We are pleased to announce the receipt of an unrestricted gift in the amount of $25,000 from The Whitman Institute to support the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) project. Read more about COPUS …

Tiago Quental and Charles Marshall’s paper, Diversity dynamics: molecular phylogenies need the fossil record, was designated as the featured article in the June 21, 2010 issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Tiago shares further thoughts on the importance of the fossil record in this blog post.

UCMP scientist Pat Holroyd discusses how fossils don’t always come from exciting expeditions to exotic locales. Many are found during construction projects in our own backyard.

If you study snails, you’ve got to be patient. But two UCMP graduate students, Jann Vendetti and Scott Fay, used time-lapse photography to kick slow snails into high gear.

It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Dawn E. Peterson, who succumbed to brain cancer on June 29 at the age of 61. She was truly an extraordinary one-of-a-kind character – a bipolar, transgender, self-taught ostracodologist!

Mantis shrimps have fast, powerful appendages, which they can use to stab and crush their prey. But do all mantis shrimp use their appendages at mealtime? UCMP graduate student Maya deVries investigates the mantis shrimp’s diet.

Find out even more about what’s happening at UCMP by reading the latest online edition of our newsletter.

New research published in Nature by Jessica Blois, Elizabeth Hadly and Jenny McGuire shows a decline in mammal diversity during the period of global warming at the end of the Pleistocene. Read more about this paleontology and why it’s relevant to our modern climate change.