It’s been a big week back at UofA! I presented my PhD work at the Graduate Symposium, saw the iconic Paul Hoffman talk about his ‘thesis that never ended’, and took on one of the greatest battles in design history.

Article: Deep marine shelf environments experienced fluctuating levels of seawater oxygenation prior to the Great Oxygenation Event UAlberta Research & Innovation Earth & Environmental Science, St Andrews nature.com/articles/s4156…

It's publication day of my first book: The Tree of Life. (John Murray Press) The tree of life is a time machine that can take us back 4 billion years to meet our most distant ancestor.

In a new paper, we measured redox around decaying organisms. Turns out, the bigger and richer in protein you are, the more easily reducing conditions form around you after death, making you more likely to get mineralized and become a fossil (?) nature.com/articles/s4146…

OPENING MAY 2026: special exhibition, Pokémon Fossil Museum! Sign up for email updates ➡️ fieldmuseum.io/PokemonFossilM…

Highly recommend applying! One of the most awesome summers I’ve ever had, with fond memories, and an opportunity to widen my paleontological skill set ⚒️

A beautiful but chilly morning in Banff as we welcome attendees to #Geobiology2025 ! 🗻🦠

Two Princeton professors, a husband-and-wife team, traveled to the Galápagos Islands every summer for ~40 years to watch evolution happen in real-time. They weren't studying fossils. Rather, they were measuring the beaks of Darwin's finches. And it paid off. Their names are

Feeling astronomically grateful for the opportunity to lead the organisation of and attend #Geobiology2025 🦠🗻in Banff! I had lots of amazing conversations with fellow researchers from all over the field, and presented on my ongoing PhD work⚡️See you in 2027 🤩

New paper out in geosociety Bulletin led by Alexie Millikin with implications for exceptional fossilisation in the Tonian Svanbergfjellet Formation. The Royal Society University of Oxford Oxford University Museum of Natural History Oxford Earth Sciences pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/gsabulleti…

New paper out today led by Kelly Tingle Vanderbilt University on shifts in acritarch morphology across the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition. Read in Royal Society Publishing. The Royal Society Oxford University Museum of Natural History Oxford Earth Sciences University of Oxford Senckenberg Research royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…

Back to the Ediacaran with friends!

How did life begin, and why does it matter today? Proud to be one of the organizers of a new ASM report supported by the Moore Foundation, exploring microbial origins & how they inform biotech, climate, and search for life in the universe. ➡️ asm.org/reports/early-…

One of the greatest stories every told (by the fossil record) Very cool new paper reveals insight into how starfish & kin evolved from their bilateral ancestors to the 5-fold symmetry we see today cell.com/current-biolog…

Happy Franz Kafka's "July 1. Too tired." day

life lately 🦠🔬🪓🧪🍂🪾

Grateful to The Royal Society for the wonderful opportunity to give a talk and for my lab group to host an activity on early life and fossilisation at the #summerscience exhibition yesterday. Wonderful day! University of Oxford Oxford University Museum of Natural History Oxford Earth Sciences youtube.com/watch?v=bRTKg4…

Of all the materials that compose you, the most significant is time. It takes billions of years for our universe to generate structures like us.

Signs Of Recent Life On Mars Could Be Detected Using New Simple Test astrobiology.com/2025/08/signs-… #astrobiology #Mars #biosignature

journey to the middle cambrian this week!