Michela Leonardi

Just heard of another major British Palaeolithic site falling through the planning & protection net and being green-lit for development. That's 3 confirmed in 3 years, with 2 others I'm investigating. The failure to schedule Palaeolithic sites & the erosion of planning protections are to blame. 🚨🦣🏺

Figure summarizing the results of the article: top line with three drawings, showing the interpretation that mild variations dry-wet seasons lead to predictable resource availability and is linked to homogeneous toolkit. Bottom line on the contrary show the link between strong variations dry-wet seasons, leading to unpredictable resource availability, which would favors variable toolkit.

1/3 New recommendation: Fusco, Habte, Leplongeon, Ménard, Manica, Spinapolice, Leonardi (2025). The environmental context of the Middle-to-Late Stone Age Transition in eastern Africa: seasonality as a key factor. v2 peer-reviewed and recommended by PCI Archaeology doi.org/10.1101/2024...

I am so happy that the work done by @mariannafusco.bsky.social is now accepted on @pciarchaeology.bsky.social 🌟

We explore potential links between the shape and size of #MSA lithic tools and #climate variability through the year 🌧️🌞🪨

I loved working with Marianna and @enzaspinapolice.bsky.social !❤️

A deeper understanding of endometriosis is suggesting new treatments The revelation that endometriosis is linked to autoimmune disorders is opening up a whole new way to treat this painful and poorly understood condition

The revelation that endometriosis is linked to autoimmune disorders is opening up a whole new way to treat this painful and poorly understood condition

I couldn’t be more excited about being given the chance to present some of the work we do at @eegcam.bsky.social this November & to listen to the talks by such an incredible line up of speakers! 🤩

Can't wait!

Malaria shaped human spatial organisation for the last 74 thousand years - preLights The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

The distribution of early human settlements in Sub-Saharan Africa might have been influenced by avoidance of mosquitoes that spread malaria

A new #prelight of Alejandra Leffer's group talks about the preprint by @margheritac17.bsky.social , and the team.

tidygenclust: Clustering for Population Genetics in R Background Population structure analysis is crucial for evolutionary research and medical genomics. Clustering methods, broadly categorized as model-based (e.g. ADMIXTURE) or non-model-based (e.g. SCO...

🚨🧬New #preprint and R package from the lab out in @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social🧬🚨: 'tidygenclust' combines the functionality of ADMIXTURE, fastmixture and Clumppling into R - allowing for reproducible clustering analyses and plotting all in one place!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Thank you @prelights.bsky.social & Alejandra Leffer's group for choosing our preprint on @biorxiv-evobio.bsky.social and for this chance to talk about human- #malaria coevolution!🦟
@eegcam.bsky.social @elliescerri.bsky.social @MPI_GEA

peach coloured background with a drawing of a tree in a sphere depicted

News flash! ⚡ GBIF establishes an international task group led by Dr Lydia Jennings on Indigenous data governance to offer input and guidance for implementing the #CAREPrinciples within the GBIF network 🌱

Read more: 🔗 https://gbif.link/IDG

@localcontexts.bsky.social

A multi-model approach to the spatial and temporal characterization of the African Humid Period During the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availa…

#Newpaper: the African Humid period through the lenses of pollen-based and mechanistic-based #palaeoclimate reconstructions!

Thanks @ecologypast.bsky.social, @markuslfischer.bsky.social, @paleoclimategirl.bsky.social and all coauthors!

Pollen-based reconstructions and a mechanistic climate model tell a similar story on the Africa Humid Period; @mikleonardi.bsky.social‬ and Andrea contributed to a proxy-model comparison paper led by @ecologypast.bsky.social‬ in Quatern. Int.: authors.elsevier.com/sd/article/S...

Josh doesn't care about T. rex lips | The 'Perfect' Specimen Ep5 YouTube video by Natural History Museum

It’s our most controversial episode yet! What do Josh and Natalie think is OVERRATED? Do you agree???

m.youtube.com/watch?v=2IKx...

Identifying late Pleistocene and Holocene refugia for baboons - Communications Biology Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliq...

Hindcasted species distribution modelling of baboons illuminates potential refugia across Africa and Arabia, with predicted maxima and minima of habitable ranges pulsed by orbital precession and obliquity expressed within the last precessional cycle. www.nature.com/articles/s42...

The US Environmental Protection Agency’s retreat from science endangers the health of people and the planet From detecting pollutants to assessing health risks, the US EPA’s Office of Research and Development has long ensured that environmental decisions are grounded in credible, cutting-edge science.

US EPA science shutdown endangers health of people and planet 🌎 🌐 theconversation.com/the-us-envir...

You can also now see it as part of the Richard Owen: A Natural Legacy display in the @nhm-london.bsky.social ‘s free Images of Nature gallery alongside other original #illustrations from Owen’s fascinating drawings collection #naturalhistory #art #gallery #echidna #anatomy

Announcement at the British Academy

Fabulous news that @martamlahr.bsky.social has been elected a Fellow of the British Academy 🍾🍾🍾

Congratulations @martamlahr.bsky.social! This is great!

Ancient proteins rewrite the rhino family tree — are dinosaurs next? Molecules from 20-million-year-old teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced.

Molecules from 20-million-year-old rhino's teeth are among the oldest ever sequenced. New @nature.com paper by Professor Andrea Manica and @mikleonardi.bsky.social @eegcam.bsky.social out now: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Read more here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Phylogenetically informative proteins from an Early Miocene rhinocerotid - Nature Protein sequences from fossil tooth enamel of a rhinocerotid from Canada’s High Arctic are used to develop phylogenetic frameworks from a specimen too old to preserve ancient DNA.

Andrea and @mikleonardi.bsky.social contributed to a @nature.com paper recovering phylogenetically informative proteins from a ~21M year rhino: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

More is not always better: delta-downscaling climate model outputs from 30 to 5 min resolution has minimal impact on coherence with Late Quaternary proxies Abstract. Both proxies and models provide key resources to explore how palaeoenvironmental changes may have impacted diverse biotic communities and cultural processes. While proxies are thought to pro...

Very pleased to see our paper published online at Climate of the Past: cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

We present model-data comparisons of Late Quaternary climate across the Northern Hemisphere, showing that increasing model resolution has little net effect on coherence with pollen proxies 😊

New paper in collaboration with @lucytimbrell96.bsky.social and @jblinkhorn.bsky.social, with several of us involved (@mikleonardi.bsky.social @margheritac17.bsky.social @andreavpozzi.bsky.social) shows that downscaling palaeoclimate models doesn't necessarily improve coherence with proxy data.

Humanity's road to dominance began earlier than expected Getting sapient about sapiens...

Last week, Andrea sat down with Dr Chris Smith of Naked Scientists to talk about our paper on the expansion of the human niche 70k year ago: www.thenakedscientists.com/articles/int...

The Natural History Museum director giving a speech in the main hall, in front of the statue of Charles Darwin

Reflection of one of the historic towers of the Natural History Museum into the full glass side of the Darwin centre.

A newt in the Natural History Museum pond

A square of chocolate cake with a chocolate dinosaur on top

Yesterday it was staff party day at @nhm-london.bsky.social. Coolest event ever 😍

Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal - Nature Analysis of species distribution models in a pan-African database comprising chronometrically dated archaeological sites over the past 120,000 years shows major expansion in the human niche from 70 ka...

Eine neue Nature-Studie erklärt, warum frühe Wanderungsversuche des Menschen nicht gelangen. Die Menschheit musste zunächst in Afrika lernen, verschiedene Arten von Habitaten zu erschließen. Grundlage der Arbeit ist die Datenbank „ROAD“ unserer Forschungsstelle ROCEEH.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

An invaluable software for #popgen! Congrats @eviecarter41.bsky.social, @eegcam.bsky.social and colleagues for this tool! 🧬

Sharing ideas might have helped Homo sapiens adapt for life outside Africa | Natural History Museum As humans adapted to new environments, they might have better able to share ideas with other groups.

Sharing ideas might have helped Homo sapiens adapt for life outside Africa www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

Thanks Judith! 😘

Thanks @wbanks33.bsky.social!