I’ve had the same Lamy pen for about ten years now. It hasn’t exactly lasted a life time yet, but it’s still going strong. I got one of the cheaper ones as well, so it wasn’t expensive either.

These papers are quite interesting, but I find the controversy angle kind of contrived. I don’t reallly see where he ever made wild claims about how applicable his simulations are to the beginnings of life.

I quite like how he used a very simple system to answer some possibly relevant questions. I would love to see what happens as the complexity of these types of simulations increased and become more biologically relevant.

Using finite element analysis here was quite clever. I feel like it might not be the most obvious choice, but it allowed them to support their interpretation of both the feeding system as well as making the hypotheses about different feeding habits.

Does anyone know what benefits the Troodon denticles provide? From my naive perspective they seem quite...fragile.

I can't wait until this type of technology becomes more mainstream. I think it could also have big impacts on cellular simulations, since it can capture these dynamic systems in such great detail.