This month’s episode is a sort of follow-up to that from the start of the year, looking at some of the more problematic areas of dinosaurs and palaeontology when it comes to online discussions. There is an online fandom of dinosaurs that treats them like monsters or superheroes, and can fixate on what is and isn’t the biggest / strongest / fastest dinosaur and who could beat up who. Joining us to discuss this is Dr Mike O’Sullivan, a palaeontologist and self-professed member of several fandoms. We talk about how this community works and what it means for scientists talking about research.

Links:

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/terriblelizards

Mike is part of Palaeogames, a company of professional palaeontologists making accurate books and games: https://palaeogames.com/

And here’s their latest Kickstarter, a Dungeons & Dragons companion book: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/palaeogames/professor-primulas-portfolio-of-palaeontology

Series 11, eh? We don’t think we, or anyone else reading this, expected that.

Nor did we expect issues with Dave’s microphone (apologies)… Still, here we are and with more dinosaur goodness coming. We say ‘coming’ because this episode is far less about dinosaurs and pterosaurs than usual, but more about the mechanisms of science. In this case it’s really about Dave’s experiences as a science communicator and how things like this are increasingly important for science, but in the UK at least, this can be monitored and measured and so having ways to do that becomes important. And this is the central point of today’s show, a call to arms for all those who are involved in sci comms and delight in sharing new knowledge to understand why it’s important to credit your sources when new discoveries are made.

Links:

For extra content: patreon.com/terriblelizards

If you want to know a bit more about REF in the UK, here’s the main pages for it: https://2029.ref.ac.uk/about/what-is-the-ref/

And if we’re talking communication, it seems a good time to say that Iszi and Dave are both now on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/davehone.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/iszi.com

Thanks to Kyle, Tom, Ashley, Aurous, Wayne, Paleo Pete, Tyler, Will, Israel, Charles, James and Edward

Support us on patreon.com/terriblelizards and be rewarded with extra content!

We are planning on going live on isztube at 16:00 GMT on Friday 26th December. (Time may change)