A postdoc's view of the changing world of academic research

'What's on your mind?' These are the four words taunting me on my Facebook page as I wind down from a long day at work. Today that may be a tough one to answer in a witty one-liner. The postdoc union this week reached a tentative agreement with the University of California to help implement a whole host of improvements to postdoc working conditions, and I was obliged to vote for or against its ratification. 
New dinosaurs in a long-forgotten world and you've never heard of it?  Don't be alarmed, the "lost continent" of Laramidia was formed when a shallow sea flooded the central region of North America, isolating the eastern and western portions of the continent for millions of years during the Late Cretaceous Period.  It was a swampy, subtropical setting - in Utah.

But it wasn't the only thing lost.   Two new species of horned dinosaurs have been found in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. 

Utahceratops gettyi Kosmoceratops richardsoni