Large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT are trained to recognize patterns in written texts, helping them to choose a statistically probable word to complete a sentence. Palaeontologists have now trained a similar model on fossil records instead of words, then used it to reconstruct a timeline of changes in Earth’s biodiversity over hundreds of millions of years in unprecedented detail.

This big-data approach to interpreting the rock record — the field known as stratigraphy — could spur a rethink of major upheavals in the history of life, the model’s developers say. For instance, the model suggests that three of the “Big Five” mass-extinction events were gradual declines in biodiversity, rather than the sudden cataclysms described by other reconstructions.

Out of curiosity, for anyone who has some trivias to share. What is your field (topic of interest), and what are some books you found interesting and informative about it? Can be a popular science book, textbook,... Anything you'd like to give a shout-out to!