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Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
@JacquelynGill
Aug 25, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
We found this intact moth frozen in place in still-green grass in a permafrost tunnel in Siberia. We just got a radiocarbon date back on the grass it was found in. Any guesses as to how old it is? Image
Here's a hint (the answer is in the thread below in a few places, so don't click if you want to guess): the upper limit for radiocarbon dating is 50,000 years, and we got a viable date, so it's younger than that.
By request, here's the grass the moth came out of. It's a washed-out iPhone photo, so it doesn't look as green as it did in person, but you can definitely pick out greenish blades towards the center-right. Image
Here's another hint, and something I'm enjoying in my imagination right now: this moth could have landed on a Neanderthal.

Speaking of which, have you pre-ordered or bought @LeMoustier's book yet? bookshop.org/books/kindred-…

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More from @JacquelynGill

Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Aug 15
A lot of the debates about whether to bring politics into science, teaching, or other spheres of public life would be easily avoided if people remembered that being political is not the same as being partisan.
Politics involves how decisions are made, how power is structured, and how resources are allocated within and among groups.

Partisanship is an allegiance to a specific faction, party, or politician.

The two concepts are related, but they are not the same.
My research has policy implications. My ability to do my job is influenced by state and federal funding for research and education. We teach students to be well-rounded, informed members of society. We exist within systems that affect who gets to do science, or get an education.
Read 7 tweets
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Apr 22
Over a month after the vote, the think pieces on the "rejected" Anthropocene are still coming strong, so I wanted to take a moment to (finally!) offer some background and thoughts about the vote, the process, and what it all means.
Geologists define different intervals in Earth's past so we can share a common language. Earth's 4.5 billion year history is divided into a series of eons (longest), eras, periods, epochs, and ages (shortest), based on visible changes in rock layers and fossil ecosystems.
For example, the Cenozoic Era began 66 million years ago with the impact that killed the dinosaurs. Within that, the Paleocene (66 to 56 mya) was the first epoch within the Paleogene Period (66 to 23 mya). Each is defined by rock layers that record extinctions and climate events.
Read 29 tweets
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Feb 14
Last December, a @DukeU Magazine article explored the "uncertain future" of the Duke Herbarium.

The scientific community is now learning that Duke has decided that this facility will be closed. This is bad, and here's why.dukemag.duke.edu/stories/nowher…
A herbarium is basically a collection of plant specimens that are preserved for research and teaching. They're a vital resource to help scientists identify species, understand changes in biodiversity patterns, or even changes in flowering time or other climate change impacts.
Herbaria require resources and space, as well as staff, who use the collections for research and outreach, and who assist visiting scientists to conduct research. Many collections are digitized, but the actual specimens have tons of value. Internet photos aren't enough.
Read 10 tweets
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Jan 11
If you say humanity is doomed to extinction and that nothing we can do can prevent total climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse, I need you to know's just as unscientific as saying there's no climate crisis.

I don't platform disinformation. I don't care what kind it is.
Sadly, I've learned that just as there's no convincing the dismissives the climate crisis is real, there's no convicing defeatists that this isn't pass-fail, and that our work will always matter. I only have so much time and energy. It needs to go where it can be of the most use.
Most defeatists seem to come from demographics that haven't historically faced the loss of their bodily autonomy, rights, homelands, or cultures. I empathize with those experiencing their first-ever existential threats, but I really wish their first instinct wasn't to give up.
Read 5 tweets
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Oct 26, 2023
I woke up this morning full of pain at so much violence, to each other and to the planet. I wrote a short message to my lab, and it helped me see a clearer path. I'm sharing it here in case it helps you, too.
Witnessing trauma is its own kind of trauma, especially in a society that wants us to suppress that trauma so we can continue to function as well-oiled cogs. We don't have a lot of good tools for how to bear witness without becoming numb. And we cannot become numb.
I wish I had the answers, but I'm fumbling through this, myself. What I can say is that when things are difficult, anything we can do to show up for each other and our communities makes a difference. The fabric of society is threadbare and torn; we must patch and weave.
Read 5 tweets
Dr. Jacquelyn Gill Profile picture
Jul 11, 2023
Since 2009, the Anthropocene Working Group has been trying to decide whether geologists should revise the geologic timeline to include a new epoch defined by human impacts, and if so, when. 🧵
If you're not familiar with this project or the debates about when the Anthropocene would start, here's a thread I did on exactly that:

Now that you're all caught up on golden spikes, here's an update:

Today, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) announced their recommendation, which is that we should have a new geologic epoch, and it started in 1950, as recorded in lake sediments from Crawford Lake, Ontario.
Read 16 tweets

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