A couple of times now, I’ve pitched in an abstract for a Masters project looking at neck cartilage, hoping someone at Bristol will work on it with me co-supervising, but so far no-one’s bitten. Here’s how I’ve been describing it: Understanding posture and motion in the necks of sauropods: the crucial role of cartilage in intervertebral joints The sauropod dinosaurs were an order of magnitude bigger than any other terrestrial animal.

Recently, I published an old manuscript of mine as a PeerJ Preprint. I wrote this paper in 2003-4, and it was rejected without review when I submitted it back then. (For, I think, specious reasons, but that’s a whole nother discussion. Forget I mentioned it.) I haven’t touched the manuscript since then (except to single-space it for submission as a preprint). It’s ten years old.

I just read this on Zen Faulkes’ NeuroDojo blog: How should scientists, and reporters, discuss work that has failed to replicate? The original Barr and colleagues article remains in the scientific literature; failed replication alone is not grounds for retraction.

In a recent comment, Doug wrote: If I want to be a truly educated observer of Tyrannosaurus rex mounts, what 5 things should I look for in a reconstruction to assess if it is true to our current scientific understanding? I’m not talking tail dragging/upright at this point…we are well past that I hope.

The LSE Impact blog has a new post, Berlin 11 satellite conference encourages students and early stage researchers to influence shift towards Open Access. Thinking about this,  Jon Tennant (@Protohedgehog) just tweeted this important idea: Would be nice to see a breakdown of OA vs non-OA publications based on career-stage of first author. Might be a wake-up call. It would be very useful.

I was very pleased, on checking my email this morning, to see that my and Matt’s new paper, The neck of Barosaurus was not only longer but also wider than those of Diplodocus and other diplodocines, is now up as a PeerJ preprint! Taylor and Wedel (2013b: figure 6). Barosaurus lentus holotype YPM 429, Vertebra Q (C?13). Top row: left ventrolateral view.

Let’s take another look at that Giraffatitan cervical.

Every year I invest many days’ effort into preparing a 20-minute talk for SVPCA. Then I deliver it to maybe 80 people, and that’s the end — it’s over.

In his classic monograph, Hatcher (1901) illustrated the cervical vertebrae of the Diplodocus carnegii holotype CM 84 with beautiful drawings: But only in lateral view. Other plates show photos in lateral, anterior and posterior views, and these are useful even though they’re much less clear than the drawings.

In a paper for which we’re currently handling the revisions, I and Matt cite several pieces of artwork, including Knight’s classic Brontosaurus and Burian’s snorkelling Brachiosaurus . All we have for the references are: Knight CR (1897) Restoration of Brontosaurus . Burian Z (1941) Snorkelling Brachiosaurus . But a reviewer asked us: I don’t really have any idea what the right way is to cite artwork — does