#wearescience

Happy #SharkWeek! Yes, we MUST start our week off with Carcharocles (or Otodus depending on taxonomy!?) megalodon! A C. megalodon (Yes, we shorten the name, like T.rex!) tooth is one of the few objects that you can hold in your hand that strikes fear, fascination, & mortality into your very being. See this gorgeous illustration? Louis Agassiz, Swiss-American biologist and geologist is particularly known for his contributions to ichthyological classification, including extinct species. This C. megalodon drawing from his publication, Les Poissons Fossiles (2nd 📷), illustrated by Austrian artist Joseph Dinkel, depicts every line, detail & serration on the shark's tooth. Early scientific illustrations as detailed as these are still extremely important, especially because specimens can become deteriorated or lost over time. If you are interested in this illustration (and MORE) from Les Poissons Fossiles, check out @biodivlibrary. Though C. megalodon is very, VERY extinct (YES, VERY MUCH DEAD!), its legacy lives on through science, illustrations, & our imagination. Megalodon 📷: mine Illustration 📷: mine Megalodon jaw photo: Wikipedia #wearestemsquad #womeninstem #louisagassiz #sciart #megalodon #sharks #drawing #scicomm #wearescience #tooth #fossil #museummonday (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

HAPPY #FossilFriday! Look at this GORGEOUS specimen! Allow me to gush. [LONG POST!] Anhanguera santannae (AMNH22555) is one of the BEST preserved pterosaur fossils in the world and we have been lucky enough to have it at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History for the last several months. It is SO rare to get this quality of preservation in the fossil record. Why? Taphonomy: the study of what happens to an organism after death. You have to die in the right time in the right place and then lie undisturbed for millions (MILLIONS!) of years until a bipedal ape finds you, digs you up and tries to makes sense of you. Paleontologists really are superheroes when you think about it. This pterosaur and many other beautifully preserved three-dimensional fossils have been found in carbonate concretions in the Romualdo Member of the Santana Formation (Araripe Basin, northeastern Brazil). Some 25 species of fossil fishes have often been found with stomach contents preserved, helping paleontologists to better study predator–prey relationships. Pterosaurs, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, crocodylomorphs, plants, and even dinosaurs have been found here. Limestone accretions formed nodules around dead organisms, preserving soft and hard parts of their anatomy. These nodules are then taken to a lab and etched away with acid, revealing beautiful bone inside. The American Museum of Natural History (@amnh) creates traveling exhibitions of incredible quality (we've had several now!) and I can't wait to see what they have in store for the future! 📷 1-4: mine 📷 5: Pinheiro 2017 from https://peerj.com/articles/3285/ #pterosaurs #anhanguera #museum #naturalhistorymuseum #science #cle #fossil #fridayfeeling #notadinosaur #wearestemsquad #wearescience #scicomm #amnh #cleveland

If you aren't following @paleoparadox yet, TREAT YO SELF. Gabe is an amazing paleontologist & #scicomm superstar! Follow his adventures through his Insta stories NOW. #Repost @paleoparadox • • • • • So here’s the odontocete (toothed whale) skull that I helped to jacket today! . What does it mean to jacket a fossil? Well, we never fully excavate a fossil in the field. Fossils are usually super fragile when we find them. It would be risky to remove all the matrix (rock surrounding the fossil) and transport delicate fossils back to a museum. . So to protect fossils during transport, we leave a good amount of matrix around the fossil. Then we cover the fossil and matrix in a jacket usually made of layers of burlap and plaster. This provides an enclosed shell for greater protection. Once the jacket is hardened, it’s ready for transport back to the lab where it be carefully prepared using precise tools and techniques! . . . #fieldwork #paleontology #fossil #fossilsofinstagram #whales #dolphins #desert #peru #huacachina #thescicommunity #filipinoscientist #outdoorasian #myapalife #museumlife #whenyouworkatamuseum #wearescience

Hi everyone and to new followers! Like my #scicomm? Instagram's algorithm is changing. Turn on notifications to never miss a post. Who am I? I’m Ashley Hall: Adult Programs Coordinator at the ‪Cleveland Museum of Natural History‬. I create fun and educational programs for adults at the museum, but also in conjunction with other local institutions like libraries, movie theatres, hiking stores, and more. Like a gem, my job is multi-faceted. Besides planning and conducting adult programs, I also teach classes for grades K-12 at the Museum in the galleries in the mornings, video conferencing classes with schools in different states (and countries!), and I also take our programs on the road (Science-to-Go!). I am a paleontologist and informal educator by training. I hold a B.A in Anthropology and Animal Behavior from Indiana University Bloomington. I studied animal bones at archaeological sites in Kansas and Wyoming to determine diet in Protohistoric plains hunter-gatherer groups. After college, I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of working in a ‪natural history museum‬. I spent 7 years working in the Education Division at the ‪Natural History Museum of Los Angeles‬ (@NHMLA) and the world famous La Brea Tar Pits where I was able to design research-based programming (public tours, school programs) to a wide variety of audiences. During this time, I worked for 5 years as Assistant Curator at the Raymond M. Alf Museum (@alfmuseum) of Paleontology under ceratopsian expert Dr. Andrew A. Farke where I excavated, catalogued, identified, and curated fossils from Bureau of Land Management Land from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. While I don't have a PhD or Masters, I’ve published research on Pleistocene birds from the La Brea Tar Pits with Don Prothero and sauropod dinosaurs with my husband, Lee Hall (@paleeoguy). I love sharing my passion of natural history through social media, so feel free to follow my adventures on Instagram and Twitter! #museumed #ohiomuseums #naturalhistory #cleveland #cmnh #cle #wearestemsquad #wearescience #womeninstem #stem #science #jurassicpark #scied #scicomm #ohio #educator #paleontology #dinosaurs (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

A one-billion year old egg?! This unusual egg was made from a polished piece of fossilized bacterial mat called a stromatalite over 1 billion years old! This fossil contains some of the first organisms on the planet: cyanobacteria and green algae. Cyanobacteria are thought to be largely responsible for increasing the amount of oxygen in earth's early atmosphere through their photosynthesis. We wouldn't be here without them. My favorite part about working in a museum is being around these fascinating objects that tell such hugely important stories of how life originated and evolved on this planet, and that is a beautiful, wonderful thing. Support YOUR local museum! #happyeaster #easter #easteregg #fossil #egg #coloredeggs #wearescience #cle #scicomm #wearestemsquad #museumed #museumcollections #stem #womeninstem #cleveland #thisiscle #sunday #paleontology #stromatolite #cyanobacteria #algae #fossils (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Why do I #scicomm? . Not because I'm a narcissist. Not just because I'm a woman. Because sharing science on social media is POWERFUL. . Yesterday, @science.sam, a fellow #scicomm'er was unfairly called out in @sciencemagazine by a fellow scientist because of her appearance and for taking "time away from research" because of Instagram. . This was an unnecessary attack on Sam. . The Instagram #scicomm community, composed of people from ALL genders, works HARD everyday to make everyone feel like they're joining scientists in their labs, classrooms, and in remote places "in the field". Science communicators take time during our day to communicate our science. Not for ourselves, but for those who are curious. For those who want to learn. All of this regardless of appearance. . Women in Science used to be INVISIBLE, but now WE ARE BEING SEEN. . I wear makeup. This is what I choose to look like everyday, regardless of if I'm taking selfies or not. . I don't #scicomm because I think I'm cute, I #scicomm to show people WHY museums are THE BEST places in the world. . I want to inspire you. . I want you to know why museums are important. . I want you to see 360 million year old fossils. . If a young girl is inspired by my posts because I look "girly", so be it! I grew up idolizing Jack Horner: a white male paleontologist. It would have been wonderful to have had a woman paleontologist to look up to, but I didn't know any different. . The Instagram @thescicommunity is STRONG. . We are here. . We want to share science with you using the best ways that we know how. . We will keep sharing our passions everyday because the world is a beautiful, wonderful place. . We take time from our day (a lot of time DURING research!) because we just HAVE to show you what FASCINATING thing we just saw before our own eyes. I grab my phone everytime I learn something in order to snap a photo because I want you to be fascinated, too. . Follow @scicommunity. Be inspired. . #scientistswhoselfie #selfie #scicommunity #wearescience #strongertogether #womeninscience #stem #womeninstem #science #wearestemsquad #palaeontology #womeninpaleontology (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

Happy #PterosaurPtuesday! My homeschool class researched pterosaurs in @AMNH's Pterosaurs exhibition & then expressed what they researched in several creative ways! Check out this group's paper #Tupandactylus model! #museumed #wearescience #scicomm #pterosaur #stem #learn #themoreyouknow #notadinosaur #homeschooling #museumsmatter (at Cleveland Museum of Natural History)

We Are Science by Dot Allison, 2002 #dotallison #wearescience #strungout #musicilove #albumaday #32 #201 https://www.instagram.com/p/B8A3Q-nnKTN/?igshid=txa3iv46hyq4