The researchers essentially discount the idea of a water collection system and gardening. Not enough water is generated by the mist and why would you have a garden on a barren hillside where there isn't much water when you have a fertile valley right next door?

(5/?) Considering bird flu already seems to be able to circulate in cows in the US, and there have been human cases in the past year, I would have thought there was a pretty strong case for fast and strong action

(4/?) …that NPR story says that in the past 30 days, the avian influenza/bird flu virus (H5N1) has struck 66 poultry flocks, leading to the deaths of more than 3.5 million turkeys, chickens and ducks in the US.

(3/?) And I know the picture is different in every country depending partly on wild bird migrations but…

(2/?) I don’t resent this – I know the biosecurity rules are designed to defend against widespread disease (and death) in wild and domestic birds, egg shortages and even human illness (and death)

The intriguing and very comprehensive original research is in a pre-print on bioRxiv (so not yet peer reviewed) www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

And the loss of trees and other biodiversity was probably due to climate cooling related to the Little Ice Age – a period of colder conditions from about 1250 to 1860 – as well as volcanic eruptions and storm surges.

The Norse perhaps settled as early as AD 810 (rather than 877), but analysis of environmental DNA from sediment cores spanning between about AD 200 to the modern day suggests that the loss of trees didn’t occur until after 1200

A really interesting aspect of this research that I wrote up for @newscientist.com is that people thought the arrival of the Norse in Iceland led to the clearance of the island’s forests for fuel, building material and fields. Forests now cover just 2 per cent of the country.

The original preprint is available here: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Looks like a parasol to me. Definitely a Macrolepiota of some kind.

It was great to talk to Lindsay Zanno about this, as well as get the searing insights of @davehone.bsky.social, @stevebrusatte.bsky.social, @arctomet.bsky.social and Thomas Carr who really helped me put it all in perspective

The original paper is in Nature: nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09801-6

And it's down to some very rigorous analysis of bone growth rings, spinal fusion data and developmental anatomy that together demonstrate that a small tyrannosaur was fully grown rather than a juvenile

The original paper is in the New England Journal of Medicine (10.1056/NEJMoa2501396) www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/...