Dr. Ron Tykoski is the director of the Arctic Paleontology Center and curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. (If you look him up on LinkedIn, you will discover that he is less Indiana Jones and more Doc Holliday due to an impressive stache.)
One of his responsibilities is overseeing the paleo lab, where fossil preparators use N95 respirator masks and nitrile gloves to protect the dinosaur specimens that are millions of years old. Now that the museum is closed and the team has temporarily ceased work on the fossils, Dr. Tykoski donated what they had on hand — 180 masks and 1,400 pairs of gloves — to UT Southwestern Medical Center. He says he got the idea from a Canadian paleo researcher who did the same.
Nurses were at first concerned by the dust on the bags of supplies when they were delivered, but Dr. Tykoski explained that the dust predated the pandemic. In fact, it was probably Jurassic.
Thanks to Dr. Tykoski and the generous paleontology team at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science! Email me more stories of RAOK to [email protected].
