with mammal ecometrics. But maybe the age of reptile ecometrics is nearing? 😎
Anybody at the EGU26?
Interesting Alfred Wegener Medal talk by Thomas Stocker at EGU26. He presented an Odyssey of explaining Last Glacial millennial scale Dansgaard–Oeschger Events, as it turns out the dynamical systems simulations shown how they can self-sustain themselves at certain conditions.
Interesting study exploring limiting effects of toxic compounds on the macroevolution of animals.
In evolution, you need to wait for the mergence of suitable conditions. Sleeping beauty of macroevolution.
https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/11/8/nwae237/7710134
Today is the constitution day of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Litwo! Ojczyzno moja! ty jesteś jak zdrowie;
Ile cię trzeba cenić, ten tylko się dowie,
Kto cię stracił. Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie
Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.
Pan Tadeusz (1834)
Adam Mickiewicz
Had a great discussion on the problem of the de-extinction in the physics and natural sciences students conference "Open Readings 2026".
RE: @DrEvanGowan@fediscience.org
Jinshinsei
Major transitions in AI as Existential threats. Who said that the theory is useless? 😃
"..trends through the theory of major evolutionary transitions and suggest that eAI could mark a shift in the units and substrates of evolution—a possible “Life 2.0.”"
https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.2527700123
Damn these archeologists are good at finding dinosaurs! Leaving nothing for paleontologists even in China.
I would guess, the longest *optimal* journey
Interesting on-site and online lecture on the P-Tr mass extinction environments:
"Pangea on Acid: Extreme Environments, Climate, and Life during Permo-Triassic Time - Public Lecture"
https://www.geolsoc.org.uk/events/pangea-on-acid-extreme-environments-climate-and-life-during-permo-triassic-time-public-lecture/
