Blog Archive - Paleontological Research Institution

Volunteers restoring marshland at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in New York. Image by Phillip Bonn, Public Domain. By Abigail MacAlpine, Summer 2026 Climate Change Education Outreach Intern Published August 10, 2026. What are wetlands? Wetlands come in many shapes and sizes, and are found in both freshwater and saltwater ecosystems. Even given this variety, there are a few common elements fo…

Smoke in New York City in June, 2023 from Canadian wildfires. Godzilla’s presence is fictional . Source: https://twitter.com/CleanAirMoms/status/1667888191515291648 By Dr. Alexandra Moore , Senior Education Associate, and Dr. Ingrid Zabel , Climate Change Education Manager Originally published June 13, 2023. Updated on July 15, 2026. 2026 Update Canadian wildfires are back in the summer of 2026. …

Dr. Tasnuva Ming Khan before handing in her PhD thesis, a snap at the Museum of Zoology, Cambridge. By Dr. Tasnuva Ming Khan April 13, 2026 My path to becoming a paleoecologist and an Antarctic scientist began not in the field, but in the collections of the Paleontological Research Institution. I cannot pinpoint exactly when in life I became fascinated with Antarctica, and sometimes the emotional…

Dr. Daniele Visioni, as rendered by DALL-E as a LEGO figurine, discussing solar radiation management. By Dr. Toby Ault , Associate Professor in Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and PRI Research Associate March 19, 2026; Originally published January 6, 2026 on LinkedIn Electricity If I were to reduce my conversations with Cornell University’s Dr. Daniele Visioni t…

CIRA/NOAA GeoColor Satellite Image of the Western Hemisphere from GEOS West on Dec 16, 2025 By Dr. Toby Ault , Associate Professor in Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and PRI Research Associate March 4, 2026; Originally published December 16, 2025 on LinkedIn Through the Eyes of Experts On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, I met up with Cornell University’s Dr. …

Satellite images of massive fires in Québec, Canada (Lat: 53.33, Lng: -76.11) - 28 June 2023, by Pierre Markuse via Wikimedia Commons ( CC BY 2.0 ) By Dr. Toby Ault , Associate Professor in Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and PRI Research Associate February 19, 2026; Originally published December 4, 2025 on LinkedIn Through the Eyes of the Experts In a time whe…

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) in his later years By Warren Allmon and Robert Ross Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809. His birthday, known popularly as Darwin Day, is an annual celebration of the man and his ideas. The first organized Darwin Day event in modern times apparently took place in 1995 in Palo Alto, California. The years since have seen Darwin Day observances around the world (se…

By Dr. Warren Allmon , Director of the Paleontological Research Institution December 30, 2025 The holidays are a time for “Christmas movies” in my house, and one that is always on our list is  Frank Capra’s 1947 “It’s a Wonderful Life” (we’re not alone; Google AI calls it “the gold standard for Christmas movies”). In the film, a man named George Bailey gets to see what the world would have been l…

NASA Satellite Image from 9 Dec 2025 ( https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-observatory/an-unrelenting-tule-fog/ ) By Dr. Toby Ault , Associate Professor in Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University and PRI Research Associate December 16, 2025 I just wrapped up an inspiring week in California and Oregon of project meetings, site visits, alumni events, and engagements with…

Scenes from the 20 September 2019 demonstration in downtown New York as part of the youth-lead global #ClimateStrike. Young people led millions around the world in marches demanding action on climate change days before the UN Climate Action Summit (23 September). Photo: UN Women/Amanda Voisard by Dr. Don Haas Last updated: April 15, 2026 On November 4, 2025, at the meeting of the Board of Regen…

By Brendan Anderson There are many avenues for communicating science, but one of the most trusted avenues have been museum exhibits (Merritt, 2019). Those who have visited museums in recent years consider them to be the most trustworthy source of scientific information (Merritt, 2021), and trust is essential to successful communication (Bray et al. 2012). In 2001, a survey commissioned by the Ame…

By Dr. Don Haas, Director of Teacher Programming April 16, 2025 For Earth Day, I am updating a post from Father's Day 2010. The post reflects on where my environmental ways come from and gives a big tip-of-the-hat to my dad, Roger Haas. Earth Day 2025 would have been his 100th birthday, and he was certainly the first environmentalist I knew. Why am I (philosophically) green? Roger Haas, the autho…

Science in the Virtual Pub is five! By Dr. Don Haas, Director of Teacher Programming April 3, 2025 Note: The session titles throughout this blog post are linked to the recordings of the sessions, if available. If there’s no recording but there is a relevant website, then the link goes to that related website. The first recorded session was September 10, 2020. Most, but not all of the sessions sin…

November 4, 2024 Since 1993, the Paleontological Research Institution has presented the Katherine Palmer Award to an individual or individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to the field of paleontology in an avocational role. The award is named for PRI’s second director, Katherine van Winkle Palmer (1895-1982), who held non-professional paleontologists in high regard and collaborated …

It was in this extreme and far away place that on December 18, 1832 a 24-year-old Charles Darwin first encountered indigenous non-Europeans in their native land. The experience impressed him greatly, and made a major and probably crucial contribution to his theory of evolution, especially as it applies to humans.

By Dr. Ingrid Zabel , Climate Change Education Manager and Dr. Don Haas, Director of Teacher Programming December 13, 2024 For decades, PRI has been committed to teaching about our changing climate—the science behind it, the threats that climate change poses, and what we can do about it.  We have provided professional development workshops for thousands of K-12 teachers, and PRI’s websites, which…

by Dr. Warren Allmon December 1, 2024 Although it is far away from Ithaca, New York (about 11,800 km, or 7,400 miles, to be precise), the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula is well represented in the enormous fossil collections held by the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI) in Ithaca. PRI’s collection includes more than 35,000 specimens from Antarctica, making it one of the largest such colle…

We have just received copies of PRI Special Publication No. 61, a biography of Cornell’s first geology professor Charles Frederick Hartt (1840-1878) by William (Bill) Brice (Cornell PhD 1971; Prof. Emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh Johnstown) and Silvia de Mendonça Figueirôa, Professor at Universidade Estaual de Campinas in Brazil.

More and more people are taking action against climate change. Where should they begin? Photo by Jasmine Sessler ( CC BY 4.0 DEED ) via Wikimedia Commons By Sam Weiler, PRI intern from Cornell University April 26, 2024 It’s a question everyone’s had to ask: Where should I start? Whether it’s climate action or cooking breakfast, the first decision is how to begin. The overwhelming nature of climat…