Conferences and Workshops

Last weekend a number of people attended our workshop. We’re looking forward to hearing from any of those who attended so do please get in touch if you’d like to send us a write-up. On a related subject, there is a very good write-up of the previous NatSCA workshop, on all things osteological, here.

Coming up on the 15th October 2015, we’re really excited about the Identification of Natural Materials workshop – it’s going to be great!

We are just over a month away from the Tetrapod Zoology Conference, held at the London Wetland Centre on the 15th November 2015. There will be numerous NatSCA members there so do come and say hi.

Exhibitions

Glass Delusions at the Grant Museum is the new display by resident artist Eleanor Morgan, which explores the natural world through the medium of glass. There are a lot of associated activities, such as last week’s screening of 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea (which I missed :(). Do check it out.
News from the Journals

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past two months, you’ve probably heard the name Homo naledi before. This is the new and well-represented member of the human genus that was recently found during the Rising Star expedition. A brain about the size of a gorilla’s but who hints at ritual burial, it’s all very cool but it gets better: in a rare departure, the second and third papers on this specimen follow hotly on the heels of the first. There is one specifically focussing on the hand of H. naledi and another dedicated to the foot. Having seen casts of the hands and feet at the Natural History Museum’s Science Uncovered event, there’s certainly plenty to write about.

News from the Blogosphere

It’s Mark week this week it seems. We have two blog posts to share with you: the first is some heartfelt venting by Oxford’s Mark Carnall on his personal blog on the over-use of certain Natural history tropes. Here’s the link.

The second is an artistic representation of a topic that was raised at SVPCA this year: Apatosaurine neck fighting by Mark Witton. Here’s the story.