A geologist and a systems engineer walk in to a bar... ...and start arguing about whether we can actually pump enough CO2 underground to hit net zero. That's more or less how this paper got started with @hdaigle.bsky.social. Read on to find more: iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Can we sequester carbon fast enough? growing disconnect between models and reality

Can we sequester carbon fast enough? growing disconnect between models and reality, Daigle, Hugh, Ravikumar, Arvind P

iopscience.iop.org

Her name, these days, is Wisdom, band number Z333, and she is the oldest known wild bird on Earth. #ResistanceEarth Wisdom’s tracking device has no battery, no signal and no moving parts. Both the albatross and the observer need to show up every November. #Science scienceblog.com/b-a-biologis...

A biologist banded a Laysan albatross on Midway Atoll in December 1956, and the same bird, Wisdom, was still returning to the colony and raising chicks nearly 70 years later at roughly age 75, making ...

A single metal leg band has tracked one albatross across seven decades of ocean and loneliness, rewriting what we thought possible about a wild animal's span.

scienceblog.com

Socialism is what a Labour government does

Nathan@nwylabour.bsky.social · 2d ago

Socialism is a state of mind though, especially where the Labour Party is concerned!

I maintain my opinion that British food is the best there is. There is no meal on this earth that beats a steak and kidney pud with a pint of bitter, and sticky toffee pudding for pudding afterwards

Nathan@nwylabour.bsky.social · 3d ago

I hate to inform you that US/UK food discourse has broken out again over on X

Tolkien gave up on writing a sequel to the Lord of the Rings because he imagined the youth of Gondor forming 'orc-cults' who would imitate Mordor and found it too depressing; a remarkable feat of imagination when it came to predicting people who still worship the Soviet or Nazi empires today.

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 7d ago

Exciting news everybody: so long as you change the name on the tin of your empire, it is suddenly not imperialism for you to violently reconquer the people you used to control, it's just sparkling anti-secessionism. Tankies, man, wow.

It's being treated as a policy victory that we have less of the world's smart young people coming to learn from us, participate in our society and economy. This is just so depressing to me, it feels like a complete victory for know-nothing ignorant bigotry over enlightened sensibilities.

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · last wk.

Student visa slump ‘raises serious questions’ on university funding. Number of student visas granted falls by more than 40 per cent in three years. China, India, Pakistan and Nigeria all down year-on-year. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Once again i'd like someone to ask the immigration restrictionists 'how are you going to pay for this?'

Sunder Katwala (sundersays)@sundersays.bsky.social · 6d ago

The £4bn is if reduce net migration average from 235k to 185k 185k looks too high as an average now as 2026 & 2027 will be well below that, and govt won't take it *above* 250k But that prevents the £8bn hit of a 135k average: probably closer to reality unless Home Office loosen push to reduce

Forgive me if I’m wrong but aren’t postal votes likelier to be on the right than average in this country, due to being primarily for the aged? Seems like they’ve imbibed American culture war without thinking through local implications

John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 6d ago

This would, I believe return to the pre-1985 levels of restriction.

Any MP who signs on to Burgon's motion is not acting within the national interest. We need more data centres – and it comes down to a question of security: takes.jamesomalley.co.uk/p/the-case-f...

The case for Nightingale Datacentres

Britain isn’t prepared for the looming AI national security crisis

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

Richard Burgon MP@richardburgon.bsky.social · 6d ago

I've tabled a new cross-party parliamentary motion calling for a moratorium on new AI data centres. AI data centres consume vast amounts of energy and water, put pressure on local infrastructure and make our climate targets harder to meet. We cannot allow their unchecked expansion.

I went to a school with a high % of Jewish students & staff (but not a Jewish school, to clarify), so we had the High Holy Days off. It was only at uni that I realised that not only wasn’t this typical, but how many people aren’t aware of when they are, how important they are, or even what they are

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈@whysharksmatter.bsky.social · last wk.

Greetings, non-Jews in academia! As we start another semester, here's your regularly scheduled reminder that the Jewish High Holy Days are coming up. If you wouldn't schedule an important meeting or exam on Christmas or Easter, don't schedule one on Rosh Hashana or Yom Kippur.

To what extent to ancestry and behavior contribute to fish movement in a novel environment? "Correlates of Post-Introduction Displacement in a Conservation Translocation of Threespine Stickleback" Now out in FW Biol led by Alexis Heckley onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

The world’s richest man salivating at the thought of mass murder. Just another day in the marketplace of ideas apparently.

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · last wk.

the coming european reconquista

I used to have that insecurity and that made m have dumb opinions. What changed them was ironically an academic career making me rent in a pit village (it’s cheap) and living alongside the volk, and finding they’re no better or worse than the middle class Oxbridge educated types I knew before

@lastpositivist.bsky.social · last wk.

Just massive, *massive*, amounts of political life in the UK is explained by the extremely bizarre fact that our intelligentsia, political class, and even much of our business elite, feel aching insecure about faiilng to meet some imagined ideal of Authenticity they attribute to the volk.

Where the hell are these bloated universities? When almost everyone has stripped out layer after layer, chucking everything out of the balloon to stay aloft? When many critical functions have been centralised, ripped out and hived off to a call centre? Are these unis in the room with us now Roger?

Reading this is like reading about Britain post-2010 - the "recent failures" do not need any boiling down, they're literally "electing a right-wing government that started cutting everything" www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Finland tried to end homelessness. What can we learn from its runaway success – and recent failures?

The Housing First policy led to the number of homeless people in Finland dropping by half. Those with firsthand experience explain why it worked

theguardian.com

A study over 15 years of seabirds called Sable shearwaters found that birds that consumed 1 gram of plastic or more as fledglings were 11% less likely to return to their home island to breed. Those that ate over 5 grams almost all disappeared. In PNAS: https://ow.ly/tqiL50ZCLZu

Still on X? 'In Sellner’s telling, X has become a “LinkedIn for the [far] right” with Musk as their champion.'

Mass expulsion was once a taboo idea in Europe. Then came Maga

The continent’s far right is embracing the concept of remigration in the Trump era

ft.com

Correct if depressing conclusion on universities from Sam here: “I still fear the challenge of funding HE sustainably is only going to become a priority when a famous one collapses.”

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 2w ago

New post out: Should Burnham call an early election? Have we passed peak Reform? Could Restore become an electorally viable party? Answering your questions - and there's plenty more - from climate change to the US midterms. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/should-bur...

As a resident of one of these villages, it’s down to fear of change and the unknown. The diverse cities have a very different culture, and that makes them scary. Doesn’t help that every part of their media diet reinforces those fears, and even pro immigrant press accepts its legitimacy

Elizabeth Taylor@elizabethtaylor47.bsky.social · 2w ago

Sorry what are the people who are putting immigration at the top up to? Obvs some might have immigrant loved ones or be immigrants and are worried about being separated so that’s fine but like the pensioners who live in 99% white British villages who cry about it - what are they’re doing to you??

Currently over 1.5 hours delayed going from Durham to York (was hoping for a nice short day trip, now looks like it’ll be arrive at York station and immediately head back) and really wish train companies had to do delay repays of over 100% for ridiculously long delays

It’s almost as if climate change is real and will make our lives much worse

Met Office - weather and climate@metoffice.gov.uk · 3w ago

Temperatures have now provisionally exceeded 37°C 🌡️ Before 2026, the UK had recorded 37°C or higher on only six occasions. This year alone, we've already reached that mark three times.

Agriculture & habitat loss are by far the largest risks to biodiversity globally, even more than climate change Organic agriculture can sometimes be worse for the environment on a landscape scale than conventional agriculture

Riley Bruce@rileybruce.bsky.social · 3w ago

What’s a thing from your area of expertise (or special interest) that you think it would behoove everyone else to know?

Not a series but for some reason my British gran had a bunch of late 19th/early 20th century adventure novels which I absolutely loved when I was a kid

Sophia_Nyx 🐰@sophianyx.bsky.social · 3w ago

Name your fav book or book series from childhood.

IOB - out now in issue Aquifer-Mediated Speciation in Cave-Adapted #Fishes Brownstein et al doi.org/10.1093/iob/... The nature of speciation within subterranean #ecosystems following invasions from the surface remains poorly understood. #biodiversity #fossils #science

And yet I'm still having to make speeches against climate change denial on the one hand and, on the other, persuade people that yes, we do need large scale energy projects, and we can't transition quickly or well with *just* small scale solar. We need to build stuff, and quickly!

Now do everywhere else www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Meta glasses banned from courts in England and Wales

Exclusive: Court service says anyone trying to enter buildings with glasses will have them confiscated and returned when they leave

theguardian.com

It feels mad how blasé we seem to be about an incessant run of weather that (a) will have killed a lot of older/vulnerable people and (b) will cause havoc with agricultural supply/prices.

@darcyswickham.bsky.social · 4w ago

My son was born earlier this year. This is his first summer. We have bags of clothes he’s never worn as it’s dangerous to wear them in this heat. Every day we black out the windows as our flat gets too hot for him. Everything is too expensive and next year is going to be worse. BBC? It’s sunny!

Excellent piece by @samfr.bsky.social. If you're using the term "Boriswave", you're doing the work of the alt-right. The Starmer-McSweeney leadership took this up as an attack line. But as they so often discovered, if you adopt your opponents' diagnosis, it becomes hard to avoid their solutions.

Sam Freedman@samfr.bsky.social · 4w ago

New post out: "The myth of the 'Boriswave'" The online right claim that the immigrants who arrived between 21-24 will bankrupt the country. This isn't remotely true but they've created a mainstream panic that could lead us down a dangerous path. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/the-myth-o...

The result of 10+ years of fieldwork & analysis of 1000s of data points is out now in @natecoevo.nature.com... and on the cover! Mongoose pre-emptive behaviour & intergroup conflict Congratulations @josharbon.bsky.social @juliekern.bsky.social #AmyMorris-Drake doi.org/10.1038/s415...

I think it’s basically 1) Polynesians in islands they were the first humans to reach (eg New Zealand, Hawaii) 2) Andamanese islanders 3) Aboriginal Australians 4) Falkland Islanders

ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 4w ago

interesting question: what areas, if any, are currently occupied by a group that can trace an unbroken line of cultural descent back to the very first people to live there?