An #IceAge masterpiece: This small carving (4.7cm) of a water #bird was made from mammoth ivory some 40,000 years ago. It's thought to be a #diver, #cormorant, or #duck. Found in the Hohle Fels cave on the Swabian Jura. It's the oldest known representation of a bird. 🧵1/2

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

#LongCovid is not a ‘subject’ to dispute. It’s a health condition that changes people’s lives. Definitions can evolve & that’s not an excuse to dismiss the illness itself. Diagnostic criteria for diabetes have repeatedly changed over time but no one takes u seriously if you say diabetes in disputed!

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall.com · 4d ago

Long covid is a disputed subject, at best.

1/3 The dangers of the NHS's £330m contract with Palantir are well known. A subscription-based contract that leaves the NHS without meaningful ownership. Lock-in to a single supplier that risks future price gouging. Critical health infrastructure dependent on a shady spy-tech company.

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

Just saw The Odyssey. Casting Matt Damon as Leopold Bloom was brave, but it really worked. Tom Holland good as Stephen Dedalus too. Anne Hathaway brilliant as Molly, but wish they had not cut her soliloquy. Wasn’t familiar with which bits of Dublin they used, but that didn‘t seem to matter.

Every commentator saying too many kids go to university has to tell their own kid to not do a degree

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 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

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 3w ago

“What will the Lovell Telescope discover/enable 20 yrs from now? I can’t tell you, and that’s the point. It will either be something extraordinary that none of us can yet predict, or we will defund it and leave Cheshire with a rusting monument to unfulfilled potential and discoveries never made.” 🔭🧪

The profusion of blackberries in Lewes has inspired me to have a go at making blackberry-crumble-ice-cream. Making it up as I go along, though

Article from 2023, but facts are facts. Pedestrian corridors in cities HELP businesses, even the one that opposed them in the first place.

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

Heard this one? The City of Barcelona traded 3 lanes of vehicle traffic for an exceptional 4.7 km green pedestrian corridor in the heart of the Eixample grid. Businesses sued, & eventually won in court. Then they admitted that they actually like the change. Streets for people are good for business.

I'm delighted & proud that this article, based on my Historical Research Lecture 2025, is now published in its final form in the @ihr.bsky.social journal Historical Research. It's the 'Editor's Choice' (thanks, @saracharles.bsky.social!), so open access for 6 months. academic.oup.com/histres/arti...

Can popular history be radical? Historical research and writing for the public with a manifesto for radical popular history

Abstract. This article, a transcript of the 2025 Historical Research Lecture, re-visits the question of what makes history radical, asking what kind of rad

academic.oup.com

Thoughts from a few months back on why 'tax raid' is such a dumb, undemocratic, propagandistic coinage. www.thenewworld.co.uk/phil-tinline...

Why the right wing media keeps screaming ‘tax raid’

This isn’t journalism, it’s propaganda that reframes tax policy as assault and a democratically elected Labour government as thieves

thenewworld.co.uk

Have you noticed an opaqueness to the blue sky this morning? Wildfire smoke from North America is drifting south across the UK, meaning the clear skies may not be as blue as you might expect 🌤️

If you haven’t yet pre-ordered this ‘revelatory and hugely entertaining sensory odyssey’ (not my words, but @davidhendy.bsky.social's) you can get 25% off Sniff: A History of Smells, published by @yalebooks.bsky.social @yalepress.bsky.social from Waterstones between 21-24 July, using code SUMMER26.

A very neat way of reminding us of the vital importance of the humanities

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 2w ago

'the Humanities and Social Sciences....disciplines ask not just “what works?” but “for whom?”, “at what cost?”, “under what assumptions?” and “towards what kind of society?” They are central to good policy, democratic accountability and social mobility.' Essential reading. Read it. 3/3

Congratulations to the government on saving 2700 jobs by nationalising British Steel. Now, about the 18,000 university jobs lost in the last 18 months, with more coming…

The next Prime Minister is in favour of putting milk in first when making a cup of tea. There are no words. We’re screwed.

There are two possible titles in play for my forthcoming book. Which do you prefer? ‘The Radio War: The Men and Women Who Fought Nazi Germany over the Airwaves’ Or: ‘Voices in the Dark: The Men and Women Who Fought Nazi Germany over the Airwaves’.

People who took part in the 1926 General Strike talking in their own words, wonderful piece of social history via @workingclasshistory.com www.patreon.com/posts/155633...

E120.1: 1926 general strike, bonus episode | Working Class History

E120.1: 1926 general strike, bonus episode by Working Class History on Patreon. Join Working Class History's community for exclusive content and updates.

patreon.com

Relieved to see more coverage of the grip Nous is getting on #UKHE. Thanks @privateeyenews.bsky.social! A million pound @cardiffucu.bsky.social alone. That’s a lot of money for the very same PowerPoint…

Very sorry to learn of the writer Maureen Duffy’s death aged 92. She was a wonderful champion of writers’ rights and through the ALCS put many millions of pounds in authors’ pockets. She was also great company @alcs.co.uk

don’t get left behind

This looks super interesting…

Nandini Das@rentravailer.bsky.social · 2mo ago

It's publication day! This Little World begins with a sixteenth-century refugee writing from Norwich to his wife abroad. It ends in the aftermath of civil war and revolution, asking what belonging and identity might mean in a world shaped by migration, empire and violence. (1/4)

..obviously would be better if @andyburnham.bsky.social said "My main opponents in this by-election are arguing with each other about who can deport more people - people who have lived & worked here legally for years or decades. It's disgusting and abhorrent. I will not race them to the bottom."

‘… we should start to stigmatise X usage for what it really is: a small and selfish part in making the world measurably worse’

If you’re still on Elon Musk’s X, ask yourself this: why? | Jonathan Liew

Some argue that quitting the platform formerly known as Twitter cedes the space to malign actors. But it’s an open sewer, beyond redemption, says Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew

theguardian.com

Over 700 staff lost in the space of a couple of years - it’s unbelievably grim.

“long-term underfunding of teaching and research, ongoing inflationary pressures and a steep fall in international students driven by government policy changes".

University of Sussex aims to cut 200 jobs in £35m annual savings drive

Trade union Unison says the cuts will only heap "strain and uncertainty" on the staff who remain.

bbc.co.uk

Surely the general rule-of-thumb here is: listen to what he has to say - then, for God’s sake, do the very opposite

Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump

In highly unusual intervention, ex-PM says his party’s ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’ makes it likely to lose next election

theguardian.com

Having a lovely time shall not want to come back to work.