Proper sense in a FT editorial. Come on PM. Easy wins right here.

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 2d ago

Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science ft.trib.al/YaGOWfr | opinion

Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science ft.trib.al/YaGOWfr | opinion

Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science

Waning support for basic research threatens Britain’s technology ambitions

ft.trib.al

"The £2.8m annual cost to the purse of the continued running of Jodrell Bank – amounting, by the way, to about 0.03% of the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) budget – figures as little more than spare change. The UKRI, I note, has committed £1.6bn towards AI;"

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 4d ago

Strongly recommend Sarah Perry on the wonder of Jodrell 🔭 observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Strongly recommend Sarah Perry on the wonder of Jodrell 🔭 observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Earth to Whitehall: the wonder and knowledge of Jodrell B...

The threatened closure of the world-famous radio telescope is symptomatic of a drive against learning and inquiry that is making us sicker as a society

observer.co.uk

The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics www.theguardian.com/commentisfre.... 🔭

The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics | Editorial

Editorial: Funders have picked a damaging fight with scientists and the public. They should reconsider their plans

theguardian.com

I see @xkcd.com got ahold of my to do list: xkcd.com/3278 (Adding to my status as 'Most Distracted Astronomer', I'm actually working on a surprising number of these) 🔭

Vera Rubin Observatory

xkcd.com

In May 2022, I discovered a planet candidate via Planet Hunters TESS on @zooniverse.bsky.social . Today it is officially confirmed as TOI-5628 Ab, and our paper published in ApJL. I am grateful to Dr. Tianjun Gan for inviting me as a co-author. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3... 1/9 🔭 🧪 #exoplanet

Two ducks appeared in our offices @oxfordphysics.bsky.social a few months ago. Controversially, they have the Cambridge logo on their hats.

What is Jodrell Bank Observatory and what does it do? 🔭 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What is Jodrell Bank and what does it do?

When Jodrell Bank Observatory was built, the site was seen as gamechanger for radio astronomy.

bbc.co.uk

Good article showing how bad it is in detail. Write to your MPs to support this kind of science!

Dr Dave Clements@davecl.bsky.social · last wk.

More on the UK funding cuts to science www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Think of all the awesome science-ing we could do with an extra £20M......🧪

Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · last wk.

Earlier this year UKRI launched a funding call to invest £40M in ONE AI lab. www.ukri.org/opportunity/... For some unknown reason they decided to fund TWO AI labs at the cost of £60M. An extra £20M. Just found. That's the equivalent of 7 more years of Jodrell Bank. www.ukri.org/news/ukri-la...

The number one reason children are drawn to and inspired by a Jodrell Bank visit is THAT IT IS A WORKING TELESCOPE. They get to meet scientists (like me!) and we all come together to adore the majestic creature that is the Lovell Telescope. 1/2

"UKRI has also cut funding for the UK's involvement in two instruments on the Extremely Large Telescope which is being built in Chile to search for signs of life on other Earth-like worlds"

This is *insane* and I suspect might get reversed given it's both less than 20 miles away from the new Number 10 North and a very conspicuous symbol of UK science and discovery.

James O'Malley@jamesomalley.co.uk · last wk.

Terrible news. Aside from learning more about the universe, we're not going to get much economic growth by cutting science funding. (If only we had a Prime Minister who was interested in supporting the north, and Manchester in particular, who could stop this.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Terrible news. Aside from learning more about the universe, we're not going to get much economic growth by cutting science funding. (If only we had a Prime Minister who was interested in supporting the north, and Manchester in particular, who could stop this.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

There’s a long list of long term hurt to core particle physics and astronomy projects in the STFC prioritisation outcome. Mostly small change compared to new money being thrown at Quantum and AI projects. www.ukri.org/publications...

Explainer: STFC prioritisation outcomes 2026 to 2030

ukri.org

What's grim about this is that the numbers involved are almost comically small – it needs £2.8m! (Can we just cap bus fares at £2.01 instead?)

James O'Malley@jamesomalley.co.uk · last wk.

Terrible news. Aside from learning more about the universe, we're not going to get much economic growth by cutting science funding. (If only we had a Prime Minister who was interested in supporting the north, and Manchester in particular, who could stop this.) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Short-sighted, stupid cuts to the UKRI budget include shutting down Jodrell Bank, the icon of British astronomy. (Many other cuts too, including 20% to our brand new @vrubinobs.bsky.social). Interesting politically to shut down a major facility in...um..Manchester 🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

Based on current information, the Cebreros station appears to have remained unharmed. My deepest thanks go to the Spanish emergency services whose efforts helped protect the site as wildfires approached. Left: 24 July 19:57, Right: 25 July 07:54

Large scale human collaboration is as beautiful as the cosmos itself (Galaxy Zoo is a citizen science astronomy project where people classify galaxies, started in 2007 and still going!) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_... #astrosky

Bloody hell.

Andy Scollick@andyscollick.bsky.social · 2w ago

The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila

'You can't build an anomaly detector...this is a very childish idea' says Shrinivas Kulkarni at #NAM2026. So much for those of us working in the field, then. 🔭

Small hills I will die on: the @royalastrosoc.bsky.social is ‘the R. A. S.’ not ‘the raz’.

Struggling to understand the geophysics plenary at #NAM2026

So the ‘this is confusing’ camp (mostly exoplanet people) seem to think (some) brown dwarfs are not stars, but they are also not planets. It’s not an attitude I think has spread (yet) to the rest of astro, so I guess we’re in another confusing nomenclature melange.

Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 2w ago

I find myself confused here. The new object is in orbit around a star. It’s a planet, not a moon. The fact that that star is in orbit around another star seems neither here nor there. 🔭

I find myself confused here. The new object is in orbit around a star. It’s a planet, not a moon. The fact that that star is in orbit around another star seems neither here nor there. 🔭

ESO@eso.org · 2w ago

That's no moon. It's a...hang on, what should we call it? 🤔 Our VLT has revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Yet this new ‘exomoon’ detection is challenging cosmic labels! 🔭 🧪 #exoplanets 1/4

I knew the National Astronomy Meeting football tournament was taken seriously, but I think last year's winners bringing the cup into science sessions is a new level of prominence #NAM2026. 🔭

‘Metal trends in dwarf galactic fashion’ by Alessandro Angrilli, the first in an irregular series: poster titles that conjure up different images of you don’t work in the field. 🔭 #NAM2026

Lovely plenary talk on HiPERCAM - high speed imaging - by Sheffield's Vik Dhillon, covering everything from rings around Quaoar in the outer Solar System to binary neutron stars. #NAM2026 🔭

Early start for one of two days popping into #NAM2026 for me today, the UK astronomy community's annual conference and shindig. Hosted in beautiful Birmingham. Looking forward to galactic chemistry, a decade of grav waves, possibly some metascience and an excellent dinner with friends.