Niels de Winter

Don’t deprioritize curiosity-driven research Around the world, governments are demanding that research funding follow broader political priorities. They should be careful what they wish for.

Don’t deprioritize curiosity-driven research www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Support people and their livelihoods rather than fossil-fuel industries Geopolitical trends might be heading in the wrong direction, but economic forces are aligning around a future economy centred on clean electricity.

Support people and their livelihoods rather than fossil-fuel industries www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Does AI already have human-level intelligence? The evidence is clear The vision of human-level machine intelligence laid out by Alan Turing in the 1950s is now a reality. Eyes unclouded by dread or hype will help us to prepare for what comes next.

Good read!
Does AI already have human-level intelligence? The evidence is clear www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A Cambrian soft-bodied biota after the first Phanerozoic mass extinction - Nature The Huayuan biota exhibits extraordinary biodiversity, illuminating the impact of the Phanerozoic mass extinction around 513 million years ago and offering critical insights into the transformation of...

Wow, these fossils are really stunning! 😮
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

How to eat well and within Earth’s limits Dietary change, supported by bold policies, is essential for a sustainable planet.

What we eat is more than just a health choice. There are massive sustainability gains quite literally left on the table.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Earliest perissodactyls reveal large-scale dispersals during the PETM | PNAS Perissodactyls were a diverse order of mammals in the Northern Hemisphere during the Paleogene, but very few species remain today. They first appea...

This takes me back to my MSc years in college @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social, specifically the fieldwork in Bighorn Basin hunting for early mammals. Wild to learn that Hyracotherium is not an actual horse. Found dozens of its teeth back then with that in mind! 🤯🐎

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Unlocking sub-annual hydroclimate and temperature variability through land snail shell records Currently available reconstructions of past East Asian monsoon (EAM) variability achieve annual resolution at best, which limits their ability to reso…

⏰New paper⏰

Happy to play a part in this nice study led by Xiulan and Jingjing using over 1100 (!) clumped isotope analysis for seasonal-scale temperature and precipitation reconstructions on the Chinese Loess Plateau during the last Ice Age. 🐚🌦️
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Culturing experiments reveal mechanisms of daily trace element incorporation into Tridacna shells Abstract. Giant clams such as Tridacna are exceptionally well suited for studying past environmental changes on daily to multidecadal timescales. The visible growth bands in their shells, which can be...

I was fortunate to serve as @egubg.bsky.social editor for this fascinating study by Iris Arndt and colleagues in which giants clams (Tridacna maxima/squamosa) were cultured and spiked with barium to deconvolve their daily growth. Worth a read! 🐚🔬⚛️

bg.copernicus.org/articles/23/...

One more day to submit an #abstract for #EGU26!
If you work on #macrofossils and the #paleoenvironment, submit to SSP4.4, co-organised with @egu-cl.bsky.social by January 15, 13:00 CET.
@nielsjdewinter.bsky.social

Check out www.egu26.eu for more details
#archives, #paleontology, #geochemistry

This is so important! It's mindblowing that it is not all over the news, but I guess geopolitics comes first...

The High Seas Treaty, at last | Science
www.science.org.vu/doi/10.1126/...

🚨 New vacancy🚨

Interested in climate modelling, or know someone who might be? Apply for our exciting new, fully funded PhD position where you will develop high-resolution, weather-scale climate model simulations of the warm Last Interglacial period! 🌬️🌀☔💻

werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/ph...

🚨 New vacancy🚨

Interested in high-resolution climate reconstructions, or know someone who might be? Apply for our exciting new, fully funded PhD position where you will develop reconstructions of extreme weather events in the geological past from fossil shells! 🌩️🌀🌊🐚

werkenbij.vu.nl/vacatures/ph...

Just finished "Beastly" by Keggie Carew, and it's a wild, slightly incoherent but always thought- and emotion-provoking exposition of our strange relationship with animals and our environment. Highly recommended!
keggiecarew.co.uk/beastly-1

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

The junkification of research is a huge potential issue. It makes me think how we can make the way we are sharing our work resilient to AI slop and other ways of churning out low-quality content...
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Wow, that is quite a prospect!😮

Against all odds, a curious sea creature survived the dino-killing asteroid Coil-shelled mollusks called ammonites staved off extinction for thousands of years

Ammonites survived the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. I always learned that they went extinct. Very cool finding!

Against all odds, a curious sea creature survived the dino-killing asteroid | Science | AAAS

www.science.org/content/arti...

Starting my academic reading this year with a fascinating study documenting the frequency of tropical cyclones in the South China Sea over the past ~650 years. We need more of this type of data to understand extreme weather patterns and their relationship with climate.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Kennedy ‘deeply committed to ending animal experimentation’ HHS secretary vows to end U.S. monkey imports, push for retirement of research primates

Guess what: Finally at least something half-sensible coming from RFK: While the claim that these money research centers are profit-driven is preposterous, testing on sentient animals is cruel and unnecessary and should be phased out in a sensible way.

www.science.org/content/arti...

Another slap in the face of (climate) science to round of the year, lots of precious things are in the process of being broken in the USA these days...😔

Trump administration moves to break up leading U.S. climate and weather center | Science | AAAS www-science-org.vu-nl.idm.oclc.org/content/arti...

The past and future of known biodiversity: Rates, patterns, and projections of new species over time The number of known species on Earth is increasing rapidly, suggesting unexpectedly large numbers of many groups.

Fascinated to learn that we are still discovering new species at the highest rate ever. Mapping Earth's biodiversity is far from over, and while we learn more and more about it, let's protect what we do know as well as we can!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A normalised framework for the Zero Emissions Commitment Abstract. The Zero Emissions Commitment (ZEC) measures the transient climate response after carbon emissions cease, defined by whether there is a continued rise or decrease in global surface temperatu...

DIfferent climate models project different temperature outcomes for the same Net Zero Emission scenario:
bg.copernicus.org/articles/22/...

Global warming intensifies extreme day-to-day temperature changes in mid–low latitudes - Nature Climate Change Climate change is expected to lead to higher day-to-day temperature variability in mid- to low latitudes. Here the authors show that extreme day-to-day temperature changes have distinct impacts on hum...

Temperature extremes are amongst the most dangerous consequences of climate change. This study shows the (modelled) impact of warming on day-to-day temperature swings.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

...flagging shortcomings we as authors did not have a chance to respond to. This led to rejection of the manuscript after two intense rounds of revisions. We are grateful for the transparent, open-access peer review process at Climate of the Past. Our study got a second chance and was well received.

Unfortunately, while we are proud of how the paper turned out, the process of getting it here has not been very easy, mostly because of a very bad experience in review (with another journal) where a reviewer was able to influence the editor through private messages...

This study was largely based on the excellent thesis work of Najat al Fudhaili, whom I had the pleasure to co-supervise at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social, and who also worked for much of her research project at Geozentrum Nordbayern at FAU in Erlangen, Germany.

Global warming intensifies extreme day-to-day temperature changes in mid–low latitudes - Nature Climate Change Climate change is expected to lead to higher day-to-day temperature variability in mid- to low latitudes. Here the authors show that extreme day-to-day temperature changes have distinct impacts on hum...

Extreme day-to-day temperature swings are becoming more frequent and intense due to Global warming, impacting human health, ecosystems, and resilience.

By 2100, these changes could increase by 17%, affecting 80% of the global population.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Living on the edge: Response of Late Cretaceous rudist bivalves (Hippuritida) to hot and highly seasonal climate in the low-latitude Saiwan site, Oman Abstract. Earth's climate history serves as a natural laboratory for testing the effect of warm climates on the biosphere. The Cretaceous period featured a prolonged greenhouse climate characterized b...

Starting the week well with a new paper! 🧑‍🔬 Here we show remarkable evidence of rudist bivalves in the hot, Late Cretaceous (75 Ma) tropics mineralizing their shells at temperatures of over 40 degrees C, hotter than any mollusc living today.
cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

Flowchart of introducing high-protein-based product based on a gene-edited fungus, from production, evaluation of nutritional values and lifecycle assessment

There is a long list of reasons why one might want a non-animal-based protein-rich foodstuff. Getting something that could also be grown compactly (maybe on a spaceship or a submarine) is a bit more challenging, but these gene-edited mushrooms might fit the bill. 🧪
Link: www.cell.com/trends/biote...

After a long and tense period of negotiations and protests, we have finally got some news this week, and it is overall positive: It seems we will after all keep our bachelor's and master's degrees and our department will remain. What reorganizations will be done remains unclear
vu.nl/en/news/2025...

Yes I think they might be! They are quite common in Late Paleozoic limestones which are often used as decorative slabs :)