Showing posts with label STEM life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label STEM life. Show all posts

Thursday, June 7, 2018

Rocking On In Career Transition

Hello Dear Readers!

Whenever I'm asked, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I choose to receive the bad news first. There are two reasons for this. One, I want to know the exact nature of the challenge I must face. This appeals to the collections manager in me, as a lot of what I did as a collections manager involved picturing plausible threats to the fossils for which I am a steward, and then doing my best to mitigate those threats. Two, I am pretty good at turning the good news I receive second into an opportunity to mitigate the bad news. So for this particular post about my in-progress transitioning from Collections Manager & Curator to ????, I'm going to start with the "bad news."

There is still no long-term solution for the continuation of the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre since the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation's (our parent non-profit organization) funding for 2018 was denied by the District of Tumbler Ridge in March.

This is the definite low point of the year for paleontology in our part of the world (northeast British Columbia), and this particular low point brought friends. The first Low-Point Tag-Along is the imminent threat to the continuation of the fossil archives (a.k.a. collections) at the PRPRC. Anyone who follows my Twitter account (@Lisavipes) has seen me tweet with some ferocity and vigor on the importance of stable, well-supported natural heritage archives. This isn't for self-serving reasons: museum archives are still poorly understood and little appreciated by the public (although I see this changing) and by the administrators who decide which areas of museum life get support (that I do not see changing as quickly as I would like).

I'll share one of my Twitter threads on the importance of supporting natural heritage archives here.
This tweet and the associated thread describe why the collections are the foundation of a museum's activities: educational outreach, high-profile research, student opportunities, marketing, displays. Sure, you can have an interpretive center that shows some nice displays of, say, birds in your area (also part of our natural heritage), but all of the information that goes along with the visual imagery of the display originates from research and a collections facility.

(Anyone familiar with my Twitter feed also knows that I communicate in gifs. True Story.)
The "who what where when why and how" of those birds was figured out from a bird scientist (a.k.a ornithologist) looking at birds in the wild and in a museum's collections. Collections don't just preserve individual specimens: they preserve patterns. Collections reveal to you what birds were once common in an area, but are no longer common. Collections reveal that what we thought was one bird was actually two really similar-looking species after the genetic information was studied. Collections preserve specimens collected throughout the years so we can see what toxins might be contributing to the decline of a bird species.

What us scientists call research is really just us figuring out the detailed story of the critters that we study. The collections are the library of ideas and information that make the story (scientific papers, displays, educational programming) possible.
We don't really describe the step-by-step detail of how discoveries are made. We usually present the Highlights version of the journey because, let's be brutally honest here, reading about the step-by-step, day-to-day grind of data collection, data analysis, surveying, etc. would be a tedious read. When I was a graduate student, our lab would informally hold a "Tedious-Off" competition. The person doing the most tedious task to tell the story of their fossil research would "win." There were no prizes, but we did get to share with our colleagues some of the slogging that we did to get from idea to science story. Common Tedious-Off entries were editing noise out of 3D model images, finding the one bad data entry in a spreadsheet of 10,000 entries, and counting all of the bumps on the cutting surface of a theropod tooth (that one never won, because we were looking at an actual specimen so that was still cool.) TL:DR is that collecting information and getting the story ready to tell isn't all excitement and surprised gasping at discoveries.
When I document fossil bird footprints on rock slabs, it's a pretty mellow scene.

Take a look at the above picture. This is a small part of the large bird and dinosaur track surface of the Gajin-ri Track Site in South Korea. The paleontologists who study this site made a trackway map (basically a drawing of all of the footprints as they appear on the surface) by spending hundreds of hours crouched on the surface finding and tracing each individual footprint in low-angle light. This is the standard operating procedure for studying small tracks. I've spent many a day in collections, pitch black save for one lamp, lying on foam pads on the concrete floor as I trace out bird tracks and invertebrate burrows on to plastic sheets.

I can't speak for everyone, but for myself, I am not looking for a new discovery when I'm documenting tracks. I'm simply transcribing what I see on to plastic and paper. It's only when I keep seeing the same "different" thing over and over that my brain starts to think "Hey, that's odd. something's going on here." It's not scientific montage process typically shown in movies, where scientists are looking for X, struggle to find X, and then - against all odds - find X. Perhaps this is why collections do not receive the respect they deserve: their use (except for display specimens: those are part of the collections) is behind the scenes and progress is careful and slow.

A curiosity question for me: is there anyone out there that would truly be interested in seeing an unedited video of a researcher like a paleontologist doing the Tedious-Off portion of their work? My working hypothesis is that the answer to that question will be chirping crickets.

When I gave the occasional tour of the collections facility, there are one of two reactions:

"Oh my God this is so important! Look at all of our heritage!"

...or...

"So how can we make money off of this?"

Maia demonstrating the Head Blanket, because sometimes Head Desk is too hard.
When I attempt to explain to this type of responder with how collections are the source of the displays and discoveries, I see eyes glaze over. I have not yet found the right combination of words that can break through this attitude.

As a result, I am now faced with the very real scenario of having to find a stable home for the fossil archives. We do not "own" the fossils. The town does not "own" the fossils. They are technically the property of the Province of British Columbia, and my colleague (and fellow termination notice holder) and I are the qualified stewards of the fossils.

The second Bad News Tag-Along is that there will be no paleontology field exploration done this summer. One misconception that I encounter is that field paleontology is cheap/free to do. This might be because the field survey methods are not necessarily high-tech. Fuel to get to field sites costs money. If you find something large, moving that specimen costs money. Also, our time has a cost associated with it. Just as artists can't pay the bills using Exposure Bucks, paleontologists can't pay the bills using Excitement of Discovery Bucks. And no, despite what people believe, making big discoveries does not make it easier to find funding to continue work. Media exposure =/= money in paleontology.

So, those are the Bad News items. Now on to the Good News items.

1. Tomorrow is my one year Bird Glamourversary! To celebrate this milestone in my journey as a science communicator, I will be launching a Bird Glamour YouTube channel that will combine me applying the Bird Glamour looks with cool facts about the featured bird! Once the link is live I will include it in this blog post!

UPDATE: Here is the link to the Bird Glamour YouTube channel!


2. I am working on two non-fiction book proposals! One book is purely in the proposal stage, while the other book has a couple of sample chapters already written. When I feel a bit more certain about the process and the progress, I'll talk about those projects here!

3. I am collecting the information I need for gaining certification as a professional geoscientist in British Columbia. It's a long process, but with the combination of schooling and 15 years of experience as an active paleontologist, I think that I have a great chance at succeeding.

4. I will be working on some post-secondary program development. Once the details of that project are ironed out, I can talk a bit more about the projects.

5. Of course, I am applying for jobs. I'm constantly reminding myself that it is not my job to tell myself I'm not right for a posted position...within reason, of course: I'm not going to apply for a physics or a botany position. I am making a conscious effort not to select myself out of potential opportunities.

That is my life in the sciences at this point in time! I am excited that I have the opportunity to explore options and opportunities within science communication through Bird Glamour and book writing.  Who knows where these opportunities will lead?
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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Bird Glamour and Scicomm: The Almost One Year Review

Hello Dear Readers!

I'm not going to try to gloss over the situation, but March and April have been less than glamorous. The District of Tumbler Ridge denied the annual operational funding request of our parent organization, the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation, because...well, I'm not really sure why Dear Readers. The reasons we are given (and that are stated in the media) keep changing in moving goalpost fashion. There's potential for a "because...Reasons" meme here. So, I'm sitting here with a termination notice in my pocket (the TRMF had no choice but to issue all of its employees, including me, the notices.) I'm not done writing about this, but that will be a future post, and one filled with more information than the "because...Reasons" that we have been given. Stay tuned.

This development happened in conjunction with a series of talks me and my colleague Dr. Richard McCrea gave in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. First, we helped open the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's newest permanent exhibit Footprints In Time (link to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum website here) on the University of British Columbia campus. This was an excellent partnership: we made the trackway replicas, and then worked with their display and scicomm team to create the interpretive text. The displays look spectacular! Below is a picture of one of the trackway replicas, a 130 million-year-old track slab from northeast British Columbia that contains the natural cast (track infills) trackways of a large theropod (likely an allosaurid) and an ornithopod (likely similar in size and shape to Iguanodon.) That evening Rich gave a talk on dinosaur tracks from British Columbia (with a focus on the Six Peaks Dinosaur Track Site, follow the link for our YouTube video) for the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's Nocturnal lecture series.
One of three dinosaur trackway slab replicas (original specimens currently curated at the PRPRC) now on display at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on the University of British Columbia campus!
I gave four talks over two days at Science World in Vancouver (that may also be the subject of a future post), and then I gave a presentation on what we know about dinosaur behavior from tracks and traces (a.k.a. ichnology) for the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's "Way Cool" series. Then we gave talks on track research in British Columbia in Courtenay for the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society.

Whew.

I can now talk about the subject of this post, which is my reflections on my almost one year anniversary of when #BirdGlamour took flight! Bird Glamour is a scicomm and sciart project that I developed to introduce people to the wonderful diversity and life history of our present-day theropods, a.k.a. birds, using a rather unconventional medium...COSMETICS!

My most recent #BirdGlamour is the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)!
Each Bird Glamour post comes with a cool fact about the life history of the subject bird, ranging from migration to food preferences to feather pigments: basically, any tidbit of information that I think people would connect with. I launched Bird Glamour on June 9, 2017, with a very simple post.
To be honest, I had no idea how the linking of ornithology with cosmetics would be received. Some people in science are not exactly open to the idea of Science Selfies; however, read the strong rebuttal to this on the blog From The Lab Bench entitled "Why We Scientists Do Instagram." My concerns were unfounded. Bird Glamour is a hit!

There have been great highlights in the short life of Bird Glamour. One was my first video tutorial, developed with Audubon, for a Halloween-themed Bohemian Waxwing Bird Glamour!

I was also asked to do a promotional Bird Glamour for The Urban Interface, a non-profit wildlife and nature education center. They have lovely wildlife Ambassadors for which they care and train for educational purposes. Their Ambassador Pandora, a Swainson's Hawk, is a lovely Bird Glamour model.
Now that I'm nearing the one-year Glamour-versary (oh yes, I went there) of Bird Glamour, I wanted to fly a few ideas past Twitter to see if some new styles or techniques would ruffle any feathers. I went to the polls!

1. Most respondents were quite eager to see me migrate to other continents to glam it up!
I definitely agree! There are so many exciting birds and cool bird diversity to explore!

2. In addition to my usual style of Bird Glamour, people are interested in seeing me do makeup tutorials while I chirp about the bird being glamoured!
YouTube will be a new adventure for me. I'll admit that I feel nervous on camera. I also recognize that I shouldn't feel this way: I've been interviewed many times for documentaries and media. I'm hoping this nervous feeling will fade with familiarity.

3. There is interest to see how these Bird Glamour looks could be transformed to every day looks, or at least a fun evening look!
I will definitely experiment with everyday Bird Glamour looks. I am not an expert in applying cosmetics, so if you're also new to makeup, we can learn (and possibly laugh) together.

4. This poll on incorporating female coloration into Bird Glamour was almost neck-in-turkey-neck. To date, the looks have focused on male plumage (or those birds that have similar male and female plumage).
I agree with keeping the male and female plumage colors separate. However, I will glamour cases of gynandromorphism, the condition where an animal shows both male and female characteristics. Animals with bilateral gynandromorphism look male on one side and female on the opposite side. A recent case of bilateral gynandromorphism that hit the bird news was the gynandromorph Northern Cardinal.

 5. My last question involved beak color. Given the array of lipstick colors available, I think people wouldn't mind part of my makeup bill being used for Bird Glamour lipstick!
You'll be proud of me, Bird Glamour fans: I have started acquiring fun lipstick colors!
I also did my first Bird Glamour post that includes lip color: the Herring Gull.
Gulls are the perfect bird for incorporating lips into the Bird Glamour look. Many species of gull have a fairly standard adult head color - grey-white - but there is color variation in the stripes and spots on their beaks!

Reception of Bird Glamour

 Online Reception - The sheer number of positive comments and encouragement online is both staggering and humbling. I am thrilled that Bird Glamour speaks to people. Science art (sciart) is a powerful tool in science communication: there's a reason for the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." Images are a powerful and effective way to transmit complex ideas. The idea of Sketchnoting relies on the information-delivery power of illustrations to highlight key concepts. Using a different style of illustration - makeup - allows me to highlight birds that people might want to know more about.

Bird Glamour also starts some great conversations about bird lives and biology. The most frequently asked question is "Why do so many birds have a black stripe around their eyes?" That's a good question! There was a study done on what the Masked Shrike uses its bold black eyeliner for. Is it to reduce glare for hunting? Does it make the eyes of the shrike appear bold and scary to deter predators? Does it help the shrike camouflage itself for sneak attacks, or hide the eyes so its prey doesn't know it's being watched? When researchers temporarily painted some Masked Shrike's masks from black to white (they Bird Glamoured an actual bird!) the shrikes with white eye masks had more trouble snagging prey and did most of their hunting facing away from the sun. It turns out black eye masks act as sunglasses for birds, at least for Masked Shrikes.

Public Reception - How do people react when they see me in public all Bird Glamoured up? It depends on the setting. I did a Bird Glamour version of the feathered theropod Anchiornis huxleyi, know for its striking black, white, and rusty red plumage, for attending the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Auction.
I had several people who approached me to say they enjoyed the Anchiornis Bird Glamour. There were also some smiling looks, but perhaps starting the conversation of "Hey, why is your makeup like that?" felt too socially awkward for them. I completely understand. Starting conversations with people I don't know is difficult for me as well. Running up to people, waving my arms and shouting "HEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY EYES AND ANCHIORNIS?" seems a bit intense, so I need to work on that approach. There were also some unsmiling stares and quick look-aways. That I also understand: Bird Glamour doesn't have to appeal to everyone. Or perhaps they thought I was unprofessional or strange. Well, as my readers and social media friends know, I am strange, but I am completely comfortable with expressing my interests and passions.

Family audiences are very receptive to Bird Glamour. When I did a presentation for families at the Goseong Public Library on Cretaceous bird track types found in both Canada and South Korea, the public reception was great! I had my picture taken with a lot of families! The people in the makeup department at our closest Shoppers are also interested: more than once I've gone in with a picture of a bird and asked "I'm looking for this color. Do you have anything like this?" On seeing some of my Bird Glamour posts, one commented: "Wow, so you're an artist!" That took me by surprise: I have never identified as an artist before. I can pencil sketch with enough accuracy to satisfy my eye, but art is not something that I have ever done professionally. All I could do was stammer for a bit and then say "Huh. Yeah, I guess I am!"

I am planning something super fun for my official one-year Glamour-versary in terms of setting and the bird, and a great bunch of Bird Glamour pictures to share from our West Coast trip.

What birds would you like to see for future Bird Glamour pictures? Do you have a science specialty that would make a great Glamour? Itati (@itatiVCS) has started #EcoGlam #MachineFacts to share how she uses various equipment to do ecology research! I'm going to enjoy following this hashtag!
Stay tuned for more Bird Glamour!

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Saturday, March 3, 2018

Tracking Cretaceous Birds in South Korea: Goseong Public Library Talks

Hello, Dear Readers!

We've made it to September 16, 2017, when our Ichnology Heros are scheduled to give talks to the public at the Goseong Public Library! When we go to another country to do research, we always offer to give a local talk on the work we do in Canada, and how the local fossil record fits in with our work on a global scale.

Giving a talk in another country where the language is not your primary language is not that different (in my experience) than tailoring an academic talk to a public audience:

1. Keep the jargon to a minimum. There's always a way to explain even a highly technical test or feature using non-technical language.

2. You may understand your graphs, but remember: you've been staring at them for months or years. No blob of ambiguous data points on a graph with itty-bitty axes, no series of fifty graphs that only have really subtle differences. If you use graphs, make sure the meaning of the graph is crystal clear.

3. Pictures are worth a thousand words. If you can describe it, see if you can also show it. Outline hard to see details for your audience. If you're showing a picture of a single bone or a footprint, also show an image of the animal it came from (or the closest representative).

4. Remember - especially when your audience is in another country - that jokes/witticisms are often colloquial and have local or specialized meaning. it may fall flat. Also, "those jokes" (which are really just methods used to belittle groups who have less representation and/or power) about gender, race, jokes about sex, sexual innuendos, or sexual imagery, or jokes about political situations are in really poor taste, no matter your audience. They have no place in a talk communicating science to any audience. No one wants to see that nonsense.

5. If a translation is necessary, remember that this will (at least) double the time it takes to give your talk. Make sure you are not talking in huge paragraphs: your translator is going to have to remember what you've said and be forced to summarize your long rambling monologue to a more concise sentence or two.

We were told ahead of time that the audience would be a mix of children and adults, so I made sure to travel with my Bird Glamour makeup kit! I don't often have an opportunity to do a Bird Glamour for an extinct species of bird or avian theropod (although I did rock Anchiornis at the 2017 Society of Vertebrate Paleontology meeting during the auction/social event!) I was excited to do an ichnology-themed Bird Glamour.

This ichnology Bird Glamour was inspired by Ignotornis gajinensis, the bird trackways that have spoonbill-like "swooshes" preserved. These "swooshes" are similar in shape to the bill marks made on sediment by present-day spoonbills stirring up the sediment to catch fish and invertebrates.
Spoonbill with its namesake spoon-shaped bill.

I decided to go with the Black-faced Spoonbill for this Bird Glamour. We arrived at the Goseong Public Library after a nice lunch with the Library's curator, public programming coordinator, and some of the Library staff.
The poster advertising our public talks at the Goseong Public Library!
While the rest of the Ichnology Team had coffee and snacks with the curator, I applied my Black-faced Spoonbill look.

These looks can take anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour to create. Once I was done, Sujin asked if I could do her eyes up as an owl. Sujin chose a Long-eared Owl, and I was kindly given the use of the curator's office to apply Sujin's Long-eared Owl look.
Me (left) with Black-faced Spoonbill eyes and Sujin (right) with Long-eared Owl eyes. 
This was the first time I had given a public talk while wearing Bird Glamour. I admit to being a trifle nervous about it: people sometimes have a very specific stereotype image in mind when they think "scientist," and that image does not typically involve makeup, let alone bird-inspired makeup. Nevertheless, I opened my talk by introducing Bird Glamour and used the link between the Black-faced Spoonbill and Korea's fossil bird tracks to talk about the bird tracks of western Canada.
Dr. Martin Lockley talking about his track work in South Korea.
Dr. Richard McCrea talking about dinosaur tracks from western Canada.
The talks were very well-received: there were a lot of interesting questions from both the kids and adults in attendance. We went out for our last dinner in South Korea: bulgogi! After dinner, we went to Dr. Kim's lab for one last push to get as many tracks documented in our time remaining. We were at the lab until at least 11:00 pm local time.

Our flight from the Incheon Airport wasn't until the early afternoon, but we were scheduled to take a bus from Jinju to Incheon. The bus was scheduled to leave Jinju around 5:45 am. We were up, packed, and waiting in the hotel parking garage for our ride to the bus station at 5:10 am.

Things got...interesting. We saw some of the Jinju night-life as young people started returning home from what I assume was a fun Saturday night. Then a young woman staggers down the road. She is still in a partying mood and is very eager to give us cigarettes. She tells us in her limited English that she is from Russia, and that she doesn't speak [insert derogatory term here]. To directly quote my field notes from that morning "Charming that one of the few English words she knows is a slur. :| " While this interaction was taking place, I was scanning down the road to make sure that she was not distracting us so that an unseen companion could rob us. Before long Sujin arrived with an additional cab to take us and our luggage to the bus station. Rich gave his gift of cigarettes to our cab driver.

We arrived with plenty of time to get our boarding passes for the bus. These buses are glorious: truly comfortable seats with nice headrests and copious leg room. We slept until our rest stop about halfway between Jinju and Incheon Airport. We breakfasted on roasted chestnuts purchased at the concession. If you've never had roasted chestnuts, they have a soft texture that is slightly sweet.
Since all of the buses look the same, we made sure to remember in which space our bus was parked. 
We arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. This was good because it gave us a chance to repack our bags to make sure we didn't have power sources, like a solar battery charger, in our carry-on luggage. We found this out when Martin (who was flying out of Incheon first) was pulled out of line during his bag scanning to repack his bags. Oops. You can travel a million times and still miss an item or two.

Our flight back to Canada was uneventful, which is the best kind of flight! Usually, on a flight and while waiting in airports I type away on writing projects and papers. Sometimes I try to read if the jetlag isn't too powerful. I felt the jetlag start to hit me hard while we were waiting for our flight from Vancouver to Fort St. John. Jetlag gives me a very disconnected feeling: I feel as though I'm moving at a different tempo than that of the rest of the world. I also tend to feel as though all of my sensations have been muted.

Then, of course, there's the struggle to reclaim your original sleep schedule. This can take anywhere from a couple of days to over a week. My advice: don't try to do a hard reset on your sleep schedule. Day Three after we had arrived home, we forced ourselves into a "normal" day by doing a day trip into another community. We were out of the house at 9:00 am and in bed around 11:30 pm. The next thing we knew, we were waking up the next day at 3:45 pm. Just let the jet lag run its course.

That is the end of our tracking adventure in South Korea! Now we have several scientific papers to write on all of the data we collected! Hopefully, I'll be able to give you updates on those papers soon!
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Friday, May 26, 2017

Calling All Shorebirds!

Hello Dear Readers!

We have returned from the Canadian Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology 2017 conference in Dinosaur Provincial Park, and it was a blast! It was great to catch up with our friends and colleagues, and also great to see all of the ground-breaking research being done by early career paleontologists.

There's a lot happening in the next month for me. Tomorrow I grade for my next level in karate - this will be the first exam I've had since my candidacy! On June 3 I'll be leading the annual birding hike to Bullmoose Marshes, hosted by the Wolverine Nordic and Mountain Society. June 9 - 11 I am involved with hosting the British Columbia Field Ornithologists meeting, and am giving the afternoon keynote presentation...on Cretaceous birding, of course! I am also working with colleagues to finalize plans for a track site visit - stay tuned!

One aspect of my upcoming summer that is not busy is my field work life. With this year's field budget of a whopping $0.00 (don't spend it all in one place!) we do not have any large field excursions scheduled. That doesn't mean that we don't have plans were funding to materialize. Here's a list of the palaeontology projects we could  be working on this summer:

1. We still have at least four years of work to do on the Six Peaks Dinosaur Track Site near Hudson's Hope, British Columbia. Here's a video showcasing the site,



2. A hadrosaur bonebed (duck-billed dinosaurs), the first dinosaur bonebed for British Columbia. This site was featured in "Dino Hunt Canada," with an airlift of the articulated skeleton of one of the hadrosaurs. We've done as much digging as we can by hand. Watch the video!



3. Uncovering more of the world's first tyrannosaur trackways (described in our paper in PLoS One,) mentioned in this post on field work fails, and in this post on injuries in theropod tracks, and

4. A potential new dinosaur excavation site that needs several test pits dug to determine the extent of the bone-bearing section.

What this summer does is give me an opportunity to spend more time at my neoichnology (modern track) sites. My first step was to see what shorebirds have arrived in the area, so I went out yesterday to spot check my usual sites.

My first trip was to Bullmoose Marshes, about 30 km away from the Research Centre. This site is in important stop-over and summer breeding ground for a fantastic variety of birds. It was a gorgeous day to be outside.
Me, squinting into the sun, which gives me a pensive look. No one can look pensive at this marsh.
While I did hear and see a great variety of birds, including two Trumpeter Swans, I only saw one shorebird: a Solitary Sandpiper.

My submission for Worst Bird Pic. There's a Solitary Sandpiper in here!

Of course, visiting sites always provides reminders of Why We Can't Have Nice Things. These boardwalks were put in by volunteers who had to raise funds for the materials. But I guess that all pales in comparison to twue wuv.


Yes, we're all very impressed that your love for C.C. is so great that vandalism is your answer.
The water levels are very high at the marshes right now, so there was no exposed ground to check for shorebird footprints. In addition to the Solitary Sandpiper, Spotted Sandpiper and Greater Yellowlegs also frequent this marsh, but perhaps they have not yet set up their breeding territories.

My next stop was to the local dump. I often find myself going to to the dump for bird-related activities. The sewage treatment ponds are full of breeding Canada Goose, and several species of ducks and swallows can also be found. I discovered in 2016, while I was dropping off my recycling, that Killdeer also frequent one of the cleared off, rocky areas.

The dump did not disappoint! Here's a trackway of a Killdeer!

Killdeer trackway. 10 cm from outer dot to outer dot.
This made me a very happy ichnologist! These tracks were made that morning. If they were any more fresh, the Killdeer would still be standing in them.


I also saw some tracks that were made a day to a few days before, meaning that the Killdeer were not just making a one-time stop at the site. I'm hoping this means that they are getting ready to establish their breeding territory, and that I haven't missed all of the fun of them doing their nest scrape displays!

A not-so-fresh Killdeer trackway at the same site. Notice the edges are less clear than the above trackway.
Over the next few days I'll be paying this site early morning visits to see how active these Killdeer are, and where they feel is a good spot to build a nest.

Stay tuned!
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Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Story-telling in Science Doesn't Mean You Make *#%& Up.

Hello Dear Readers!

I have been a busy Strange Woman lately: giving talks, visiting family, writing abstracts, collecting data for papers...you know, the usual stuff.

I've also been - rather unsuccessfully, I might add - trying to influence science communication. I was asked to review the text of a tourism information sign. The purpose of the sign was to "engage visitors and get them excited to see the dinosaur track attraction." Now, I've reviewed such signs before - mostly for our local hiking group - and they have been both interesting and factually correct. I was expecting such quality when I opened the document (done by an organization not associated with the hiking group.)

Friends, I had to check my calendar to make sure that I was not in some April Fools' Day prank.
It. Was. Bad. I won't go into all of the details of how bad it was, but here are two examples.

First, it was painfully evident that the author did not actually look into any of the public work that had been done previously on the site in question, as the dinosaurs were misidentified. We're not talking a lower specialist "Oh you're just being picky type of identification." We're talking "saying ankylosaur tracks are duck-billed dinosaur tracks" type of boo-boo. It would be akin to me saying that a cat was a bear.

Getting the visitor interested: 4/10, but only because there are theropods.
Accuracy: 5/10, but only because they got the theropods right. The rest was made-up malarkey.

Now, this site has both theropod tracks (our carnivorous dinosaurs) and ankylosaur tracks (herbivorous armored dinosaurs) preserved on the same surface. One of the first questions people tend to ask is "Were the theropods hunting the ankylosaurs?" The answer is likely not. A dinosaur track surface is like a farmer's field in the winter. You'll see all sorts of tracks: deer, coyote, dog, cat, person, snowmobile, etc., all made at different times. The surface collects these tracks over time like a doodle scratch pad next to the phone. Just because you see snowmobile tracks in the same field as a dog trackway does not mean that they were made at the same time, or that snowmobiles are viciously hunting dogs and people.

That did not stop Skippy (I needed a name for the author, since I have no idea who it is) from pulling the sadly predictable of "the vicious theropods stalking the ankylosaurs."

Getting the visitor interested: 1/10. Who hasn't heard that tired old chestnut trotted out for EVERY site with a theropod involved without any way to back it up? Snooze-ville.
Accuracy: 0/10. With no evidence to support a hunting scenario, they would be essentially lying to the visitors.

I've read and written A LOT of public education materials. I give A LOT of public talks on fossil tracks. I tweet voraciously.  Do you know what I've found out during all of this time?

1. People are interested in the facts! We have not found it that difficult to tell people accurate information about our track sites and our research and to get them excited about it. Heck, that's where most of our research funding comes from: getting non-specialists excited about the projects. We're good at this. There are lots of different groups and media outlets that do ask us to fact check, because they know we aren't going to BS them with fanciful nonsense.

2. People don't like to be patronized to. Infantilizing information, or the infamous "dumbing down," is basically telling people that they are not bright enough to appreciate the facts. Most people really do want facts when they are visiting a science place or going to a science talk - heck, that's why they are there! - and it is a direct insult to the audience if you assume that they are not going to get it unless you add nonsense. Every time we give a talk, we have an audience that is excited about hearing the newest information. They're in the know, and they end up wanting to know more.

My comments on the document were longer than the document itself. The response: "This is a method of storytelling to get people engaged."


According to Skippy, making stuff up about a science site is A-OK as long as people get interested. So Skippy, what happens when the visitors do get interested, and do their own investigations, and find out you fed them the science communication version of used tissues? Is this still engaging storytelling?


In my frustration, I took to Twitter. Here is what I posted:
That post struck a chord with people: I've never had a viral tweet, but a lot of people agreed with this approach. To me it's a sign that people are getting a bit tired of the same old insulting scicomm that marketing types and large-platform media are offering.

I cannot blame them. When a TV program, documentary, billboard, tourism brochure, marketing strategy, etc., presents a cheap and lazy science story to engage their target audience, they are not doing it from a place of respect. They are demonstrating that they do not respect either the science or their audience.

I am angry and frustrated at this lazy, disrespectful approach to science-related engagement. Anyone feeding you a sensationalized story "because it's engaging" is essentially lying to you. They don't want you to know that they think you are too thick to appreciate the facts. People should be insulted when they are presented with sloppy advertising, cringe-worthy network programming, and Barney-fied displays. You're being insulted right to your face, except the people doing the insulting get to hide behind their networks and billboards. For every "Hunting Bigfoot" show and use of Jurassic Park imagery to push dinosaurs, you are being told your interest is worth the minimal effort. They are using their large platforms to decide FOR YOU what you have the smarts to understand. If someone wearing a Big Network badge walked up to you and said "You are too dense to understand the real information," would you accept that? I hope not, and I hope you don't accept it when it's presented to you in the form of a sign, TV show, or tourism campaign.

The people who push these insulting narratives don't actually believe - or want to take the time to find out - that the facts do make a story interesting! People visit historical sites, read non-fiction biographies, and watch documentaries: they want to know what happened. People also want to know how and why we know it happened. This is no different when applied to promoting dinosaur sites and museums. We don't have to "trick" people into being excited about science, and we shouldn't ever be approaching this from a "tricking" or "sneaking in the science" perspective. Again, that doesn't come from a position of respect.

I'm in the process of collecting #SadSciPromo examples: the signs, promotions, and shows that are supposedly science-based but make you do the eternal head desk.


Do you have any examples of #SadSciPromo that you have encountered? Please let me know. The more of these that I collect - and the more people who indicate that they are fed up with this type of insulting media - the more background information I'll have to demonstrate when needed that we need to respect our audiences more than those who call marine reptiles dinosaurs, or those who think fake documentaries on mermaids are good for public science literacy. We all deserve much, much better, and should demand it.

Until next time,
Strange Woman.
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Monday, October 24, 2016

Field Work Fail: For Want of a Flashlight

Hello Dear Readers!

The Strange Woman has been very busy as of late: collecting additional data for a paper that is the second to last paper to come out of my doctoral thesis. These last two papers are the result of the data at the end of my analyses showing me something cool that I had no time to expand on for the thesis. Sometimes research does that to you: sometimes discoveries have their own schedule. I'm also doing other things that I'll hopefully be able to write about in the future. Right now I'm in finger-cross mode with those things.

This is to say that I am still not ready to post the results of our summer's work at the Six Peaks Dinosaur Track Site. What I can do is show you a video we had done on the site. Here is a teaser for you!



I will share a dinosaur track field work story with you. This one dates back to 2011, and tells the tale of how we spent the night in a pile of leaves at the end of October in northeastern British Columbia.

***

The best laid plans of rodents and researchers...

Fieldwork in the Peace Region of British Columbia is not simple under the best of conditions, with the best conditions being fair weather in mid-summer. There are practical reasons for this. Materials don’t set well in cold or wet conditions. The ground is either too wet (for the spring) or too frozen (for the fall and winter) to safely remove fossils. Many times the weather renders the conditions too dangerous for field crews. This is why the paleontology research field season is short in the North. The PRPRC’s typical field season runs from June-September. If the snow and sub-freezing temperatures permit it, we’ll do short excursions well into the first half of October. It’s an exceptional discovery that will bring us into the field in end October or early November.

This is the story of one such exceptional discovery.

The site was discovered by a regional guide-outfitter, Aaron Fredlund, in 2011. He had come across a small exposure of grey sandstone sticking out from under a hill of Ice Age silt, mud, and boulders. Being an experienced tracker of modern animals, it didn’t take Mr. Fredlund long to notice the large, three-toed footprint and identify it as the track of a large meat-eating dinosaur. It also didn’t take him long to reason that, if he cleared some of the debris off of the rock in front of the footprint, a second footprint could be uncovered. He was correct. The two images were immediately reported to me, Dr. Richard McCrea, and Dr. Charles Helm. A combination of the track type (large theropod) and the age of the rocks (Late Cretaceous, approximately 72 million years old) led us to identify these footprints as those of tyrannosaurs!

Tyrannosaur footprints were not unknown to science: “singleton” footprints have been reported from the Late Cretaceous (Campanian - Maastrichtian) deposits from the US, Canada, and Mongolia. However, what palaeontologists were missing was a trackway: a series of footprints made by one animal. Isolated footprints are like finding an isolated dinosaur bone, while trackways are like finding a complete skeleton. A trackway of a tyrannosaur would provide a tonne (pun completely intended) of information on how this tyrannosaur moved when it was alive. Tyrannosaurs are the best-known dinosaur predator, but their footprints were the least well-known. This site had the potential to change all that.

At the time of reporting, both Rich and I were out of town. Charles made a visit to the site with Mr. Fredlund in our absence so he could report site conditions and access. There was no GPS data taken during the visit (one of those frustrating “I can take you right to the site” situations), Charles reported from the site visit that the locality was both treacherous and tricky to access, and would require an ATV to haul in the research equipment safely. In short, we would need a guide.

Fast forward to October 23, 2011. Charles had a break in his busy schedule to visit the site with us. This was our only opportunity to get the site documented and replicated before the end of 2011. We were starting to head into winter: there was no snow yet, but the daytime temperatures were not above 10°C, and the nighttime temperatures were hovering around and just below 0°C. We could not physically remove the trackway, so we had to make a silicone mould (or peel) that would be used to make an exact replica that could be housed (and studied) inside during the winter. As difficult as fieldwork is, cold exacerbates all difficulties. Since silicone doesn’t set up in cold settings, we had to both mould the trackway and heat the silicone so that it would cure properly. This was a large trackway: the two exposed footprints covered a distance of over 2 meters long, and almost a meter wide. We would need A LOT of silicone. Silicone is an expensive molding material, but this site was worth it.

We spent that week gathering silicone, mixing buckets, brooms, brushes, documenting equipment, and all of the gear we would need to keep the silicone peel warm enough to set: tarps, propane tanks and heaters. Me, Rich, and our field technician Tammy Pigeon had all of the field gear ready to go and loaded into the ATV on Friday. We were scheduled to leave Sunday, so we thought we had a full day (Saturday, October 23) to gather our personal field gear, which had been all packed away for the winter.

We got a call early Saturday morning. Charles’ schedule had changed: could we possibly head to the site that morning? We scrambled to throw together our personal field gear. An hour later we were ready to go...or, at least, we thought we were ready.

Cue ominous music.

We followed Charles out to the “trail head”: a labyrinthine series of decommissioned logging roads long overgrown with dense brush. We scouted the best path for the gear-laden ATV among the bogs, pits, and tumbles of burnt log piles. After a long while we reached the top of the hill: at the bottom of the steep slope was the humble little rock exposure containing the tracks of one of the most famous and charismatic predators ever known.

NOTE: there will be very few pictures of the trail down to the site and of the overall site. This site is still vulnerable to vandalism and general people nastiness that all of our publicly accessible sites have experienced. The selfish actions of a few do ruin things for the many.

Once we uncovered the camouflaging coating of rubble from the track surface, Tammy and I set to readying the track surface for the silicone mould. We were expecting to have to do a bit of digging, brushing, and wiping. What we were not expecting was to have to clean a 30 cm layer of kaolinite (clay) out from the all of the nooks and crannies of the footprints. This clay was stubborn: it required several washes and (soft) scrubbings before all of the clay was removed from the footprints. Removing the clay coating from the surface revealed small skin impressions that we would have never seen (or moulded) had the footprints remained “dirty”.

As frustrating as the clay was to clean out of the skin impressions, it was very exciting to see: this type of clay forms from volcanic ash falling onto the footprints soon after they were made. This told us that the weather patterns were right for a volcanic ash layer to fall on northeastern British Columbia 72 - 74 million years ago. Perhaps our tyrannosaur actually saw the glow of the eruption? We’ll never know, but it is fun to imagine.

The track surface cleaning took a long time. In the meantime, Charles and Rich moved the research and moulding equipment to the site by easing the AVT down the hill. What goes down was not going back up: the hill was too steep for the ATV to make a return trip using that route, but we had planned for this: an alternate route was mapped out using Google Earth for our regress. Rich calculated where the third footprint in the series would be if it were preserved. If you know approximately how long of a step the trackmaker was taking, which we had from Footprint #1 and Footprint #2, you can figure out where Footprint #3 would be, even if it is still covered in rubble. Charles and Rich began excavating at the base of the hill to search for the third footprint, and successfully uncovered it!

The first tyrannosaur trackway. a) The second footprint in the trackway. b) The exposed trackway. You can see, way at the end of the trackway, the pale clay layer that we had to clean out of the footprints. Modified from Figure 2 of McCrea et al. (2014).
While Tammy and I began the detail cleaning of Footprint #3, Rich got to work documenting the exposed trackway. This is when he noticed something odd about this trackway. The Footprint #1 made by the left foot, was a little damaged by weathering. The inner toe (digit II) was not completely preserved: it seemed too short. Footprint #2, from the tyrannosaur’s right foot, was uncovered by Mr. Fredlund, and all of the toes were beautifully preserved. When we finished cleaning out Footprint #3, made again by the left foot of the tyrannosaur, we saw that digit II was too short on this footprint. This was not damage due to weathering: this animal was missing the end of its inner toe! This is called a pathological footprint: check out McCrea et al. (2015) for a detailed description of injuries seen in dinosaur footprints.

Figure 7 of McCrea et al. (2014), photogrammetric rendering of the first tyrannosaur trackway. You can see the consistently missing digit II impression. I might call this specimen "Stumpy".

Charles had to leave the site around 3pm. That was when we were finally ready to start the silicone mould. Silicone is easy to mix by hand in small quantities at room temperature. However, I had to mix large batches at around 5C. Silicone is very, very stiff when it’s cold: it’s like trying to stir molasses or all-natural peanut butter that has been sitting in the fridge. Silicone also doesn’t set properly if the catalyst and reagent aren’t thoroughly mixed: it just stays a gloopy, slimy mess.

There is another drawback to late year fieldwork: the lack of daylight. The light and temperature started to drop as I stirred, and stirred, and stirred. Each batch took about half an hour to properly mix, and then another half an hour to pour. By the time we had mixed and poured four batches of silicone, and had set up the heating tent over the silicone peel, it was 6:30pm and dark. Ice had started to form on standing pools of water. Our breath frosted in the air. It was going to be a cold, clear evening.

This is when we discovered just how rushed we were when packing our personal field gear. We had food, guide tarps, GPS, satellite phone, and warm(ish) clothing, but we had forgotten one crucial piece: The Flashlight. We weren’t initially concerned: Rich had mapped out a seismic cut line that we could use with the ATV (which has headlights) to get back to the field vehicle. It was a slow, bone-jarring trip through the dark wilderness, but we reached the opening to the cutline. We were home free...

...or not. Between Google Maps taking the images of this route and our escape (about two years), a beaver had made a dam, turning what would have been a steep but manageable slope into a large pond abutting a steep grade. There was no way to drive around the pond. After expressing a few non-printable words towards beavers and all of their kin, and finding out that similar access points were also cut off, we made our slow creeping way back to the track site.

Bwaahaahaa! Image link.
We returned to the site around 11:30pm. After checking that the heating system for the silicone peel was still working, we surveyed our possible lighting resources. GPS screens emit light, but not enough light to hike through the woods. Makeshift torches of burlap do not work unless you can soak the ends in pitch. We had gasoline, but that burned too quickly for a consistent light source. None of the screens on our 2011 flip phones gave enough light to safely hike by (this was before phones with flashlight apps). The Moon was not full enough to hike by, and our trail was treacherous even in full daylight. We had no choice: we were stuck for the night at the track site.

I called Charles on the satellite phone to let him know our situation. The phone made an unstable connection, and all I could get out was “Hi Charles, we’re OK, but stuck at the site for the night...” when the connection broke. Satellite phones are great for remote field work, but at that particular time our satellite coverage was poor, and we were in a canyon. What I had wanted to tell Charles was that we were stuck for the night, but could wait until dawn to make our way back to the truck.

We assessed our emergency camping options. We set up our first camp on an open patch of ground, with our backs to the ATV and facing a nice fire. We used our backpacks in place of a ground pad, and huddled under the guide tarp. We were fine here until the winds shifted direction. The ground cooled and sucked the warmth right out of us. We then moved our makeshift camp into the shelter of the woods. While Rich cleared a safe area for a fire, Tammy and I built a huge pile of dried leaves. Once the fire was going we burrowed into the leaf pile and pulled the guide tarp over us.

I actually fell asleep. I can sleep in just about any situation, and after the long day and finally being warm and comfortable, I slept like one of the rotten logs on the ground next to us. All of a sudden my lovely sleep was interrupted by loud crashing down the hill and shouting. It was an unexpected rescue party! When I had called Charles, he interpreted the call as a “please come rescue us” call. After letting people in town know we were safe, he, Thomas Clarke, and Pearl the Helm Dog hiked along that horrendous trail in the dead of night to bring us home. They reached our campsite around 3:30am.

My first emotion? I will admit that it was annoyance at having been woken up (this will be the first time Charles will hear this confession). I was prepared to sleep for another couple of hours. Part of my brain wanted me to grumble “Go away!” I was the only one thinking that: Tammy admitted to feeling quite chilled and uncomfortable. We extinguished our fire, packed up our gear, and followed the lights of our rescuers back to the truck.

There, sitting on the front seat to add insult to injury, was a flashlight that had fallen out of one of our backpacks.

Every field bag and field jacket that I own now sports this teeny little flashlight. Lesson learned.
This trackway was well worth the unexpected overnight camping trip. Later visits to the site in 2012 and 2013 gave us time to clear off more of the track surface, revealing two more tyrannosaur trackways. All three trackways were walking at a leisurely pace (between 6.4 and 8.5 km/h) in the same direction and were spaced evenly apart (about 3 m). We were also able to figure out approximately how old the track-makers’ were when they made their journey from present-day British Columbia to Alberta: the track-makers were between 25 and 29 years old. This may sound young to us, but this is close to the upper age range known for Albertosaurus sarcophagus (Erikson et al. 2010). 

Figure 3 of McCrea et al. (2014). I'm working on cleaning out one of three trackways, and cursing at clay.
This site told us several things: 1) that tyrannosaurs spent time in northeastern British Columbia, 2) how tyrannosaurs walked and moved their feet when they walked, and 3) that adult tyrannosaurs, despite evidence of antagonistic behavior (e.g. fighting and face-biting, Tanke and Currie 1998) did spend time in each other’s company. This track site is also good evidence of group behavior in tyrannosaurs. There were hints before of tyrannosaur group behavior. Currie and Eberth (2010) suggested this from the tyrannosaur bonebed in Alberta, but bodies and bones can be moved after the animals die and deposited in a pile: in situ footprints cannot.


This site has great potential for further excavation: all three tyrannosaur trackways head into the hill. Unfortunately that hill is very high and steep, so any future work will require a lot of resources to move the mountainous amount of silt, sandstone, and mud from over the track surface. We cannot safely tunnel into the hill to expose more tracks: that seems like a plan riddled with Wile E. Coyote kinds of danger. 


Hopefully this tale of working on the terror of tyrannosaurs - and a fairly epic field work fail - will amuse and entertain until I can get to the Early Cretaceous track site work we did this summer. Stay tuned!

References:

Currie PJ, Eberth DA (2010) On gregarious behavior in Albertosaurus. Can J Earth Sci 47: 1277–1289. doi: 10.1139/e10-072  

Erickson GM, Currie PJ, Inouye BD, Winn AA (2010) A revised life table and survivorship curve for Albertosaurus sarcophagus based on the Dry Island mass death assemblage. Can J Earth Sci 47: 1269–1275. doi: 10.1139/e10-051 

THIS POST: McCrea RT, Buckley LG, Farlow JO, Lockley MG, Currie PJ, Matthews NA, et al. (2014) A ‘Terror of Tyrannosaurs’: The First Trackways of Tyrannosaurids and Evidence of Gregariousness and Pathology in Tyrannosauridae. PLoS ONE 9(7): e103613. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0103613


McCrea RT, Tanke DH, Buckley LG, Lockley MG, Farlow JO, Xing L, Matthews NA, Helm CW, Pemberton SG (2015) Vertebrate ichnopathology: pathologies inferred from dinosaur tracks and trackways from the Mesozoic. Ichnos 22(3-4):235-260.


Tanke DH, Currie PH (1998) Head-biting behavior in theropod dinosaurs: paleopathological evidence. Gaia 15: 167–184.
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