I don't think anyone has any idea of how thin the margins are in science. To have funding agencies or private foundations come back on a proposal and ask you to cut 10-20%, or more from a project simply means the work cannot be done. Modular grants have not been adjusted for inflation in >20yrs.

A long shot: is anyone currently doing research at the Biblioteca Nacional del Perú in Lima? I'm trying to track down two seventeenth-century single-sheet printed broadsides. I'd be very grateful to connect. Thanks! #earlymodern

New Yorker cartoon feels about right

Sevilla this summer — amazing how comfortable the streets are even on hot afternoons

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 3d ago

Almost every city in the world needs to urgently understand the need to get really good at planning and designing for shade. #UrbanHeat

This is how you can visualize gene expression data in #tidyheatmaps 🤩 https://jbengler.github.io/tidyheatmaps/ #rstats #dataviz #phd

I’ve often rued not finishing my PhD and becoming an academic. Would have been fun being a political philosopher, teaching, writing some papers, a book, then being fired when my university closed all of its humanities departments as part of an intellectual bonfire the country may never recover from.

First TS meme I have seen in awhile #mathematics

1/ Mary Elizabeth Brunkow (born 1961) is an American molecular biologist, immunologist and Nobel Prize laureate. #WomanToday

'“This matters because the financial logic of recruitment shapes the conditions in which students arrive, the speed at which they are expected to integrate, the support made available to them, and the way their presence is communicated to academic staff,” the report says.' 1/2

Concern over ‘cash cow’ label for international students - Research Professional News

Universities should value international students as educational partners, QAA report urges

researchprofessionalnews.com

Se llamaba Faten Ben Omar El Azizi, era jugadora en el Mogreb Atl.Tetuán y una de las promesas del fútbol marroquí. Es una de las fallecidas ahogadas nadando la costa de Ceuta. Se contabilizan ya 72 víctimas mortales, mientras se difunden todo tipo de discursos de odio xenófobos.

Melilla es una ciudad en la que tienes una batukada antirracista junto a un monumento franquista gigantesco mientras a 200 metros hay un evento hindú en la playa y un camarero gay de origen marroquí te sirve un tinto de verano quejándose de los chicos de la ciudad y mirando el culo a un legionario.

"Drawing on an analysis of over 100000 articles in ecology-related disciplines [...], we show that the shift to pay-to-publish OA has already reduced participation by researchers from many middle-income countries." nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Payment‐based open access is biasing scientific participation from the Global South in ecology

Opening access to the products of scientific research is widely considered a key step toward both fairness and better science worldwide. Since the 1990s, different forms of open access (OA) to journa...

nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

No wonder other 'leaders' want to get rid of Pedro Sánchez. He speaks the truth: “Climate change kills: ... people ..., our ecosystem, our biodiversity, and it also destroys the things we as a society hold dear – our houses, our businesses, our livestock.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Climate change kills’: Pedro Sánchez speaks plain truth to Spain’s deniers

PM has long history of speaking out on realities of global heating but political opponents remain unnmoved

theguardian.com

So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.

Endometriosis takes nine years to diagnose. That’s about to change. NICE has approved two tests: a saliva test reading microRNA markers, and a gut-sensor test returning results in 45 minutes, sparing women the keyhole surgery currently needed. buff.ly/QX3jHk8 #ShareGoodNewsToo

Rapid endometriosis tests to be made available on NHS in England and Wales

Saliva and gut sensor-based tests hailed as ‘gamechanger’ for millions of women who can wait years for diagnosis

buff.ly

Spanish PM calls for urgent EU meeting after ‘selfish’ responses to Ceuta crisish www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

Spanish PM calls for urgent EU meeting after ‘selfish’ responses to Ceuta crisis

Pedro Sánchez hits out at ‘polarising and unlawful reaction’ over mass crossing into Spanish enclave in north Africa

theguardian.com

AlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.

Algunos en Washington, Tel Aviv y Rabat, y también unos cuantos que crecen a su sombra en Madrid, querían imágenes de nuestras fuerzas de seguridad y fuerzas armadas ametrallando niños en las playas. Estas son las imágenes que se llevan. Esta es la lección que España les da.

Glad someone senior from the sector is pushing back. Labour MPs need to understand the serious real anger from graduates and the people who produce them. And the dangerous financial situation they have allowed to fester, or indeed worsened, in one of Britain’s leading sectors.

Labour has harmed universities as much as Trump, London School of Economics head says

LSE vice-chancellor Larry Kramer points to domestic student fees freeze, international student limits and rise in employers’ national insurance

ft.com

Nobody is accountable for the decisions they make on behalf of institutions. Because is the institutions, taxpayers actually, who pay, those individuals feel no consequences for all those bad decisions and never, never, learn.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 5d ago

A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

this is my new favorite diagram

If the EU had a spine, Visa and Mastercard would no longer be allowed to operate in Europe.

Paul Eric@pauleric70.bsky.social · 5d ago

Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur: ​"My credit card doesn't work, I can't pay bills or transfers; my health insurance was cancelled. I feel like Pablo Escobar—all because I said, 'Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.'"

"Solidarity and empathy are optional. Respect for European treaties and data is not."

If you have an academic in your life, please be gentle with them this weekend because they're probably freaking the fuck out.

Joseph M. Adelman@jmadelman.bsky.social · 6d ago

Because the 1st is a Saturday, “How is it August already?!” will be observed today, Friday, July 31, 2026. Please panic accordingly.

Very cool pair of papers demonstrating little link between amount of additive genetic variation and amount of nucleotide variation within species: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Levels of additive genetic variation vary substantially between species

Adaptive potential determines how populations respond to environmental change. This study compiles evolvability estimates from over 170 multicellular species, revealing substantial variation across th...

journals.plos.org

The New York Times has spoken with several Moroccan nationals who say they were encouraged to cross into Ceuta by the Moroccan authorities.

At the University of Dundee, there is 'no growth strategy apart from cuts'. Britain really is the thickest country in the world. www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/politics/...

Dundee University staff raise fears over proposed job cuts to business school

Sources within the university claim the school generated 39% of all fee-paying students last year.

thecourier.co.uk

Of course the far right in Spain is using the suffering of people trying to get to a better life as a political weapon. Every single time.

No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...

Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation

PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...

theonion.com