Some KU news tidbits for you from around the country:

• Melanie Wilson, a KU professor of law and an associate dean in the School of Law, is one of four finalists to be the new dean of the law school at the University of New Mexico, reports the Albuquerque Journal. She’ll be visiting the campus for some public forums later this month, per the UNM website.

• David Ekerdt, a professor of sociology and director of KU’s Gerontology Center, talked with the Washington Post about how retirement can affect people’s health. (Not that much, he says.)

• Two people from KU’s Biodiversity Institute discussed with National Geographic a recent finding of a scar on a piece of fossilized skin from a duckbill dinosaur — the “first clear case of a healed dinosaur wound.” Bruce Rothschild, an adjunct research associate at the Biodiversity Institute, was a co-author of the journal article describing the find, and paleontologist David Burnham also is quoted.

• The Biodiversity Institute also popped up in Wired magazine, where paleoentomologist Michael Engel was quoted in a story on how scientists are learning more about the colors of ancient insects, which are often dulled on the fossilized specimens they study.

What will scientists make of the fossilized remains of these Heard on the Hill posts when they’re discovered one day? I don’t know, but it’s probably best if you send as many KU news tips as possible to merickson@ljworld.com, to make sure these posts aren’t lost in the sands of time, or something like that.