About

I used to blog all the time during my undergraduate studies, mostly about palaeontology (the subject of my BSc) but I covered a wider range of topics. In 2012 (I think) I moved over to WordPress in an attempt to get myself back into writing regularly and with the intention of focusing only on science. My output was sporadic and disappointing.

Since then, I gained an MSc in science communication and started a podcast. Yet my writing continued to stagnate. At the time of updating this About section (February 2021) I feel confident that I will be blogging more regularly again and will be taking a new approach to the content I post (I’ve given a more detailed outline here). I don’t want to be yet another blog writing about new research in palaeontology, I’ve done that before and I think there are far better people doing that than me, particularly as I don’t have the time to get straight onto anything new. Instead, I’m going to be looking at how palaeontology is reported online by major news outlets. My content will range from pedantically picking at crap headlines and memes, to more in-depth looks at the pitfalls of online science communication. It won’t all be negative, sometimes I’ll just be looking at common tropes and hopefully I’ll get to praise how some stories were presented.

TL:DR – BSc in palaeobiology, MSc in science communication, I like to write about people writing about palaeontology, dark hair, tall, slim build, questionable fashion sense.

I’m not sure what else to include in this section, though here is my original About description from 2012, which I had forgotten existed until the WordPress stats showed that people were looking at it:

I once had another blog, using the same name, but decided to start a new one here on WordPress instead of Blogger. I covered a wider range of topics on that blog and felt it was time I moved on and focussed solely on palaeontology and evolution, particularly those exciting Ediacarans (well, they probably would have been boring to watch, but their mystery is the exciting part). My first blog post here explains all of this in more detail.