Thomas Edison in 1910. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves on this net zero business, lads

How about, and here's a wild idea, we do our own research and write our own papers? And stand by the verification of our work because it's ours?

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 4d ago

AI saves scientists time but adds ‘verification tax’, paper finds. Google study also finds AI pushes researchers towards “safer, more incremental projects”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-worl...

The atmosphere just hit a new water-vapour record: 27.35 kg of water vapour per m2 in August 2026, ~20 trillion litres more water than the previous record. Warmer air holds ~7% more moisture per °C. More water vapour means more energy to fuel extreme weather.

El Niño and global heating pushes water vapour in Earth’s atmosphere to record levels in August

Global heating contributes to record, with a warmer atmosphere able to hold more water, scientists say

theguardian.com

Australia to the US: “You run a country where 600k people will sleep on the streets without a home, where 40% of adults cannot cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing money, where a dose of insulin costs more than a monthly car payment, forcing people to ration their insulin to stay alive

People asked me about my fat pterosaur furry pins. Turns out she has opened her first online shop (and currently, her main source of income) Link below to support!

why do pro-AI researchers seemingly hate doing research so much

Ran Blekhman@blekhman.bsky.social · last wk.

This is the future of scientific papers. Instead of a PDF, the paper is an AI agent that you can talk to, ask questions, run analyses. No more digging through supplements - just ask the paper directly: "what p-value cutoff was used in Fig 3B? Re-run at 0.01." www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Each year “the record” is broken, despite our team thinking “surely the birds can’t possibly fit anymore plastics in their stomachs!” But then, in 2025, we found 894 plastics inside a single chick that was only 90 days old 💔 📸 caption: worst chicks in 2010, 2015, 2021, 2025

The proliferation of apps that should just be websites is unbearable. The downloading, the permissions, my utter lack of storage space...

Peter Coles 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ 🇮🇪@telescoper.bsky.social · last wk.

I refuse to download an app to do anything that shouldn't require me to download an app to do.

It’s heartening to see QUEER ORIGINS finding its way into libraries — just in time for the new academic year! 🏳️‍🌈📚🗃️ Academics & students: if your uni library doesn’t have it yet, please ask them to stock it. 🙏 #books #booksky #libraries #lovelibraries #librarians #science #histsci #queerhistory

***URGENT PLEASE SHARE*** University of Brighton management have announced today that they ‘give notice of termination of all collective agreements’. This is a fundamental erasure of workers' rights. Management have announced the termination of all contractual documents, which includes:

University and College Union (UCU)@ucu.org.uk · 2w ago

UCU members at Brighton University face the threat of derecognition. We have called an emergency rally tomorrow at 1:15pm. It would be amazing to see as many #TUC26 delegates as possible in attendance. 58-67 Grand Parade, Brighton and Hove, Brighton BN2 0JY

The fallacy that University leaders pushing AI are falling into is thinking that the point of undergraduate research is to find things out. It isn't. What students find out is typically already generally known. The point of undergraduate research is to learn how to find things out.

I wrote this quickly at a bus stop and didn't realize it would go viral, or else I would have worded it better. But the point is that the media is too credulous about AI killing everyone in 10 years (how?) when climate change is killing people now and will only get worse (we know exactly how).

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 2w ago

I resigned from ExxonMobil today. I spent the last three years doing fossil fuel extraction research at both BP and ExxonMobil. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing to maximize extraction while the window to act closes, and gambling with our lives. More below.

In the face of researcher concerns that the change in policy to prioritise longer larger grants may have undesirable impacts on EDI, UKRI suggest they will "keep an eye" on it. Gee, thanks! I'm not sure that covers their duties under the equality act. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Fewer, longer research grants ‘could exacerbate inequalities’ - Research Professional News

Science minister’s call for larger, longer-term investments prompts fears around benefits for “big hitters”

researchprofessionalnews.com

Folks, im happy to share our work, on new evidence for ash venting alongside rhyolitic lava effusion, from Iceland, which we argue is a general & widespread hazard of silicic systems — newly-(properly)-published, open access, on nat comms: doi.org/10.1038/s414...

Sustained ash emission during lava effusion is a hidden volcanic hazard of silicic eruptions - Nature Communications

The study presents field evidence that Iceland eruptions of silicic lava are typically accompanied by long-lasting ash plumes but remain hidden in the tephra record. This potential hazard should be ap...

doi.org

In 2011, one chick held the record for most plastic ever found in the species: 276 pieces, 64g. We thought that was as bad as it could get. We were wrong. The record fell in 2023. Fell again in 2024. Then in 2025: 894 pieces in a single chick. (Photo: worst chicks in 2010, 2015, 2021, 2025)

It bugs me that we're normalising the idea that there's something wrong with long documents, or that they're not "worth" our time. There is huge value in careful thought, in detail and nuance, in exploration, and in the experiential journey that goes alongside that.

As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.

I’ll say this for the AI companies: turning “we have incredibly poor safety protocols” into “OMG guys - our models are so smart they’re escaping our control!” is some audacious PR jujitsu. They shouldn’t be allowed to get a pass on the “incredibly poor safety protocols” bit, though.

This sounds horrendous.

Kirsty Grainger @kirstygrainger.bsky.social · 2w ago

Chris McDonald at UUK conference just announced UKRI will - increase grant decisions by internal UKRI expert teams (less to peer review) - fewer, larger awards - increase distributed peer review - more face to face decision making for high priority risky grants (to reduce AI peer review)

I just think that risking your life at a moment's notice to save people you've never met in exchange for no money is a better expression of patriotism than dressing up like a Poundshop paramilitary and intimidating families with kids trying to get onto a ferry.

The changes to the funding system being suggested by the new Science Minister here sound very much like a plan to funnel more funding to male, stale and pale researchers with less oversight and scrutiny. Very worrying.

Chris Parr@chrisjparr.bsky.social · 2w ago

Chris McDonald: funding system ‘destroying’ value of research. New science minister wants fewer, longer-term grants and a “smoother and simpler system”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Contemplating the life decisions that led to me spending 15 minutes having to unpack individually wrapped Gü pots while looking for kitchen essentials.

I don’t like this poster at the Science Museum. It asks “can you make a Khan” For context Khan is a superhuman produced through eugenics. I don’t think this is the correct springboard for Sci comm to use. The idea of eugenics shouldn’t be trivially dealt with or ignore the harm the idea perpetuates

Really sad news today. I only knew Bill through Bluesky. I enjoyed his presence very much.

Le Cagle@lecagle.bsky.social · 2w ago

My mentor and dear friend, Bill Haneberg, died unexpectedly yesterday. He was a geologist, a landslide expert, a fierce champion of diversity, equity and inclusion, a transdisciplinary thinker, and when he lived in Seattle, he won REI's campfire cooking competition with a one-pot mushroom risotto.

Truly wild to have lived through moral panics about teenagers wearing hoodies and Muslim women wearing the head dress to now experience 'but is a large group of organised far right activists in balaclavas really that scary'

Paul Hebden@paulhebden.bsky.social · 2w ago

What a ridiculous question. Once again the BBC drives a nail into it's own coffin.

Excitedly counting down to official publication day (Thursday 10th Sept), although I see she is already out in the wild 🥳 for some of you who were ever so lovely and pre-ordered it 🙏. Here is a snippet from How to Design a Universe Chpt 6: The Quantumverse! www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-t4...

Chapter 6! ⭐⭐The Quantum verse ⭐⭐

YouTube video by Astronomer Royal Scotland Prof Catherine Heymans

youtube.com

Rich@richbamford.bsky.social · 3w ago

It's here 🥳 @astroroyalscot.bsky.social new book How to Design a Universe, been looking forward to reading this for months

#Edinburgh! What are you doing on Friday night? Come to my book launch at Dynamic Earth! There will be: 🍺 A bar 🎶 Music 💃 Dancing (well, I'll be dancing from all the excitement) 🪐 Planetarium 360 visuals 🧪 Science + a little bit of philosophy 🎟️: dynamicearth.org.uk/event/how-to... 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🔭

Paper alert! We investigate the competition among entrainment, settling and sedimentation in particle-laden gravity currents. Our box model links this to the ratio of current velocity to settling velocity. www.cambridge.org/core/journal... This work was supported by IEEF, TokyoTech, JSPS, and RIKEN.

I just took action with @theactionnetwork.bsky.social: Sign up: National antiracist network to stop the far right. Take action here: actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-u...

Sign up: National antiracist network to stop the far right

Masked far right gangs have mobilised in Dover and Portsmouth to physically blockade refugees from entering the country. This is a significant, organised and well-funded escalation. We need to get org...

actionnetwork.org