From Tides to Fish Walking... to Poetry!

Steven Balbus, Savilian Professor of Astronomy here at New College, was part of a team that recently published pioneering research in Proceedings of the Royal Society A. 

The research looked into ancient tides during the Late Silurian - Devonian periods (420 million years ago - 380 million years ago), and suggests that large tides may have been a key environmental factor in the evolution of bony fish and early tetrapods, the first vertebrate land-dwellers.

What the team can't have known is that their work would inspire poetry! Sam Illingworth, Senior Lecturer in Science Communication at the University of Western Australia, wrote Tidal Evolution having read the research and it appeared on his blog, The Poetry of Science. 

Osteichthyan evolution and poetry combining - as unusual as... fish walking?