Jason

A brown king penguin chick calling among adult king penguins in a crowded colony, with the headline “Timing Is Everything” and text explaining that small ocean changes can determine whether an entire generation of seabirds survives.

What happens to seabirds when the ocean changes… just a little?

Let’s go to a remote island in the Southern Ocean:
Kerguelen Island in the sub-Antarctic Southern Ocean

Every year, thousands of seabirds return here to breed.

But timing is everything.
🧵🧪

A photo of pinned weevil specimens, taken from above. The weevils range from blue to green and even grey

A look at some beautiful weevils in our beetle collection. 😍

The diversity of colours and patterns continues to amaze us, it's hard to believe that these are real!

Which one is your favourite? Let us know 🪲

China is waging war on Alzheimer’s. What can its approach teach the rest of the world? Nature - The country is facing a coming wave of dementia for its ageing population, and is investing in research into drugs, diagnostics and even surgery to prepare itself.

China is facing a coming wave of dementia for its ageing population, and is investing in research into drugs, diagnostics and even surgery to prepare itself

go.nature.com/4seMoS1

A skeleton of a giant sloth, holding onto a tall branch, in the Natural History Museum

This is Megatherium. A species that was up to 10x the size of living sloths and weighed up to four tonnes (similar to a bull elephant).

On its hind legs, Megatherium americanum would have stood 12 feet tall. 😮

New sabre-crested Spinosaurus species named from desert dinosaur fossils | Natural History Museum ‘Astonishing’ fossils from Niger have been named as Spinosaurus mirabilis.

Meet a new species of dinosaur - Spinosaurus mirabilis!

Its fossils have been found in the Sahara Desert, including a striking crest on its head that was probably used to show off to mates and scare off rivals.

Find out more about this dinosaur 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Tropical forests make rain worth billions of pounds | Natural History Museum Rain generated by the Amazon rainforest could be worth up to £15 billion every year.

It’s been a very wet few weeks in the UK – but we’re far from the rainiest place on Earth! ☔

The Amazon is around twice as wet, as the forest helps generate rain. This rainfall is worth billions to Brazil's economy, which might help stop deforestation.

Find out more 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Happy Darwin Day everyone!

I can’t believe that there are actually people in this world who believe mythological Bible stories, like Noah’s Ark, are real events that actually happened. Get a grip on reality, people.

Fossils show that ‘Nutcracker Man’ ventured further and wider than previously thought | Natural History Museum A 2.6-million-year-old fossil is changing our understanding of early human evolution in Africa.

A relative of ancient humans, nicknamed Nutcracker Man, may have been more widespread than initially thought!

Part of a jawbone unearthed in Ethiopia has been found 1,000km further north than previous fossils.

Find out how this group got its unusual name 👇
www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

I was lucky enough to find a copy of the seventh edition of The Origin of Species in a used bookstore a few days ago and I’ve finally been able to dive in. I have an older edition of the book (not exactly sure which one) but I haven’t read it in a few years so I’m very excited!

An interesting example of this is DNA and protein homology: Different species have similar DNA sequences or proteins because they inherited them from a shared common ancestor. Without the concept of common ancestry, these similarities would be difficult to explain.

“Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” - Evolutionary geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky!

Modern biology is still fundamentally based on Darwinian evolution. Even when general biology textbooks don’t explicitly frame areas like molecular biology or genetics in evolutionary terms, those fields make the most sense when viewed through an evolutionary perspective.

Hi all — I’m an evolutionary biology undergraduate interested in speciation, macroevolution, and paleontology. Glad to be joining the conversation.