Zach Cofran

@dizachster

Associate professor of Anthropology, HEAD (Human Evolution and Development) Lab @ Vassar College. Bones & brains. lawnchairanthropology.com

86 Siguiendo1623 Seguidores391 Publicaciones

Bluesky

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y dizachster.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

Zach Cofran@dizachster· 5d

Scathing 2018 note about destructive analysis of ancient human temporal bones for aDNA extraction vs. just CT scanning them (www.pnas.org/doi/full/10...., commenting on research by Ponce de León & co www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...)

Screenshot of text reading: "To these preservation-related concerns can be added the question of what is being gained from these extractions and destructions of past human remains. They are overwhelmingly focused on population relationships, population dispersals, and hence the drawing of arrows on maps (usually without consideration of geographical features and past ecozonal movements). Historical linguists in the 19th century were very good at drawing these maps based on language affinities, and many of their conclusions, with refinements, form the basis of our understanding of Holocene human dispersals. The current large-scale extraction of Holocene aDNA is therefore damaging specimens found mostly in the 20th century, analyzing them with 21st century technology, to answer 19th century questions. Have we not progressed beyond these ethnocentrically and racially motivated questions?" Text about 19th century questions is highlighted.

Zach Cofran@dizachster· 6d

It’s me watching my Saturday morning cartoons

Zach Cofran@dizachster· 15d

Your #FossilFriday fun: new hominin footprints from a 1.4 million year old lakeshore in Kenya: left by a band of big-bodied boisei? Cool new work from @kevinhatala.bsky.social & colleagues Article: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... 3D data: www.morphosource.org/media-lists/...

Ancient human footprint in light brown mud, from a figure in the linked article

Zach Cofran@dizachster· 18d

Gibbon ready for a talk later this week, about endocranial variation in both fossil hominins and small apes that need more attention

Brown partial skull of a fossil human on the left, next to a greenish transparent gibbon skull. These are set against a black background and the inner ear cavity of both is highlighted in a different color

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jun 18

What does the most complete endocast of Homo naledi tell us about the brain and behavior of this most unexpected, recently extinct human species? #FossilFriday link.springer.com/article/10.1...

A human skull Xray with the brain area highlighted, facing a transparent skull of Homo naledi with its brain area highlighted. Both are against a black background and at the bottom is a scale bar depicting 100 mm.

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jun 5

Endocast (brain) shape development in Homo erectus, according to two independent research groups #FossilFriday lawnchairanthropology.com/2026/06/04/4...

Six models of fossil brain endocasts viewed from the right side, showing the shape differences between the fossil "Mojokerto" and an average adult Homo erectus. Endocasts are presented in two color-coded rows (blue on top, red on bottom). Each row has a label noting the fossils "Mojokerto & adult Homo erectus" and specifying the dataset (Neubauer data on top, PZ data on bottom).

Zach Cofran@dizachster· May 29

Preliminary look at endocranial (brain) growth among different gibbon species: the space surrounding the cerebellum expands dramatically between infancy and adulthood. The same is true for humans, but possibly not fossil Neandertals #FossilFriday

2 rows and 3 columns depicting brain size differences between infants (row 1) and adults (row 2) in three different species of gibbons (each column is a different species).

Zach Cofran@dizachster· May 11

Great resource – 3D atlas of white matter pathways in the chimpanzee brain (by Cornelius Eichner & colleagues 2024 www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

Screenshot of a web page (https://openscience.cbs.mpdl.mpg.de/ebc/3D/) showing images of a chimpanzee brain with color-coded white matter pathways. The top left corner also notes the source of the information: "Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences"

Zach Cofran@dizachster· May 8

Fresh ink for #FossilFriday: Tylosaurus, the official state marine fossil of Kansas where I was born. What now is mostly prairie was a terrifying sea during the Cretaceous

Photograph of an arm covered in a black tattoo of a Tylosaurus skeleton

Photograph of a forearm featuring a black tattoo of a Tylosaurus skull

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 27

phys.org/news/2026-04...

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 17

Interesting new study of a Neandertal infant skeleton called “Amud 7”, dating to over 50 thousand years ago #FossilFriday www.cell.com/current-biol...

3 panels showing the Neanderthal infant skeleton: the bones as they were being excavated from the ground, the individual bones laid out in anatomical position, and a 3D virtual reconstruction of the skeleton

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 13

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 10

The bony labyrinth is a small, strange time capsule brimming with biological information #FossilFriday lawnchairanthropology.com/2026/04/09/t...

a human finger holding a green 3D printed bony labyrinth

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 10

Incredible discovery, great reading for #fossilfriday

A fossilized dinosaur embryo within its shell depicted as the fossil exists, as a 3D model of the bones themselves, and an artists reconstruction of the fleshed dino in the egg. Source: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0345016

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 9

I love the bony labyrinth and so should you lawnchairanthropology.com/2026/04/09/t...

Modified movie poster from the 1986 film Labyrinth. The word "Labyrinth" is scrawled fantastically across the top. Beneath, David Bowie playing Jareth the Goblin King holds out a crystal ball containing 5 bony labyrinths.

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 7

Talking about my favorite fossil human in a few hours at @ucddublin.bsky.social

Modified movie poster from the 1986 film "Labyrinth." David Bowie dressed as Jareth the Goblin King holds out a crystal ball, the ball shows the fragmentary face of a fossil skull, the inner ear cavity (bony labyrinth) highlighted in green.

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Apr 2

Gruesome figure in one of Adolph Schultz's old studies of chimpanzee anatomy. Amazed he had the time and bandwidth to build that apparatus and then draw it very well (maybe grading procrastination?) Source: babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ie...

Somewhat graphic image of a chimpanzee head in a box-like contraption with weights and pulleys. The caption beneath reads "FIG.7. emidiagrammatic representation of the apparatus for measuring the weights needed to balance the head on the occipital condyles. A, weight balancing head at most oral point; B,weight balancing head at inion. The head shown is that of an adult male chimpanzee."

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Mar 27

Since this #FossilFriday is 3/27, check out StW 327: a hardy left lower jaw of a juvenile Australopithecus africanus from Sterkfontein, South Africa. Might display tooth eruption like humans and Homo naledi (doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...) Image: human-fossil-record.org/index.php?/c...

Left side view of a fossil lower jaw, the bone a mottled black and brown color, teeth off-white, against a black background with millimeter scale bar at the bottom. The top right corner bears the crest of the University of the Witwatersrand where the fossil is housed.

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Mar 16

Sitting in a big boy chair with his toy plane, looking as childish as he sounds

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Mar 13

#FossilFriday and Friday the 13th mashup: SK 13 is the face of an Australopithecus robustus adolescent from Swartkrans, South Africa dating to ~1.8 million years ago. You can study this fossil (and tons more) in the @humanfossilrecord.bsky.social database human-fossil-record.org/picture.php?...

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Mar 6

This #FossilFriday you can study the skull of "Little Foot" (the most complete Australopithecus skeleton), and check out the original research article about the skull by @ameliebeaudet.bsky.social, too! Article: sciencepress.mnhn.fr/fr/periodiqu... Fossil: www.morphosource.org/concern/medi...

3D rendering of a fossil skull in yellow, against a dark grey background. The top of the screen reads "Reconstructed Face of StW 573"

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Feb 27

Having an existential crisis here folks

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Feb 17

I’ve been flying for decades and the Brachiosaurus skeleton at O’Hare is the coolest fucking thing I’ve seen at any airport

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Feb 6

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jan 23

They committed genocide and razed the region to rubble, just to mar real estate opportunities for rich people. It’s truly heinous

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jan 20

grateful for the @manymindspod.bsky.social podcast for breaking the tedium of segmenting scores of CT slices

2 panels depicting an inner ear fossil, the left showing a 2D CT scan slice with certain cavities filled in in either green or magenta, and the right showing a 3D reconstruction of the cavities forming a bony labyrinth and nerve canal

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jan 15

Artist‘s depiction of Homo habilis dressed up in clothes walking in the distance:

Still from the 1982 film “ET” with the eponymous ET wearing a blonde wig, bowler hat with flower, pearl necklace, shawl, flower dress, bracelets

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Jan 9

Just discovered Chrome's split view option, might be useful for reading articles alongside their supplementary information (Firefox apparently does this, too)

screenshot of a google chrome window in split view, showing an online journal article on the left and the pdf of the article's supplementary information on the right

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Dec 23

Another unusual gibbon, this one lacks a left sigmoid sinus, and instead the transverse sinus continues along the petrous pyramid

two-panels arranged left-right, showing the underside of a gibbon brain endocast (left) and a virtually-sectioned skull of the same gibbon with its endocast viewed from the left side (right)

Zach Cofran@dizachster· Dec 19

A similar pattern of brain shape variation even characterizes gibbons — small apes with brains less than 10% the size of humans' (revisiting to procrastinate grading 🙃)