High-Performance Dinosaurs?

Once again I have been a tad lackadaisical on the blog front, mainly a function of marking exam re-sits and writing a chapter for a volume on high-performance computing and dinosaurs....yes, HPC meets Jurassic Park!

How on earth can that be, I hear you all say? Dinosaurs are often hailed as a scientific communication breakthrough, but is this really the case? Does the ‘and finally’ news story, usually based upon a recent publication, give credit to the years of painstaking work from discovery to final interpretation? The same can be said for many areas of science, where the object of the science becomes the story but not the science itself. This, in part, is the fault of both media and the scientists, given we must be more aware of how our science is translated into digestible chunks that can be understood by non-specialist audiences. Dinosaurs, however, are in a unique position (albeit a quite extinct one). These animals have the potential to unlock many new areas of science to the public, given they provide a unique vehicle to deliver often complex science. Whether it be particle physicists blasting fossils with high energy X-rays at a synchrotron (Bergmann et al 2010 in PNAS) or computational biologists making dinosaurs run in virtual environments (Sellers and Manning 2007 in the Proc. Roy. Soc. B), it is clear these extinct giants have a role to play in engaging thepublic with more than just old fossil bones.

But why the HPC and dinosaurs chapter? Well, in the past ten years the science of palaeontology has been reinventing itself, looking to new disciplines to solve very old questions. Now that palaeontology is such a diverse, interdisciplinary research area, it has successfully facilitated the communication of science. Interdisciplinary work with engineers, geneticists, computer scientists and many other disciplines provides avenues that might excite interest in what might be considered discrete areas of research. Indeed, computational palaeontology is a splendid example of how the digitisation of specimens and subsequent computational analyses are both eye-catching and easy to distribute though modern media. The chapter I've been writing with Dr Peter Falkingham presents some studies studies detailing the different ways in which communicating dinosaurs to the public can facilitate understanding of wider disciplines. The use of museum displays, science festivals, television, and visiting schools will be but a few examples we have explored, to illustrate the application of past life to presenting 21st Century science...all with a liberal dosing of High-Performance Computing!

Last full-day in the field

Today was a snagging day. Working out the how, why, when and where of the sites we have visited over the past two weeks. Whilst it has been a very productive week with many mountains climbed, the toughest mountain of the all is looming. Mt. Funding.

We would have to walk the access road today…if it still exists, as roads often disappear that grace the maps we pour over on a daily basis. So many times this past two weeks have dirt roads disappeared before our very eyes… sometimes on a make-shift dam, other times in mid-field…so frustrating. We are stuck when it comes to progressing by vehicle, as the super-heated catalytic convertors are like struck matchsticks to the tinder dry grasslands. We also have to respect the landowners who let us cross their ranches to our often land-locked parcels of BLM land.
This is also the hardest part of the fieldwork, as we have to turn our backs on many bones, leaving them in the ground to fend for themselves. The fate of many bones is unsure even given the level of their protection is high in the USA, but their remote position makes them vulnerable, given such large areas are impossible to police.

It is only through working with local ranchers and the BLM office that we might offer some network of protection for such sensitive sites. Areas hidden from prying eyes by the very buttes we so covet when hunting dinosaurs. Each member of the team has played their part in making this short field season a successful, but albeit too brief one. Hopefully next year a bigger team can help take the excavation to the next level, as the site we have chosen to return to is both large and remote, but thankfully with little overburden.

Today our new site did not let us down. We managed to collect teeth from at least four different predatory dinosaurs from a tiny dromaeosaur to the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex… yes, the site gave up a vast chisel-shaped, serrated tooth of T. rex. Eric was the first to spot the rex tooth, but several other elements from different teeth were soon found. It seems our dinosaur graveyard, might have been a site for prehistoric supper some 65 million years ago.

As you have probably guessed I have been quite coy with names and places this past two weeks…this is for very good reason. We hope to return next year to a little square of Earth that holds so much promise, but hopefully remains untouched and intact. Only a few have been lucky enough to see the wonder of this site, but it is our hope that in the future we can save this site for the many.
Working so closely with a team for two weeks helps you learn much about your fellow palaeo’s. What makes them tick and what ticks them off. This is certainly the same in all walks of life, but we must always take time to realize that hunting dinosaurs is one of those jobs many just dream of, but we very lucky few get to do. If I take anything from this field season, it is that more folks should experience the rush of touching the fossil remains of long dead animals. This thrill does not change with repetition, as each new find helps piece together the complex mosaic of past life on our planet.

Slipping with Dinosaurs

Today was one of those days when things went well, very well. In fact, the past two days have been blindingly stunning on the bone front. So much so, I cannot say exactly what we have found...yes…that good! The biggest find of this field campaign was made by Victoria Egerton. She was the envy of every red-blooded bone hunter on the Badlands today. It must be said that after making the find, she insisted it was a team effort, but that was only due to us tying her-up in gaffer tape and threatening to bury her…we’re not bitter. Honest. Her site is slap bang in the middle of BLM land and has little to no overburden (this being the USUAL 300 tons of rock you have to move prior to getting to bone). Even better, the bones she has found are stuck in a fine-grained sandstone unit (looking just like a nice channel sand), capped with typical Hell Creek overbank mud. This site will be the reason we come back next year and possibly for many years! If anything, just to find where we buried Victoria…we’re not jealous.

Victoria is in the process of completing her PhD at Drexel University in Philadelphia. She has much experience of chasing dinosaurs from South America, North America and Europe. She wanted to be a geologist when she was knee-high to a grasshopper and has pursued her passion for palaeontology with much vigour. In fact these past few days she has been sprinting up and down Badlands and falling on her rear-end; repeatedly. This is not down to a lack of coordination, but more to do with the fact that her walking boots have less grip than a pair of roller-skates on a sheet of greasy ice…this has been entertaining the whole team all week. A couple of times she has stranded herself on the sides of buttes, hanging precariously, asking for assistance…we eventually give in, once we have picked ourselves up off the floor and clearing our eyes from the tears of laughter. We’re a supportive bunch.

Victoria is a very self-sufficient soul, who often refuses help when offered. This can be a little frustrating on the occasion she is about to slide (Torvil and Dean Ice Dance style) into a sunk-hole. This said, she is always first to jump the void. Holding your own amongst a bunch of hairy guys is not easy…even for me, but she keeps one and all in her small stride…as she is also a short-arse. In fact, in tall grass we keep losing her, hence the attached bell on her rucksack, but yesterday Bill followed a rancher’s dog for over a mile through tall grass, thanks to a bell trinket on its collar. Jason suggests that we need to invest in a large baby-backpack so we can carry her through the long grass…she’s not too keen on this!

The spitting, swearing, hard-drinking and general loutish behaviour of Victoria has earned the team much kudos with the locals. She won last weeks pig-wrestling competition and we’re entering her for the pig-racing later this week. We’re sorry that we will miss the next months long-horn jousting, as Victoria is mean with an AK47 bayonet (she claimed as her field tool….actually beat if off a Russian storm trooper by all accounts!). To be honest, Victoria is a sweet Southern Bell, with nerves of steel and a bayonet to match.

Enough of Vic the Impaler. The site we saw today was one that makes grown palaeontologist weep with joy. So much bones, good bone, in one place, with stack still to be uncovered. Dinosaur Nirvana was found today in the Hell Creek. Woof! We are now all sat comfortably in our local salon celebrating today’s finds, toasting the fact that Jason Schein is home safely and has missed probably the biggest find in his whole career…not that we’re rubbing it in...hahahahahahaha! Jason ‘sexy-beast’ Poole is sad that his parallel Jason buddy is not here with us, he has renamed his invisible friend ‘Jason’…we’re just letting it pass, as he is bigger than the rest of us. His invisible buddy keeps asking him to cut-off his shirt-sleeves?

In the next few months we will have to find ways to raise funds to excavate this new site. This is not easy in the current financial climate. Some may even argue we should not be funding such frivolous science. However, I can assure all that the techniques we have been developing to tease information from fossils are now being applied to many living species. The blasting of fossil feathers with synchrotrons is allowing us to understand much about modern species that hold so much more chemistry for us to sample and interpret. The use of LiDAR (laser scanning) is helping us map excavations, but police map scenes of crimes, the computational models helping us understand the locomotion and loading of extinct bones, is now being applied to humans and other animals. Without the ‘blue-sky’ science of palaeontology, so much would not be developed and applied to other fields, lest we not forget the younger scientists who start with dinosaurs and pursue these animals into science whilst at school. Dinosaurs still have an important place in the encouragement and development of science in many disciplines. I hope there is some glint of support for our future endeavours, as

who knows where it might lead.

The taphonomic clock of time is ticking. This site has remained entombed for 65 million years before being exposed and will only survive the bleak winters and harsh summers of South Dakota for an instant of geological time. Once bones are exposed, they weather and soon crumble to dust. The blistering heat, heavy rain and even hail and snow of summer will soon subside to the yet more severe weather of winter. In these parts, if you don’t like the weather, just wait five minutes. This remarkable Hell Creek time capsule will undoubtedly reveal much about the last blast of the dinosaurs’ reign on our planet. We have a rare opportunity to save a snapshot from our planets past, in a time when we worry about its future. Let us not forget, the past is indeed a powerful key to the present. The message from the fossil record about lost worlds and forgotten lives must not fall upon deaf ears.

Mammoths, Presidents and Mexican Meals.

Today we decided to have a day off from the Badlands. Not that we were tired of finding bone…as that is the reason we exist, but the mosquito bites were now so numerous…we just needed a break from the South Dakota Vampires. We were that fed-up of being bitten; we were prepared to drive all the way to Hot Springs to see more recent bones, those from the last Ice Age.

Dr. Larry Agenbroad is the brains behind the whole Mammoth site and its development since 1976. Larry is literally a mammoth legend in the world of Ice-Age Woollies. The first thing that he asks me EVERY time that he meets me always makes me grin… “Are you still working on those Lizards Phil?”…there is a splendid divide between the dinosaur and mammal world that few broach…bar maybe Larry, as his site is simply gob-smacking in every way. Here is where mammoth and mastodon came to die…repeatedly!

Our biology specialist team member, Bill Sellers, was particularly taken with the mammoth site. If you’re ever in a queue and there is a chap in front of you with a sorry looking, duck-tape repaired purple rucksack…it will probably be Bill. He and his backpack have been inseparable for at least 25 years…it is older than some members of the field team! In this time, his rucksack has accumulated various repairs, additions and possibly its very own ecosystem, reliant upon Bill inserting foodstuffs into the purple void. Bill has been known only to travel with this rucksack with no hold-luggage, surviving on a minuscule amount of clothing for a week…plus it doubles as his laptop bag. He has a passion for all living things and usually has his camera pressed to his face chasing grasshoppers to Rhinoceros…the latter I have done with him and have the scars to prove it! His area of specialism is primate locomotion, but the movement of any living (or extinct) organism brings a smile to Bills pale face. Did I not mention his pallor skin? Bill can spend a month in the tropics only wearing a thong and still come back white as a sheet. Each morning he bathes in pints of 50+ SPF sun cream. Camera crews have used his chest as white-balance check in the past. His hallmark purple ecosystem is nicely set-off with his pink sunglasses…yes, bright pink.

Bill literally views the world through rose-tinted glasses and assures us it’s much better that way. Bill decided he was not sleeping too well after the first few nights, so he went in search of something inflatable to wrangle in his sleep. He searched high and low for a suitable device, but had to settle for an airbed. His nightly residence in the fieldstations workshop has paid dividends on the mosquito front...they do not seem to like the smell of engine oil!

Bill and I were particularly interested in the tracks in the mammoth site, as they are in stunning cross-section, telling us so much of the mechanics of their formation. Standing inside the bone-pens with Larry and the team, visitors walking past watched us with confusion, as we ignored the bones and stared at squelch marks in the site walls. Before long, we were clearly part of the exhibit, with the bones left literally where they were found, now augmented with a bunch of gesticulating scientists…bar ‘sexy beast’ Jason, who disowned us to go and sketch the site. Between us, we probably managed to spoil a large number of tourist photographs of the mammoth site, for this we are truly sorry! A great thing about such visits with new folks; you get a chance to hatch some fresh research ideas. Bill and I were very keen to excavate one of the large mammal trackways in the site...a heinous crime even to ask such a thing. However, Larry was happy…sorry about that one…to let us excavate the said trackway next year. We are now planning a small mammal-tracking excursion next year…funding permitting!

After Walking with Mammoths and thanking Larry, we headed to see Mount Rushmore, stopping first at George Washington’s profile...and then a presidential full-frontal. As always we were greeted by a low murmur of, “its smaller than I thought it was”, “is that it?”, “where is the full size presidents?”…if Mount Rushmore had ears, it would have a complex!

Beautiful Buttes Barely Bring Bone but Burnish Butt’s Belligerently!

As you have probably guessed by now that I’m using this Blog to introduce you to the members of this years South Dakota field crew. The fun thing with palaeontology, we are all different…some more different than others. These past two days have been a tad busy, so my apologies for a slow upload of events, besides…trying to find WiFi in the Badlands, is a bit like trying to find a lost contact lens in a swimming pool.

We have trawled several new localities these past two days, all yielding dinosaur bone, but some richer than others. Today’s biggest find was made by Eric Morschhauser, our University of Pennsylvania PhD student team member. The said bones were from a rather hefty Triceratops in the Upper most portion of the Hell Creek Formation. There was plenty of bone poking out from a relatively low butte, meaning there will not be too much overburden to shift when we come back to this site next year. As this is exactly what we intend to do (funding permitting!). The bones exposed were recognizable and in pretty good shape, which is often a good indicator of things to come. After much slobbering over the bones, we carefully covered the site to avoid prying eyes…even though we were in the middle of nowhere, just for a change.

Eric Morschhauser was just the right person to stumble over his 65 million year old Triceratops, as his PhD is studying these beasties and its ancestors (mostly from China). You might say that Eric is your typical PhD student, very keen…no I mean VERY keen. He is bright, articulate and as fond of dinosaurs as any member of the field crew. He cut his dinosaurian teeth at Montana State University before heading East to UPenn, but has settled well into the rigours of scholarly research. Eric is now formally a ‘Dodsonite’, in other words a student of Peter Dodson, who knows almost all that a soul should know about horny animals in the Cretaceous, or Ceratopsians to fellow palaeo’s. Peter Dodson is one of the main reasons why I shall be spending much of my sabbatical at Penn. His wealth and generosity of knowledge is only surpassed for his appetite for good food and well-kept beer.
After a few nights of roughing it at the field station, we decided to seek comfort in a real bed and a shower that was not shared by various things that bite and sting. We all piled into our SUV and headed into town to find a suitable hostelry that would take in our motley field crew. As we arrived at the Motel, we took a look at each other…not a pretty site! I was smelly, dishevelled and unshaven, the same could be said for the whole crew…bar Victoria, who did not need a shave! “What will this Motel manager make of us lot” I asked…Jason suggested we might be mistaken for a rock-band…Eric interjected that he “was the cute one”. However, Eric’s boyish looks are slowly evolving into the ‘palaeo-mountain-man-look’, he is now sporting several days stubble…that will soon flourish into a manly ‘un-cute’ beard! We’re not sure that his wife will recognize him when he returns to Philly, but she has prior experience of ‘Hairy Eric’ from their recent trip to a razorless China. We’re learning more about Eric as the fieldwork progresses.

Sleeping on a bed, after a week on a roll-mat and sleeping bag is utter heaven. To also have a shower that was ‘yours’ and not shared by the whole field crew (not at the same time I might add) is utter luxury. Not to be bitten my mosquitoes while in the shower or bed…again, pure luxury. I caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. The mosquito population had clearly sequestered much blood from me in the last few days. My arms, neck and ankles were a dot-to-dot exercise that would entertain a dermatologist for hours. My face…I looked like a pubescent teenager again, with enough direct hits from mosquitoes to frighten any self-respecting doctor into prescribing lotions and potions to protect the publics eyes. I felt as about as attractive as a wart-hog with hygiene issues. But why me…these blood-sucking nasties of the Hell Creek seemed to be avoiding most of the team and surrounding me in feeding frenzy every time I was daft enough to expose skin. My mosquito net that I draped over my hat, only seemed to succeed in trapping the little bugger closer to my skin…they even managed to get through my damn jeans! The tungsten-tipped mouthparts of the pigeon sized South Dakotan mosquitoes were no match for anything I wore or glazed myself with. The 100% Deet just seemed to marinate my flesh for an alternative flavour to these voracious gits.

The hunt for fossil bone, was not being hampered by lack or water, enthusiasm or even snakes…just mosquitoes, literally draining the life-blood from our endeavours. We needed a day off…a Mammoth day-off…

First Rattler with many beasties!

Today we had one ‘hell’ of an interesting site to see in the Badlands. I was amazed at how green the landscape looked. Last time I was here, brush fires were raging from North to South Dakota. This year there was no haze of smoke on the horizon. The rain meant fantastic plant growth, more food for the rodents, providing even more to eat for the resident reptiles. Apparently, it had been a good year for rattlesnakes. The very mild winter (I think all the snow fell on Philadelphia and Washington DC this year) had allowed many more to survive and breed, especially with the now plentiful rodent population, which had also taken advantage of the mild winter. The haemotoxic venom they are capable of delivering makes them potential problems for all field crews. However, the distinctive rattle, a series of modified scales at the tip of the tail, usually gives plenty of warning. I was more worried about the very young snakes, which do not have a rattle and cannot gauge how much venom to pump into their prey, often delivering too much—small snake does not equal less venom! The availability of anti-venom has reduced the fatality rate of rattler bites to a mere 4 percent. Yet I didn’t care to become a statistic.

We are all kept in contact while prospecting via decent walkie-talkies. The claimed 36 mile range for our units was reduced to around 5 miles in the Badlands…enough so we can comb large areas in split groups. Today the two Jason’s were off together prospecting on the opposite side of a typical Hell Creek washout. We were doing the usual locate, GPS, map and written descriptions of everything we found. As they waded through the long grass Jason Poole heard the sound that makes anyone’s heart skip a beat. The rattle of a rattlesnake is a sign that it knows exactly where you are…but it is rare that you know the same of the snake. Their camouflage is too perfect, especially in long grass. Most sane people run away from this sound, shoot at the sound or beat the said sound with a large stick or any available sharp object...but our Jason’s, they laugh in the face of such sounds and seek its origin. The pair are simply bonkers…I simply asked “why”, they simply answered, “we want to get a decent photo of a rattler”….of course! Thankfully, the snake avoided them…I must work on their suicidal snake tendencies! This reminds me of an old friend, Duncan McIlroy, who is based at Memorial University (Canada). He, a colleague and I were driving across the Valdez Peninsula in Argentina and had been taking pictures all day of various beasties, but we had yet to take a photo of a skunk…yes, I hear you say, “that’s possibly worse than a snake”…such ventures are always bound to end in a sticky (or in this case smelly) end. This is a tail I will tell another day…but at least we survived with photographic evidence!

Jason Schein was on his last day with the field team, as he had to start the long (VERY long) drive back to Philadelphia. He had already been working in Red Lodge (Montana) for two weeks before joining us in South Dakota. Jason Schein is quite different from his “sexy beast” hairy ‘twin’. Jason Schein has a special place in many married women’s hearts…they simply adore his southern accent, cut-off T-shirts, biceps the size of most sumo-wrestlers thighs. Jason is our ‘palaeo-hunk’, but doubles as a ‘palaeo-hulk’ when excessively large objects need shifting. He is not only graced with brawn, but also excessive cranial capacity…he’s nearing the completion of his PhD…so soon we will have to deal with ‘Dr palaeo-hunk’. He works at the New Jersey State Museum…just in case there are any guys out there who do not wish to place their wives under his spell…by taking the kids to the Museum. Jason also has a splendid habit of being very understated and reserved, almost British in his gentle nature…again, we’re sure it’s a cunning ploy to entrance the opposite sex. In my own vain attempt for me to look relatively muscle-bound next to Jason, I’m trying to get the mosquito population to concentrate their bites on my biceps…pitiful attempt on my part!

Today we got more than lucky on the theropod front. Literally meaning “beast-foot” this group includes all predatory dinosaurs and even their descendants, the birds! In the Hell Creek Formation this includes the ubiquitous Tyrannosaurus rex, various dromaeosaurs (nasty little predators aka Jurassic Park Velociraptor) and a few less well-known beasties such as Nanotyrannus. Today we managed to pick up various body parts from almost all of these animals. Something I have never done in my whole career as a palaeontologist, so you can imagine we were all totally gob-smacked!

Sunburn with Dinosaurs.

The town where we are staying is small. We were looking for the land registry office today and we did not know where it was. It took us 3 minutes to find. Every time we find a patch of yellow on our BLM surface maps, it signifies a place we must checkout the outcrops to see what has weathered or is weathering from our precious slice of Hell Creek. It is courteous and right that we speak to all landowners before we blunder on to their land; hence we need to work through the land register each time.Once landowners have been contacted, we then packed our field vehicles and headed out into the Badlands. Metalled roads soon turn to gravel and then these to dirt. Soon we were off the maps, headed for our patches of yellow-mapped heaven in Hell Creek.

It never fails to amaze me how natural selection has overcome complex barriers to enhancing a species success rate and/or survival. The barrier in question today consisted various chemical cocktails, clothing, hats and Kevlar underpants. The pigeon-sized mosquitoes of South Dakota have ‘found a way’ (in true Jurassic Park fashion) of drilling through most barriers to extract your blood. They hunt in packs…and are far too affective. It would not surprise me that it was down to these blood-sucking females (the males do not suck blood!) that many a vast species has been driven to distraction…after the 50th bite, most crumble to gibbering wreck, as mad as a box of frogs. You think twice about bearing your arse to the world and relieving yourself in the Badlands, as you your rear-end will soon resemble a dart-board. As for pointing Percy at the porcelain, A) there is no porcelain to point at for 50 clicks and B) This would be far too good a target for any self-respecting mosquitoto pass-by. The thought of a direct hit in the wedding tackle, gives most field palaeontologists nightmares, given the voraciousness of these ambush predators.

Today would be our first long, hot, hiking day in the sun. I love the smell of bug repellent in the morning! But alas, our repellent was about as much use a chocolate fireguard.

The first few sections we set foot upon had not been looked at for many years. We started finding bone almost immediately. Jason Poole was as keen as the rest of us to cut a pathway through the mosquitoes. Jason ‘Chewy’ Poole informed me today that his ‘press agent’ (also called Jason?) demands that I have to use the phrase ‘sexy beast’ after his name (I’m not sure if Jason Schein’s wife, Sarah, knows this!). Jason ‘sexy beast’ is quite a force of nature; George Lucas found inspiration for his Wooky character from the then 7 year old Jason…he must have needed to start shaving at 5 years old, but clearly did not. His flowing locks would put Fabio to shame…rumours of a hair-product deal are never far from Jason’s door! He is the anti-Christ of shaving foam, face balm and Gillette razors, but a thoroughly splendid chap. Fossils are more than just a past blast of an ancient landscape to our ‘sexy beast’, he loves to tease these disjointed fragments from the past into some semblance of life in the present…with a pencil. I’m not suggesting some proctological examination here, but our hairy friend is an accomplished artist...often from an unusual perspective...

He has drawn dinosaurs from the frozen wastelands of Patagonia to the deserts of Egypt, but spends most of his time convincing kids they too are able to draw dinosaurs…he is still working on me! His daytime job in Philly has him chasing dinosaurs in the prep lab of the Academy of Natural Sciences, a job he clearly enjoys far too much.

The delights of removing grains of silt…grain-by-grain, from dinosaurs bones would have most sane folks run screaming to the hills after 20 minutes…Jason disappears into his parallel-prep universe, with a worrying glazed look in his eyes…we move the sharp things away from him at this point.

The first ranch we explored had three sections of BLM land to ferret around in. Almost straight away, we started to find bone. By mid-day we had lost several pints of blood to the mosquito cohort, but we had mapped eleven new sites from a couple of potential Triceratops to several very productive micro-sites. The latter are sites that yield beautifully preserved teeth of dinosaurs, fish scales, occasional vertebrae and other such goodies. After a major hike, its great to find such a site, given we can all collapse and quietly pick through the 65 million year old debris. Soothing and satisfying....but not half as satisfying as the tyrannosaur claw we found below!

By the end of day one…we were all bitten and shattered. We staggered back to the field vehicles and sat silently in the welcome air-con of the car…how did those first settlers make-it through this harsh and unforgiving landscape. Now was the time to drink a cold beer, review the finds

Hills, Grasslands & Badlands.

Flying is not my favourite thing. Given my work often entails getting to the middle of no-where…planes are usually involved. The relatively vast airport of San Diego is another planet when compared to Rapid City. If there was ever an airport that I could call my favourite, it would be this one. Once off the plane you walk a hundred years to the exit, down an escalator that almost deposits you in front of your baggage. Whilst waiting a few minutes for your luggage, you can just turn 180 degrees and talk to your car rental agent. All is simple, smooth and hassle-free…I only wish that all airports were still like Rapid.

Bill Sellers was already waiting for us in the airport, as he had arrived on a slightly earlier flight. His eyes were red with lack of sleep. He has been up for nearly 24 hours. I had already met Victoria Egerton, Jason Poole and Eric Morchhausser had met me en-route in Denver, my stepping-stone from San Diego. Once we had all our bags and belongings, plus sorted the car rental, we set-off outside, where we met the last member of our team, Jason Schine. He had been working in Montana these past two weeks and was to join us for the first few days of our fieldwork. We were all tired, but jumped in our two field vehicles and set-off to Hill City, where we were to stay the night at Pete Larson’s house.

Pete’s house is simply stunning. It precariously hugs the rocks on a small peak between Hill City and Keystone. He built the place with his bare hands and with a great deal of jack-hammering, timber and determination. We were given the usual warm welcome and a cold beer. We all went to sleep very quickly, as we knew tomorrow would be a long day of sorting supplies, maps, getting permits signed and sorting out the field station.

We all woke and were up and supping coffee by 7am and at the Black Hills Museum ogling at dinosaurs by 8am. Here is the home of ‘Stan’ the T. rex, excavated in the early 1990’s by the Black Hills Institute, where Peter Larson is the president. Pete gave one and all a guided tour of the Museum and its collections and also of the workshops where his company makes stunning casts of the bones of Stan, such as the mount you can see at the Manchester Museum and countless others around the world. The Museum is situated in Hill City, just near Mount Rushmore. Here is a museum that has not forgotten that the fossils are the stars…this Aladdin’s Cave of prehistoric life warms the cockles of my heart every time I see them. The converted music hall is like Dr Who’s tardis meets carnival of the dead-animals, with every inch of space occupied. The real fossil bones of Stan the T. rex…and several other Cretaceous & Jurassic colleagues of his, tower over visitors to the Museum. Gasps of ‘Wow, that’s awesome’ and ‘Look at the size of that critter’ are often muttered in hushed reverential tones, unlike when the same folks see Mount Rushmore and say, “Wow, isn’t that small?”.

Collecting our bags and belongings together, we set-off from the Black Hills. We were driving north to the Hell Creek deposits of South Dakota. The final leg of our long journey was nearly at an end. Several hours later, we had already been to the BLM office to get our permit signed and activated, then at the end of another long drive, we arrived at our facility that was to be our field station for the next two weeks. The drive over the prairie was one that I thought I would never see…it was green! In the ten years I have been coming to the USA, there has been a dreadful drought affecting the mid-West. Last year, the rains came and this year they have continued. The long, deep green prairie stretches as far as the eye can see. Ranch fences, ponds and small creeks break the monotony of the grasslands. Pronghorn antelope are common, but you have to be fast to spot them before they bolt at impossible speeds across the landscape. These graceful animals have the pace and timing of Olympians, as they sprint ‘through’ barbed-wire fences, not over or under, but between the wires at full steam. The grace with which I pass over or under such fences being at the other end of the graceful-spectrum…more like a clown trying to make something look as difficult or dumb as possible.

As we opened the car doors, a subtle but distant smell of sagebrush greeted us, as did a swarm of hungry mosquitoes the size of pigeons. We were back in the Badlands.

Hello Mexico, goodbye Tijuana!

At last, I am a legal non-residential immigrant in the USA, but not without some cross-boarder excitement in the delightful town of Tijuana (Mexico). My US VISA needed an official stamp to validate the said document. This required me leaving the US for a few hours, to queue in the border town of Tijuana to re-enter the USA. This I had to do en-route to the Badlands of South Dakota, as I was asked to give the keynote lecture at the Association of Avian Veterinarians meeting in San Diego a day before my VISA was to be valid. Here was the problem. Given my VISA was not yet valid, it required me enter the US on my ESTA tourist VISA… and then 24 hours later, I would have to get my J1 VISA activated by leaving and returning to the USA. All too complicated.

After arriving in San Diego to attend the AAV meeting, I very soon had to contemplate making the cross-border sortie with two of Karen Rosenthal’s (University of Pennsylvania’s) most trusted colleagues and friends (Dr Tia Greenberg and Dr Bianca Zaffarano)…the fact she was sending an ex-military police kick-boxer (Tia) for protection should have had alarm bells ringing in my mind. Karen decided to stay at the conference hotel. Tijuana can’t be that bad…surely?

As we drove towards the border, a mere 20 minutes from the conference hotel, the jokes about “Kevlar armour, drug lords and gang wars” were bantered friendly between us…. Tijuana can’t be that bad…surely? Tia and Bianca were having a great deal of fun...while I was a tad worried.

We arrived at the border and I was greeted with a typical US border crossing, but not quite like the ones I’m used to crossing between the US and Canada. The fences seemed much taller and sharper here. We walked to the steel turn-style gate that was the border crossing, more of a rotation than a crossing and I was soon in Mexico…a handful of folks and I spun into Tijuana. Tia and Bianca called helpfully from the other side of the gate, as they had both forgotten their US passports, “Good-luck Phil…write to us”. I followed the trickle of folks from the gate towards town, as I knew I would have to cross over the major road entering Tijuana to get to the border control for the US. I was confident that this would only take a couple of minutes…I really should have googled this.

As I passed two Mexican border guards…I think this is what they were, as they were more like a pile of body armour holding large guns…they looked at me and smiled…I think I know what they were thinking. Maybe I should have taken my best shirt and tie off for this journey, my briefcase and Panama hat made me feel quite conspicuous…ho-hum. Leaving the Mexican border control (of which there was none!). I was greeted by folks offering me taxi rides into town, various spicy foods and a tiny puppy…the latter two being easily confused. The pathway led to a winding bridge that lifted you slowly over the border highway towards the US checkpoint.

There was a queue. Not just any queue, but one that stretched as far as I could see… I wondered what all these folks were queuing for, but in my mind I was blocking the inevitable answer…the US border. We Brit’s are pretty good at queuing, but this queue makes a mile long January Sales queue look like a picnic. Clutching my passport, papers and briefcase to my chest I waded into the mass of humanity. It was clearly much busier leaving Mexico than it was entering.

1 hour of queuing and I was at the first checkpoint. Security waved a group of us through and we started to queue again, but this time with concrete buildings and steel fences around us. I could not decide if they were trying to keep people in or out…maybe both. Slowly we snaked our way off to the distant promise of the immigration booths...an end to my hour and a half queuing exercise was tantalizingly near. At last I was able to place my passport with my shiny new VISA before a border control officer. He looked at it and then at me… “Sir, this does not have a stamp”. Whilst this was a valid point, I did not see that there was a problem…I simply replied, “I was rather hoping you would give me the said stamp”. He looked back at the page, “I can’t do that Sir”… bugger, was my VISA the wrong sort, did my photo make me look too dodgy, what had I done wrong?…thankfully nothing. Apparently, I just needed a different kind of stamp to the one he had. “Sir, you have to go back to the Security check point and go to the VISA and Immigration office for your stamp” he then added… “at the other end of the queue”. Crest-fallen, I slowly dragged my feet back towards Tijuana…it was not letting me leave its grip easily. I was visiting Mexico for a second time in the same day. Tia and Bianca on the US side of the border, waiting for my re-entry, were getting bored and decided to torment Karen back at the AAV meeting. They had already started texting pictures of complete strangers to Karen with the messages, “Is this Phil?”, “Does Phil look like this?” etc….20 successful migrants were being run past Karen’s iPhone to provide a positive ID for me. She was beginning to get a little nervous…so was I.

Reaching the border again, the first guard who had let me through to the control area looked at my VISA and smiled… “Sir, you have to join that queue”…he pointed beyond the border crossing into Mexico, to a second queue, leading back towards Tijuana. I realized that it would be futile telling him that he had earlier directed me through to the border control that afternoon and the wrong queue…I was soon back in Mexico, in a new queue. The new queue seemed to move more quickly than the last, which was quite heartening…until I found out why. I was soon in the low-ceiling immigration offices with a small group of fellow queuers waiting for stamps, signatures and our forms to be processed. Ahead of me, two ladies were in heated conversation with two border officers…the handcuffs came out, they were applied and the said ladies led away…the queue cautiously advanced. I thought it best to look at my paperwork again, this time with the attention of a person checking a bank-transfer slip with their life-savings on the line.

At last I was summoned to the counter. I carefully, politely, even timidly placed my passport and paperwork on the counter. Nervously I smiled, but trying not to look too much like someone nervously smiling. “What do you do for a living Sir”…every time I hear this my heart drops. “I’m a palaeontologist”, suddenly I had his full attention. “You’re a what?”…at this point I wish I had considered saying, I’m proctologist, librarian, insurance salesmen, or anything but a palaeontologist. I dug myself even deeper by saying, “I dig dinosaurs-up…as you do”…a blank stare greeted me. “Who pays you to dig dinosaurs, Sir”…his neighbouring colleague was now also getting interested in the Englishmen in his pressed-shirt and tie…crossing the border from Tijuana, claiming that he digs dinosaurs for a living. “I work at the University of Manchester in England, where I teach palaeontology”…the two exchanged a glance, “You can get a dinosaur degree in England?”…weakly I said, “Sort of. You also have to do other subjects as well, like geology, mapping and stuff”…why was I now apologising for teaching palaeontology! They both grinned, watching me squirm. They turned their attention back to the pile of paperwork, ticking boxes, stamping forms and scribbling notes…I at last felt they were with me, in the same way that a teacher might benevolently lead a slow pupil to an easy answer. I looked over my shoulder to make sure the two officers with the handcuffs from earlier had not returned…hopefully they were still busy. “Your all done Sir”…”Am I? Is that a good thing” I asked nervously… “Just go to the counter over there, pay your 6 bucks and your free to queue again”…my heart skipped a bit, never had the prospect of a long windy queue seem so appealing.

A mere 30 minutes of extra queuing and I reached the border for the second time. Confidently I handed over my passport and VISA papers to the same border control officer I had seen earlier. I was clearly anonymous to him, but I thought I should smile at him nonetheless. I’m sure that my smile looked like one from our ex-prime minster Gordon Brown…one of his ‘special’ smiles…the kind that would frighten small children or urge you to close a door in someone’s face. I really was not feeling like smiling, but felt it was the right thing to do. He looked down at my VISA and stamped my passport...the stamp looked familiar, in fact it was the EXACT same bloody stamp that I had re-queued for, but now I had two. I could not suppress a small manic laugh, possibly combined with a nervous twitch or two. “Your good to go Sir”. I forced a ‘Thank you Sir’ and then grasped my passport and papers, walking the remaining 50 yards to the United States of America. I was now officially a non-residential immigrant.

Tia and Bianca greeted me on the other side. We decided to text Karen… ‘Phil has been arrested and incarcerated’ …we let the phone ring off.

Next-stop, South Dakota!

Preparing for the field!

At last! Something that might interest folks who happen upon these pages. The summer field season is upon us and we’re headed to the interior of the USA… soon! Digging-up dinosaurs is one of the main reasons I eat, sleep and inhale palaeontology. The vast expanse of Lower Cretaceous aged, Hell Creek Badlands in South Dakota is one of the finest dino-bone-bearing horizons in the world… possibly a function of an enigmatic ‘inhabitant’ of this slice of time, Tyrannosauris rex.

This year’s field team throws together a diverse bunch of folks who bring many years of the skills, sweat, toil and tears that is fieldwork. The team consists yours truly, Bill Sellers (University of Manchester), Victoria Egerton (Drexel University), Jason Schein (Drexel University & New Jersey State Museum), Jason Poole (Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.) and Eric Morschhauser (University of Pennsylvania). Among us, we have dug dead beasties on almost every continent and in some pretty odd places. We have hung from cliffs by rope in Spain, dangled in caves in China, abseiled in Argentina, dribbled through deserts of Mongolia and slipped on beach beds of Blighty. Now it is time to hunt dinosaur in the Badlands.

But why Badlands, well as a friend of mine once said, ‘they’re not so bad, just misunderstood’. Having spent a few field seasons squelching around in the delights of gumbo after rain to the more commonplace dusty buttes of North Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota…I have learned to love this region. This year, we’re headed to South Dakota again…where exactly? Well, that would be telling!

The Badlands are quite beautiful in a vast, unpopulated sort of way. Whilst Montana holds its own as the ‘Big Sky’ state, I feel both North and South Dakota are its twin, as combined they have a ‘Bigger Sky’, albeit divided by their North & South state line. This is a part of the world where night-out or a visit round the corner to the local store, equates to 10’s of 100+ mile drives through vast tracts of prairie, dipping in and out of Badlands. The gentle curved landscape is punctuated by stubborn buttes raising their backs above the prairie, often displaying the interbedded muds and sands that signify a potential trip to Hell……Creek.

Its hard to describe the distances you can travel off-road, before seeing any evidence of human habitation…bar the odd ranchers fence and dirt track…that often becomes a river bed. The 77,121 square miles of South Dakota could fit England and Wales inside with room to spare, but with a total population of no more than Derbyshire (~800,000)….but the latter has a mere 1,000 square miles to squeeze folks in…but is still seen as the quintessential unpopulated English countryside. When South Dakota is compared to Manhattan Island with its 22.9 square miles hosting 1.6 million folks, suddenly city living seems very claustrophobic… New Yorkers live in the land of the ‘Slot Sky’, pinched between skyscrapers…or it is just a thick neon veneer on a new skyscraper?

Writers block………the main problem with this is…is…is

My blog has been somewhat neglected this past month…a function of research…something that has been hard to pursue to an end-point this past year, given my travels, but is now biting at my shirt-tails to be completed on several fronts. The outputs of most folks in academia are usually split between teaching and research. To find a balance between the two is tricky, but when I can, I try and combine them both. The many members of the palaeontology research group who often drive the research part of my work, keep me on my toes. I am lucky that I operate with such a diverse and talented bunch of folks…we all do our part and all work towards the same goals.

However, the joy that is writing academic papers never ceases to extract all remnant of what is left of my soul into a small vial and blasts it to some painful dimension. Undertaking the research can be breathtakingly exciting, but piecing your evidence into the context of 50+ years of research can often be daunting. This can be compounded by the realization that you are not alone….not in an X-Files kind of way, but in a…your being stalked, kind of way. At every bump, bend and turn in research you are aware of other folks working on similar, if not identical, material, also trying to squeeze some new drop of science from the same or similar sample(s), distilled to a written piece of work.

There is some solace to this diabolical and quite unnecessary race. Thankfully we all think in very different ways. One mans meat is another mans protein and intramuscular fat with carbs! When some researchers fear that another group is looking over their shoulder at the same thing, they ‘must’ also have the same results and conclusions…this is very, very unlikely. To quote good old Dawkins, it’s akin to throwing several tonnes of scrap metal into the air and it self-assembles on landing into a Boeing 737. Sadly this is compounded by the many journals who, when you finally submit your refined labours, have ‘seen this work before’ giving your paper cursory glance (if you are lucky!). Or, if you are really lucky and a paper gets to be peer-reviewed, then often comes biggest kick in the proverbial’s… ‘this paper is of not wide enough interest to the public’. This meritocracy has its gatekeepers. However, one thing is for certain, we all play by the same rule….I hope!

So, why do we torture ourselves over such trifles…well, its hopefully because we are all working to push the boundaries of science.

Moral ideas and academic dilemmas?

Sometimes a good question is worth more than an answer, especially if no one has ever posed that question before. The question is even more powerful when a new piece or pieces of evidence spur that shift in thinking. The moment the ‘penny drops’ and a question formulates in your mind, the heart begins to race, with the mind not far behind. Hopefully the latter catches up with the former sooner rather than later, as many a dumb word has been spoken in haste.

I was in this exact same place a few days ago. Sat in a room, surrounded by my peers, talking shop. A body of new work was being presented and dutifully I scribed away questions to pose the presenter…after the presentation, the hierarchy of questioning was carefully passed around the room. As I sat and listened, some of my questions started to merge, forming more rhetorical questions… but one such chimera jumped off the page. My heart racing, I looked up… as what happens next can take a variety of courses… each plotting a very different outcome, albeit science will hopefully be done. Do you A) keep your mouth shut and keep the idea to yourself? B) Ask a few probing questions of the group to make sure you alone have this idea nestled in your own mind, C) State your question/hypothesis to the gathered throng…leaving nothing out from your initial thoughts. The last approach, throwing all caution to the wind, is the one I chose. I knew all the academics in the room, including the presenter, and realised quickly that cooperation was the only way forward. This is approach is no stranger to my research group and I, as we have found that bearing your cards can yield splendid scientific returns.

As for the dilemma, of what to do? I strongly feel there is no dilemma if the science is truly the reason why those present are employed in what they do. This should take precedence over ego, territories and other such factors.

As for this new idea…well, hopefully in the next few months we will be able to publish another piece of the puzzle of the dinosaurs and their world. As for today…I’m en-route to the UK…it is time to grade exams. Hurrah………

Trains, dead birds and baseball?

This past week I have been working between New York and Philadelphia, courtesy of the United Nations and Amtrak. The wonderful thing about being on the eastern seaboard is that public transport still exists. I recall asking where the nearest train station was when in darkest South Dakota, only to be met with a blank expression, with the suggestion that I look in the 19^th Century for my nearest station. The great railroads of ‘Casey Jones’ seem to be a distant memory in the mid-west, creating a vast disconnect between much of the east and west of the USA. The wonderful thing about Philadelphia, it is slap bang between Washington DC and New York City, making many of my meetings, lectures and work a simple train ride via Amtrak. The train service is surprisingly clean, efficient and functional...three words rarely associated with public transport in the UK. Travelling by Amtrak is the closest I have come to an airline experience, firmly grounded on terra firma and without the dreaded turbulence! Its nice to think that volcanic ash would have a tough time delaying Amtrak.

My work at the UN entailed attending meetings regarding sustainability and the management of Earth’s resources…a sobering session! For the past two years I have be involved with the International Year of Planet Earth (IYPE), trying to help spread the word of sustainability and Earth resources to as wide an audience as possible. My part has been tiny, compared to that many working in the organization, especially Ed de Mulder who is currently pushing for a sustainable legacy from the IYPE, The Planet Earth Institute. One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how the education system has failed natural sciences, given our lack of understanding of the environment and resources that we so carelessly use and often abuse. I’m not one for getting on my ‘soap-box’ and preaching about how we should conduct our day to day lives, but when it comes to Earth resources, we tend to be as dumb as a piece of wood when ‘managing’ them. I have to admit that while the IYPE opened my eyes to the mismanagement of Earth resources, it also gave me hope that there is a band of folks out there working hard to bring about change….I step-down from my soap-box!

In Philadelphia I gave a quick presentation on ‘Deconstructing Dinosaurs’ at the Vet School this week. My talk was an attempt to reflect on the work of my colleagues and I, from the fields of palaeontology to the subatomic world of particle physics! The paper publish last Tuesday in PNAS took a very close look with 21^st Century technology at an old bird, more than 150 million years old…Archaeopteryx.

Archaeopteryx is often included by many palaeontologists in their Top 10 list of iconic fossils. The research undertaken in our study might breathe new life into these prehistoric bones, permitting us for the first time to map the chemical remains delicate structures, suc as the feather shafts. Finely detailed preservation of the composition of Archaeopteryx was shown in remarkable X-ray images that had never been recognized before. This was the same animal that helped ignite the debate on Darwin’s theory of evolution by Natural Selection. Half-bird (complete with feathers and wishbone) and half reptile (with teeth, wing-fingers tipped with claws and long bony tail), this fossil represents all that many think of as a ‘missing-link’ or a species frozen in time between two evolutionary steps. I paraphrased this to the press, suggesting it was as if someone had shoved a crocodile up the backside of a bird….I hate it when the press quote me verbatim! The techniques applied in our study will not only have implications for understanding more about this famous fossil, but all of ancient life. This application of 21st Century technology has allowed us to observe and map structures that up until now have been invisible. The implications for palaeontology, biology, forensics and many other fields are huge.

The collaborative research team, featuring scientists from the University of Manchester and the United States’ Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource, reported these new findings on the most complete existing specimens of Archaeopteryx. The said fossil was loaned for analysis from the Wyoming Dinosaur Center. Archaeopteryx are so very rare (only 10 specimens and a single feather have been discovered) but still they occupy a pivotal place in the development of Darwinian theory. Despite their importance, no comprehensive study of the chemistry of these fossils has ever been completed, until now :-)

This research was able to complete this task by harnessing a state-of-the-art technique for the analysis of large specimens developed at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center(SLAC) called Synchrotron Rapid Scanning - X-ray Fluorescence (SRS-XRF). Up until now, palaeontologists had thought that the critically important feathers visible in this fossil were simply impressions of

the feathers, with no original chemistry remaining. Using SRS-XRF to accurately map the locations of major and trace elements such as sulfur, phosphorous, copper, and zinc, our team discovered that traces of the original chemistry of the Archaeopteryx feathers were still present.

Other results showed that the chemistry of the bones from this 150 million year old bird relative were similar to the concentrations that one would find most living birds, providing a chemical link between this ancient organism and descendant species such as pigeons, parakeets, and seagulls. The sensitivity of this technique also revealed details of the curation history of the specimen, showing how small parts were “repaired” and were not original to the fossil itself. The new technique has the potential to unleash the secrets of chemical fossils locked in the sands of time, only visible to the x-ray vision provided by synchrotron light sources.

After such a busy week, I’m ready for a treat...my first ever baseball game! Tonight, weather permitting (gosh, this is so like the UK) I hope to see the Phillies take on the Pirates...I had no idea that sport could be such swashbuckling fun!

Phil in Philadelphia

Each time I'm on the final approach to Philadelphia International airport, the distinctive skyline of the city and the snake-like meanderings of the Schuylkill river signify I'm about to touch-down on terra firma. Given that I have never been a fan of flying, this cheers me up greatly. This past year has had my travels drag me between pillar and post, carving out a carbon footprint of a small country. I am really not proud of this. Occasionally I find myself day-dreaming of bygone days when an Atlantic crossing by ship was the most efficient passage to North America. The idea of idling away long days onboard a vast liner, in the absence of email, internet and the 21st Century, is most appealing. The bump of touchdown abruptly reminded me of my dislike of flying and once more I was wading my way through a plane load of folks intent on not missing connections. I felt lucky that we were in Philadelphia at all, not from my unreasonable fear of flying, but for a geological force of nature to be reckoned with.

The Icelandic Volcano that has recently been causing chaos in UK airspace provided a short window for the take-off of my flight to the USA. I was grateful for this, as I had a lecture to deliver at Penn on the next day. The said volcano, often referred to by the media as 'the volcano with the unpronounceable name' had once again started spewing ash into a northwester bound for UK shores, but thankfully a gentle blast from the Urals sent the ash cloud spinning back into the Atlantic. The volcano has occasionally be named Eyjafjallajökull, but alas...the media missed the fact that this translates from Icelandic to 'Island-mountain-glacier'....whoops! The glacier sits atop of what appears to be a volcano with no name. The last time the volcano with 'no name' blew its top was from 1821 till 1823....but this was sporadic series of eruptions and the absence of any air-traffic had the event pass with little attention. Its curious how suddenly we can be so interested in historical eruptions, now that we have to deal with a wakening force of nature in the 21st Century.

Having spent last month hiking up and down the volcano Mount Tiede in Tenerife (off the coast of Western Sahara), I already had a healthy respect for these splendid reminders from the Earth, that we only think we can control nature. Occasionally, the Earth sighs and we all feel the repercussions.

I'm grateful that the volcano with no name did not disrupt my journey....but I would be untruthful if I did not admit that volcanic dust and jet engines were not engraved on my thoughts as I took off from Manchester!

Twas the night before teaching...and all was quiet.

Teaching is one of the major perks of working at a University...honest! It is possibly the most rewarding work that I undertake in a year. However, just like when you on the final pages of a great book...there is often a tinge of regret at the end-point of any teaching programme. Tomorrow is a little unusual, as this will be the last day I teach for a little over a year at Manchester; a function of my sabbatical. Whilst I still have the delights of grading all the exam scripts for this and other courses on which I teach, tomorrow is a big day. The course in question, Vertebrate Palaeontology & Evolution, is one of my favourites to teach...although the field courses in South Devon and Tenerife are a VERY close second and third. In the field, nothing beats asking a student to taste some mud. When first asked to do this, you get a strange look, which usually turns to disgust as you demonstrate the chewing of the mud. But how else can you tell if you have a silt or mudstone in the field! Whether it be field or lecture-based teaching, this was the reason I wanted to work in a University. So, when 1pm GMT chimes tomorrow, I will not teach formally in Manchester for some time...but, there are always the public lectures and conferences to keep me ticking over for the next year.

The next year will mainly concentrate on research goals, whilst also trying to promote the public engagement in science....a hat that I also enjoy wearing. While I feel lucky to work in the field of palaeontology, I'm always on the look-out for converts to the study of long dead beasties. It's great to hold a fossil up to a class or bemused high-school kids and talk about how stunningly gorgeous the gob-smacking object is that I'm holding ...they are often not sure whether to look at the said fossil or check for their nearest point of exit from the room...usually both.

A year chasing particles?

Welcome to the wonderful world of long dead things and how they still have a major impact on many folks lives, not least my own. I have been a palaeontologist for long enough to know better, but persist in digging, preparing, analysing and trying to make sense of the disjointed sentences that the fossil record provides us. My Name is Phil Manning, I work as a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) at the University of Manchester and as a Research Fellow in The Manchester Museum. I also have the vast pleasure of working with Professor Peter Dodson at the University of Pennsylvania as a Visiting Scholar. My work at Manchester and Penn is augmented with several visits a year to Stanford University (SSRL and SLAC), where I work with a team of scientists, including Dr Roy Wogelius and Dr Uwe Bergman...chaps so clever, you can cut yourself on them. The odd trip to Patagonia, China, Canada, Germany, Spain...and many other destinations keep the fossil fuel supplied for my science.

Over the next few months you will join me on my

travels, as I have decided to use my sabbatical to expose myself to the fun world of particle physics and geochemistry. Why? I hear you all ask...to be honest, I am a little nervous answering. I realize that this is indeed a quantum leap for any palaeontologist to take, but it is one I am willing to make, as there are many secrets that this new research world has to offer to my own subject. The last five years has already been a baptism of fire for me, bouncing between biology, physics, engineering, computational robotics, FTIR, MALDI-TOF... to name but a few subjects (some sounding more like dinner cocktails!) that I have tried getting to grips with.... I'm quite dizzy!

This past year has also been a tad frantic. I have just done filming a new series for the National Geographic Channel ('Jurassic CSI') and am currently playing catch-up with my own research group...who are as productive as ever. The trick is....I have to start being as productive as they are! A year on the road chasing new fossil finds and playing with spanking-new techniques in the field has been great fun, but I am now faced with a pile of data that needs dissecting, analysing and interpreting. Bugger! Much has already been done, thanks to the many folks who consist the Manchester Palaeontology Research Group. However, as always there is still much to do. As the year progresses, you will see many publications from our Manchester group....you can read about the pain we go through getting to publication in these pages....the slings and arrows of peer review are painful, but necessary.

If anything, by the end of 2010, I hope you will agree with me that palaeontology is far from a 19th Century science. Never let it be said that palaeontology is about 'dusty old fossils', as I by studying these ancient remain with 21st Century science, we discover there's a bit life in the old bones yet. Its not so much what sort of fossil you have, but what you do with it! The beautiful hindsight that the fossil record provides from the death, war, famine and pestilence of lost worlds is there for the taking....if we can just tease it from the grip of the sands of time!

........as for the space shuttles, all will become clear as mud over the ensuing blog!