This recent post reminds me that I ought to be using this blog for good, not just for shameless self-promotion (although self-promotion can be fun). I need to promote science, its importance and utility. And, of course, how fun it is!
So I think I’ll start adding blog entries about my current research, what it is, and why it matters. Anyone interested?
Current projects include:
- Body temperature in giant ground sloths. (You can do that?)
- Paleobiology and dietary preferences of giant (1000 kg) rodents in South America. (Yes, Rodents of Unusual Size do exist!)
- Tooth mineralization patterns and their relationship to diet in notoungulates (extinct endemic mammals from South America).
- Continental environmental change associated with rapid global warming at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (55 million years ago).
- Late Cretaceous vertebrates from Axel Heiberg Island. (yeah, in the Arctic)
- Less-is-more: Using bulk isotopic analysis from tooth enamel of fossil mammals to predict yearly patterns of temperature and precipitation.
- Mid-Paleocene mammals and reptiles, and species turnover due to climate change 60-ish million years ago
- Cheek tooth (molar) mineralization patterns in mammoths. (Everyone uses tusks! <eyes rolling>)
If you’re interested in any of these things, let me know, and I’ll write about them. I can also write about day-to-day life as an non-tenure-track isotope geochemist, in a rigorous research-heavy earth-sciences department.
Let me know!
Penny Higgins - Storyteller • Artist • Scientist 