Eric Scott

It's #NationalFossilDay in the US! This year the site of interest is White Sands National Park in New Mexico, US, where human footprints document the earliest confirmed record of people in the Americas. Not coincidentally, a new paper on these fossils is just out! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧪

For #FossilFriday: my first-ever visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, which is slated to close permanently this weekend unless some sort of miracle occurs. I'm thrilled to finally be here after a lifetime of wanting to visit, but heartbroken at the circumstances for my trip. 🦖🧪

I've been a professional paleontologist for over 40 years now. I did not choose this work because of some off screen unknown museum research, I chose it because I *saw* the results of that research *in person*, as a child, up close & sometimes even touchable. I *loved* museums and still do.

For #FossilFriday: my first-ever visit to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, which is slated to close permanently this weekend unless some sort of miracle occurs. I'm thrilled to finally be here after a lifetime of wanting to visit, but heartbroken at the circumstances for my trip. 🦖🧪

For #FossilFriday: holotype of the extinct Pleistocene bison species Bison antiquus, one of millions of specimens housed in the collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University - the oldest natural history museum in the US, now slated for permanent closure on 30 September. 🧪

Closing the oldest natural history museum in the US is a shortsighted & essentially lazy idea that wholly misses the importance of museums in inspiring people to a better appreciation of the natural world. If the Academy was having visitation issues, closing the venue permanently is not the answer.

For #FossilFriday: holotype of the extinct Pleistocene bison species Bison antiquus, one of millions of specimens housed in the collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University - the oldest natural history museum in the US, now slated for permanent closure on 30 September. 🧪

Sadly, poor management by Drexel University has led to the ill-conceived decision to close the Academy Museum and sell the property. While Drexel says it's "just" the nearly 200-year old Museum closing, "the Academy remains committed to public engagement and education". Right. 🙄

It's the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, & I'm looking around our home & seeing evidence of how Trek has been with me my whole life - books I still own from after the show ended & we fans *hoped* for another series (or even a movie!), signed photos on our wall from 1970s conventions, etc. #StarTrek

The same goes for my wife, who's much younger but is also a Star Trek fan - probably part of why we're still together after all these years! But she's a TNG girl, while I'm old school TOS. Here's art she painted that we took to conventions in the 90s and got signed. Geeks to the end! #StarTrek

Very happy to see this! Well deserved and long overdue. Dorothea Bate was the first woman employee of the Natural History Museum @nhm-london.bsky.social , where she started at age 19 & then continued to work for 50 years. She became Curator of Ice Age birds and mammals in 1924. #MuseumMonday

The idea that the oldest natural history museum in the US is closing its doors, due to poor management & limited foresight, just shy of their bicentennial celebration is simply appalling. There is simply no legitimate excuse. This is a failure of vision and competence from Drexel University. Shame.

This legal action is so good to see. The illegal land grab by the current US administration, & the conservative Utah politicians supporting this harmful action, will dramatically & adversely impact numerous significant fossil resources as well as multiple cultural & sacred Indigenous sites. 🦖🧪

Solid article. And Cary @doublebeam.bsky.social likely isn't wrong in his prediction. (In fact, it has already happened, just not over a dinosaur; paleontologist Charles Repenning was murdered in his home in January 2005 by burglars looking to steal fossils among other things.)

For #FossilFriday: a skull of the extinct horse Equus scotti under study in the collections at the Western Science Center in Hemet, California, US. The fossil was recently recovered from Pleistocene sediments (~ 500 ka) in Murrieta, CA, US, & will be showcased at the WSC's annual PaleoCon event. 🐎🧪

One of the greatest live albums ever released (in my opinion) came out 52 years ago today, on 19 August 1974. Recorded in February 1974 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, US, it captured the group at the height of their success. It even reached No. 4 on the Billboard 200! #ELP

For #FossilFriday: posing with fossil bison skull from Orange County, California at the Ralph B. Clark Interpretive Center in Buena Park, CA. Bison were among the most abundant large mammals in late Pleistocene SoCal (& the rest of North America), but their remains from "the OC" need more study. 🧪