This is becoming an evergreen state (although now it's the utter sexiness of ancient metallurgy itself)

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes@lemoustier.bsky.social · 3d ago

Putting my rage away and going back to writing about Bronze Age erotica now 📚✒️ #PloughMyFurrow

This is becoming an evergreen state

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes@lemoustier.bsky.social · 3d ago

Putting my rage away and going back to writing about Bronze Age erotica now 📚✒️ #PloughMyFurrow

No matter circs, the absolute erasure of Robin Ince from announcement of a new Infinite Monkey Cage series is a big misstep from BBC. It's one thing to manage PR with positive spin; it's quite another to effectively pretend he doesn't, and never, existed. V badly done 👎 www.bbc.com/mediacentre/...

BBC Radio 4’s acclaimed science and comedy podcast The Infinite Monkey Cage returns with guest presenters Adam Rutherford and Jessica Fostekew

Broadcaster, author and science journalist Adam Rutherford and award-winning comedian Jessica Fostekew are stepping in as guest presenters

bbc.com

This was one of the bleakest articles I've ever had to write. For as bad as this year's weather has been, El Niño will ensure that next year is worse. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/enviro...

Call this a hot summer? This phenomenon explains why next year may be worse

El Niño is yet to peak, bringing more heat to an already burning planet

prospectmagazine.co.uk

I did not know this and I also love it!

Chris Cassidy@cmcassid.bsky.social · 3d ago

That’s a great piece! Do you know Arthur Ganson’s www.arthurganson.com/beholding-th...? It’s extremely far-future, and is powered by electricity, so has no real actual outcome, but I’ve always found it affecting anyway, in its very physical expression of an impossibly long duration.

This is in my opinion the best of all the deep-time/far-future art projects, because it requires people to be there to change the notes, but the piece continues without intervention in between. You can buy tickets for the end of the performance, and gift them as inheritance to future generations.

depths of wikipedia@depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 3d ago

for the first time in two and a half years, a new note was played in this organ performance today!

Putting my rage away and going back to writing about Bronze Age erotica now 📚✒️ #PloughMyFurrow

Who uses wearing glasses as an insult in 2026!? This smacks of someone being soaked in eugenics & white supremacist content, in communities where homophobia, and misogyny through unwanted sexualisation of women, are also rampant.

John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 4d ago

I just don't think any of this is particularly edifying and we should have strong boundaries within politics about abuse. And doing this stuff is just not indicative of sound judgement?

#AI agent "created fake online identities based on real people and used them to pressure the project’s overseer into accepting the code" Hacking, email phishing and more... these are digital biohazards waiting to happen www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

OpenAI and Anthropic models ‘went rogue’ during UK cybersecurity test

AI Security Institute says tools engaged in potentially harmful activity and incident reveals new type of risk

theguardian.com

Most beautiful early-morning writing sky yet... in another month it's going to be feeling distinctly gloomy at 5.30am 📚 ✒️

Most beautiful early-morning writing sky yet... in another month it's going to be feeling distinctly gloomy at 5.30am 📚 ✒️

I've been reading quite a bit about the rise of these 'historic' theme parks around Europe. At their cores, they aren't interested in 'entertainment'. They're propaganda and it's honestly concerning. Because many uncritical visitors and locals will just see it as 'a fun day out'.

Rob Davies@byrobdavies.bsky.social · 6d ago

Thrilling Roman chariot races! Vladimir Putin's "sweet eyes"! The Orthdox Oligarch! Investigation uncovers deeper ties between the French family behind a £600m theme park coming to Oxfordshire and Russia's annexation of Crimea. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Wrote about Nolan's Odyssey and what it tells about both the Bronze Age Collapse and our own age of wreckers and destroyers. Christopher Nolan's Collapsing Worlds: www.patreon.com/PastLivesMed...

Christopher Nolan's Collapsing Worlds | Past Lives

For Past Lives subscribers, an audio version of this episode will appear on the bonus feed this coming Thursday. Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey

patreon.com

🧪 V good to see sustained media attention but I feel like reporting must evolve beyond asking a range of scientists to comment on how likely it is that 'it's our fault'. Similarly UK sci community needs a single spokesperson who will join dots to political policy www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

‘Extremely scary findings’ show climate crisis is supercharging Europe’s wildfire weather

Latest study says global heating has made hot, dry and windy conditions in Spain at least 20 times more likely

theguardian.com

Good morning

🏺 For MSA connoisseurs, a striking engraved ostrich egg from Botwana, donated in 1930s. Plus decorated Aegean Bronze Age egg c. 1500 BCE, & engraved ostrich eggshell from Diepkloof rockshelter, South Africa, c. 100-50 Ka collections.penn.museum/collections/... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🏺 Archaeologists also recognise the heritage potency of @jodrellbank.bsky.social , e.g. Mark Edmonds' work www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

When they come to model Heaven: big science and the monumental in post-war Britain | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

When they come to model Heaven: big science and the monumental in post-war Britain - Volume 84 Issue 325

cambridge.org

Jon Agar@jonagar.bsky.social · last wk.

As a historian of Jodrell Bank, I agree! And the reason it is important is that it has been made to mean different things to different people at different times. Who's up for a mega thread on how and why? (I'm off for lunch now, but I'll do it after. I'll need the energy...)

Libraries in schools are obvs v good but you also need to pay for staff. My (state comprehensive) secondary school had an excellent library, with dedicated staff. My children's local secondary has a decent library but it's rarely accessible for reading or borrowing because... no money for staff.

Jonathan Emmett@jonathanemmett.com · last wk.

Parliament's Education Committee is calling for: 📕 library cards to be issued at birth 📙 reverse cuts in library funding 📗 libraries in every school 📘 a National Reading Guarantee. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 Read the Report here: publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5902/cm... #KidLitUK #EduSkyUK Video by Alex Paterson.

Just need to manufacture a Prawn Suit Depth Module Mk 7 to go see this myself

Chris Mah@echinoblog.bsky.social · 2w ago

Stalked glass sponge at 3708 m #Okeanos B2 seamount, Cook Islands

🏺 🦣 🧪 New hominin remains of H. antecessor reported from field season just completed: significantly changes age distribution (adults now represented) and continues evidence for hominin body processing & consumption (cutmarks, fragmentation & tooth marks)

The Conversation ES@es.theconversation.com · 2w ago

¡Ya conocemos los hallazgos de la campaña de excavación nº 48 en Atapuerca! Nos lo cuenta todo la investigadora de @iphes-cerca.bsky.social, Marina Lozano. ↘️ https://theconversation.com/osos-hienas-neandertales-y-25-nuevos-fosiles-de-homo-antecessor-ultimas-noticias-desde-atapuerca-287240

Young robin (known in my family as chibbs) fast becoming a new #AlfrescoWriting companion

I personally am hoping for a third day of Odyssey discourse. Will just unravel some of it tonight when no one’s looking…

Indeed. That is the single most urgent generational issue. Social care might be theoretically great in 100 years but it won't matter much if everything else, notably food security, has fallen apart.

Rowan Hooper@rowhoop.bsky.social · last wk.

When I heard "Andy Burnham is holding cross-party talks today about..." for a moment I thought it was going to be about THE HEATWAVES AND THE CLIMATE CRISIS

When your mum is a #prehistoric archaeologist, you end up amusing yourself in interesting ways during the summer holidays. Pigments made of yellow stone (unident), slate, concrete, charcoal and brick, by my eldest daughter 💛🤍🩶🖤🤎

I should say that I enjoyed the Odyssey because I did not go into it expecting it to 'match'. Just like the film Ammonite, it is an artistic interpretation. I liked the camp weirdness of the horse right at the start, which made it easy to realise that it's all something like a dream.

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes@lemoustier.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is a wincingly brutal review - but then I wonder if I could ever see a film about #Neanderthals and not find 1000 things about it to dislike www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Forgot to promise a gigantic sculpture of the Clacton spear lit by lasers, in honour of the deep cultural connection across 500,000 years between it and the light sabres which I assume are common on his home planet

Count Binface@countbinface.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan

Or fetch a pail

Dr Lucy Rogers@drlucyrogers.com · 2w ago

Does anyone draw a bath any more? (Ignores the artists responding)

Forgot to promise a gigantic sculpture of the Clacton spear lit by lasers, in honour of the deep cultural connection across 500,000 years between it and the light sabres which I assume are common on his home planet

Count Binface@countbinface.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan

This is a wincingly brutal review - but then I wonder if I could ever see a film about #Neanderthals and not find 1000 things about it to dislike www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Christopher Nolan has read at least the first line of my...

lrb.co.uk

🏺 #Naledi things I want to know, many found a number of years ago: - taphonomy of UW110 (sample in proteomic paper but no new context info) - taph & date for all baboon remains - taph & date of barn owl on Dinaledi surface - state of analysis re: burning & all fauna - primate tooth in Dragon's back

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes@lemoustier.bsky.social · 2w ago

New paper reviewing the issues around presentation of claims for #Naledi burials, both in publications and popular media. Useful not merely re: this site, but in considering how archaeologists construct arguments (& data collection) more widely. 🏺 🧪