Dane Pavitt

Long time followers may know I'm a big heavy metal guy. It's taken a week or so of processing the news, but I've finally reached the point of sobbing over the news of Ozzy Osbourne's passing.
Not only does he leave this world with an unmatched musical legacy & countless musicians inspired by his work, but the manner of passing was perhaps the most poetic & metal of all time. Staring death in the face, Ozzy hauled himself on stage, suffering from the effects of late-stage Parkinson's, in the neighbourhood where he & his bandmates grew up, supported by the biggest metal musicians of all time, sang as hard as his body would allow, & pulled off the biggest charity concert of all time. What an incredible way to depart.
Farewell Ozzy, we'll see you on the other side

1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 74

Dane Pavitt

The exhausting Colossal saga continues. While some people defend the fake dire wolf as a means to fund legitimate conservation like the red wolves Colossal cloned, it turns out that was a lie as well.
Watch this excellent video, made with the involvement of some very clued up, very reliable people, containing critical information which I can vouch for, having heard it from independant sources.

3 months ago | [YT] | 62

Dane Pavitt

Howdy folks.
If you've got a hankering for both entertaining & educational palaeo-themed videos, I've been thoroughly enjoying Vividen's videos lately & suggest you check them out too.
Their videos strike a really satisfying balance. Entertainingly written & visually attention-grabbing without caving to sensationalism, whilst being grounded in the literature, data & acknowledging research gaps & uncertainties. Check them out!
youtube.com/@TheVividen/videos

3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 61

Dane Pavitt

Good day folks, these past few days have certainly been *interesting*, to say the least.
It's reassuring to see that pretty much the whole natural sciences community not employed at Colossal, from geneticists to taxonomists to palaeontologists, is united in agreement that these aren't real dire wolves. It's also good to see some scrutiny & scepticism regarding Colossal's claims finally starting to break into the broader news media. Better late than never I suppose, but the response in the meantime has been equal parts fascinating & migraine-inducing.
Seeing such flagrant dishonesty from a private, venture capital enterprise being so widely accepted & celebrated, when the same people, who pride themselves on their 'scepticism', use dishonesty & financial gain as reasons to distrust legitimate scientific work is an astonishing case of cognitive dissonance. To say nothing of the hostility being thrown at the science communicators who are pointing out the lies, rather than the company spreading the lies.
I'm going to resist the urge to engage further with this topic online for a bit (my head can only take so much annoyance), but it won't be the last word from me. I've recieved some VERY interesting emails.

4 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 162

Dane Pavitt

We need to talk about Colossal's "Dire Wolves". An emergency Fossil Fix is in the works

4 months ago | [YT] | 161

Dane Pavitt

WHERE TO FIND NEW VIDEOS!
My main channel is now semi-retired, acting as a repository or archive of my best scicomm & science adjacent materials, but every now & then I get the itch to make something irreverant & random. For that, head over to my secondary channel, StoneSpeaker.

7 months ago | [YT] | 25

Dane Pavitt

Heyup folks. Since Twitter continues to circle the drain, I've started to become more active on Bluesky. You can find me at the following link:
bsky.app/profile/danepavitt.bsky.social

9 months ago | [YT] | 63

Dane Pavitt

If you're in Stoke-on-Trent, boy do I have a treat for you! I've organised a free, all ages science fair!
November 3rd at The Glebe pub; we have a fantastic selection of scientists, educators, students & enthusiasts who will be bringing expertise, educational displays & hands-on activities for everyone to enjoy.
There's local fossils, cutting-edge genetic engineering, astrophysics & a ton of other exciting things to see & do!
We have a Facebook event page linked below with all the details. Hope to see you there 👍
🦖🪐🥼🔭🔬🧬🧫🧪
www.facebook.com/share/YNgQBS2tV5Nr1sdw/

10 months ago | [YT] | 71

Dane Pavitt

“YouTuber” no more

There’s an anecdotal theory that the average lifespan of a ‘popular’ or ‘successful’ YouTube channel, the time in which it is growing & thriving, is between 5-10 years. I’ve been making videos in earnest now for 8 years, & by all metrics my channel is very much on the downward slope of that bell curve. Newer videos don’t tend to perform as well as older ones, & occasionally older ones will get random algorithm spikes & even outperform said newer videos.
I decided some time last year that I was going to phase out YouTube as a primary vocation, but the start of 2024 seemed defined by big names quitting or dialing back on making videos, & it suddenly felt like a trendy bandwagon. However over the last few months my life in the real world has taken interesting turns & I've come to the conclusion that taking a step back from YouTube is now a neccesity. I’m doing more & more in-person outreach & scicomm work, & even started getting involved in formal research in palaeontology & evolutionary biology.
The roadmap of where my life is headed & the directions I need to take to get there have never been clearer, & my motivation to reach those destinations has never been stronger. It doesn’t, however, leave much space for making YouTube videos, & I’m fine with that. Marching Dinosaurs 2 was something of a victory lap. One last big project as an exclamation point to send off on.
This isn’t goodbye. It’s not that I’m never uploading videos ever again, but expect any future videos to be documentations of the activities I’m getting up to offline as opposed to videos for videos sake. Some of my favourite YouTube channels are run by people who already have interesting lives & then make videos about that, & that’s what I want to be.
I’ll be reassessing my Patreon tiers to reflect this new direction & adjusting them accordingly, & I hope you’ll be with me on this new path. Follow me on twitter ( @danepavitt2nd ) for more regular updates & glimpses into my work.
Cheers

Dane

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 236

Dane Pavitt

8 years on, I have begun work on Marching Dinosaurs 2!
This animation will feature 100 species from over 50 families, including many species that have been newly described since the original video was published

1 year ago | [YT] | 484