Western University of Health Sciences

Matt Wedel

It is a measure of how scattershot our blogging is that we haven't
mentioned Adam Mastroianni or his blog [Experimental
History](https://www.experimental-history.com/) before now. Mike and I
enjoy a lot of freedom from institutional oversight of our research and
publishing, and we do make some use of it. We like to try new
publication outlets --- we published the first paleo papers in
[Qeios](https://www.qeios.com/read/1G6J3Q.5), [Academia
Letters](https://sauroposeidon.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/wedel-et-al-2021-expanded-neural-canals-in-caudal-vertebrae-of-haplocanthosaurus.pdf),
and, most notably and satisfyingly,
[PeerJ](https://peerj.com/articles/36/) --- and we occasionally like to
imagine a world of scientific inquiry that was less encumbered by the
cruft of
[bureaucracy](https://svpow.com/2017/03/17/every-attempt-to-manage-academia-makes-it-worse/),
[tradition](https://svpow.com/2013/04/10/idiot-things-that-we-we-do-in-our-papers-out-of-sheer-habit/),
[peer
review](https://svpow.com/2012/11/26/well-that-about-wraps-it-up-for-peer-review/),
the perversion of [impact
factors](https://svpow.com/2016/01/25/all-right-then-how-should-we-evaluate-research-and-researchers/),
and the deliberate roadblocks thrown up by [barrier-based
publishers](https://svpow.com/2017/06/29/why-publishers-cannot-be-around-the-table-when-the-scholarly-community-discusses-its-communication-options/).

Mike and I both admire Adam Mastroianni because he just went and
freakin' *did it*. Quit his academic job to [live off his Substack
subscriptions](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-experimental-history-experiment),
published a paper by [posting it freely to the
web](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/things-could-be-better)
(along with the [supporting data](https://osf.io/bk7zt/) \[and yes, I
know he's not the first to do this; it's still cool\]), and not only
envisioned a new way of doing science ([Science
House!](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/lets-build-a-fleet-and-change-the)),
but actually [implemented
it](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-first-transmissions-from-science).

Oh, and we also admire him because he thinks interesting thoughts and
his writing style is right up our alley --- light-but-direct,
conversational, self-deprecating, insightful, and often wickedly funny.
He makes it look easy, which is virtually always the visible result of a
lot of hard work. (Unfortunately, it is also possible to work hard
without making anything look easy.)

Lest you think I'm ladling on the compliments because of what's coming
up, I've probably made a nuisance of myself among my close friends and
colleagues by forwarding Adam's posts a LOT this past year. I'm now
having conversations with friends of the form, "Have I sent you anything
by Adam Mastroia-" "YES."

ANYWAY, earlier this summer Adam announced a [blog-writing
contest](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/the-summer-2024-blog-post-competition),
for the lovely purpose of helping him find new reading material. That
announcement led to the following exchange.

**Matt:** Thinking this might be the prod I need to finish "We're not
going to run out of new anatomy anytime soon".

**Mike:** That's a good call. Maybe a bit TOO obviously
Mastroianni-bait?

**Matt (somewhat later):** Apparently just the right amount of
Mastroianni-bait --- he just wrote to tell me that post [won the
contest](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/blog-extravaganza-the-winners)!

[![](https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christmas-story-leg-lamp.jpg?w=480){.size-large
.wp-image-22857 .aligncenter loading="lazy" attachment-id="22857"
permalink="http://svpow.com/2024/09/10/i-won-a-thing-from-someone-i-admire/christmas-story-leg-lamp/"
orig-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christmas-story-leg-lamp.jpg"
orig-size="1920,1440" comments-opened="1"
image-meta="{\"aperture\":\"3.2\",\"credit\":\"\",\"camera\":\"Canon PowerShot SD780 IS\",\"caption\":\"\",\"created_timestamp\":\"1260825928\",\"copyright\":\"\",\"focal_length\":\"5.9\",\"iso\":\"800\",\"shutter_speed\":\"0.05\",\"title\":\"\",\"orientation\":\"1\"}"
image-title="Christmas Story leg lamp" image-description=""
image-caption=""
medium-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christmas-story-leg-lamp.jpg?w=300"
large-file="https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christmas-story-leg-lamp.jpg?w=1024"
tabindex="0" role="button" width="480"
height="360"}](https://svpow.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/christmas-story-leg-lamp.jpg)

I did make one tiny change from the version submitted on Google Docs and
the version posted here --- I added a sentence about the new neural
canal ridges paper (Atterholt et al. 2024, [this
post](https://svpow.com/2024/08/29/new-paper-atterholt-et-al-2024-on-neural-canal-ridges-in-dinosaurs/),
and [this
one](https://svpow.com/2024/09/01/neural-canal-ridges-the-directors-cut/)),
a paper which nicely illustrates the thesis of the new anatomy post.
It's all come together very satisfactorily: at SVPCA in 2019, Jessie
gave a talk on neural canal ridges, and my talk, which I think came
immediately after hers, was about how to make new discoveries in human
anatomy. Here we are five years later to the month, and the neural canal
ridges paper and the long-in-development blog post about new anatomy are
both finally out within a fortnight of each other.

Congratulations to the other winners! I'm looking forward to digging
into the spring tide of interesting reading that Adam's contest
aggregated, listening to new voices, and having new thoughts. The
excerpts and descriptions in Adam's reveal post are beyond intriguing
--- [go check 'em
out](https://www.experimental-history.com/p/blog-extravaganza-the-winners).

And a huge thank you to Adam --- for writing Experimental History in the
first place, for showing the rest of us that there are alternatives to
the Way Things Have Always Been Done (hint: "Always" in that formulation
is a much shorter period of time than most people think), for running
the contest and introducing so many interesting writers to each other
and the world, and, of course, for choosing my entry. The world gives me
a lot of positive feedback already, but mostly for the "official" stuff
like publishing and teaching. It's really nice to get recognized for
blogging, especially out of such a rich field of entrants.

If anyone's curious, I'm going to use the prize money to fund my
research. I drew out my startup money for a loooong time but it's
finally gone, I don't have a current grant and applying for grants is a
not-fun way to gamble weeks or months I could use to write papers, and
the little pot of annual travel and research money from my department
only goes so far. The prize money will let me keep finding and reporting
on new anatomy. Probably mostly in sauropods, but who knows --- I'm
publishing ([and
blogging!](https://svpow.com/2024/09/01/neural-canal-ridges-the-directors-cut/))
on freakin' fish these days, so anything's possible. Stay tuned! (And
welcome, Experimental History readers!)

All right, that's plenty of navel blogging. Back to the good stuff in
the next couple of posts.

# Reference

- [Atterholt, J., Wedel, M.J., Tykoski, R., Fiorillo, A.R., Holwerda,
  F., Nalley, T.K., Lepore, T., and Yasmer, J. 2024. Neural canal
  ridges: a novel osteological correlate of postcranial neuroanatomy in
  dinosaurs. The Anatomical Record, 1-20.
  https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25558](https://doi.org/10.1002/ar.25558)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

[doi:10.59350/vha9z-9km17](https://doi.org/10.59350/vha9z-9km17)


It is a measure of how scattershot our blogging is that we haven’t mentioned Adam Mastroianni or his blog Experimental History before now.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

I won a thing! From someone I admire!