Oh, now they're polluting the Moon.

Ben K.@benjaminkabak.com · 3h ago

This is going to be a slow burn story that gets people more and more angry the more they hear about it. Some asshole billionaires are blowing holes in the Moon, a thing everyone loves.

Yeah & more people watch TikTok than go to the cinema, does that mean filmmakers should learn from TikTok? No. Without being high & mighty, the function of creatives is to make beauty, the unexpected, the experimental & the divine. Not the easiest or most median. share.google/wKMq4019xzXB...

AI-generated stories rated better quality than human-written ones, study finds

Researcher says simpler writing by AI is easier to read and digest, but this does not mean human authors are obsolete

share.google

Funding for UK researchers to attend a research collaboration symposium on the broad theme of ‘Humans and Nature: More resilient towards the future’.

The British Academy@britishacademy.bsky.social · yesterday

Are you an early career researcher in the humanities and social sciences? Join the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Symposium to network with fellow researchers in an in-person symposium in Bonn, Germany. Apply now: https://bit.ly/4yL3Stm

Quite impressive to completely undermine your own defence and insult most of your party's elected officials in the same sentence.

Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 11h ago

It's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.

This is yet another 'rewilding' article calling for better landscape management. We used to have degrees in landscape management but they've all gone. Please just bring landscape management back.

The Conversation UK@uk.theconversation.com · 24h ago

Done properly, rewilded landscapes are more fire-resistant.

"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.

Good to see science and universities bundled into the same analysis rather than treated as separate entities (as they are by their dismemberment in separate government departments). But it would be QUITE NICE if 'science' could be construed in the European sense of science. It's not STEM alone.

Time for Andy Burnham to smile on UK science

Waning support for basic research threatens Britain’s technology ambitions

ft.com

Happy International Owl Awareness Day! Please enjoy this photograph of ornithologist Herbert Brown (r) with an elf owl, the world’s smallest owl

'A survey of 381 members of the Society of Radiographers revealed a “noticeable” rise in instances of overt racism experienced and witnessed by radiographers across the health service over the past 18 months.' This has been actively enabled by politicians and media. That's a choice being made.

NHS radiographers report rise in overt racist abuse by patients

Survey reveals medics were called ‘monkeys’ and ‘dirty foreigners’, and patients refused to be seen by black or Asian staff

theguardian.com

Reminder that unis/academic staff are judged on graduate employment rates so we will be both blamed (sometimes as individuals!) and punished for this. Yet another of the many things that we are forced to take responsibility for despite having no control over it.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3d ago

New graduate posts down 7% from last year's figures, at lowest level since 2020. Overall UK job postings are down 11% since the start of the year. This decline stretches across almost all occupations. War in Middle East and AI adduced as potential drivers.

People are just not ready for the consequences of climate change.

Britain could face food shortages as drought continues, farmers warn

Farmers battle to salvage what they can of their crops as heatwave set to continue

theguardian.com

In late 2023, the Society spent a day with Hertfordshire’s historians. We saw the quality, creativity and distinctiveness of teaching, research and engagement. We were told by a (now departed) senior manager that History was ‘a portfolio the university will guard very carefully’. bit.ly/4hLediN

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

This is an absolutely disgusting state of affairs. While only Russell Groups are in the news, the humanities at many other universities are being eviscerated.

Owen Davies@odavies9.bsky.social · 4d ago

So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.

Definitely the case here. In two weeks we find which 9 of 12 in my group will be gone. The other 3 will then have a month to prepare and find hourly-paid replacements for all the classes across two degrees. And supervise 25 PhDs. Plus admin and pastoral care and research. Management doesn’t care.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

If you're arriving at uni this autumn, or maybe dropping your kids, remember that there could be a ghostly phalanx of absent redundant staff, lost modules and degraded degrees making it a very unhappy place. It may *look* the same, but it won't *be* the same. www.ft.com/content/e5b0...

I have now flooded the market with Hummingbird Hawk Moth videos and it's maybe time to venture further than 6 feet from my front door - but I do like this one, especially the fly-past at the end.

The sheer scale of the closures and job losses in UK HE are plain today. Departure posts and lifeboats visible across all of HE Linkedin, lots here too. In what is now an annual exercise, I tap the sign, which reads: "This has nothing to do with how 'good' these depts or staff are, or were."

Thinking through the unedifying, un-evidence-based rush to an undefined, apparently unmodelled paradigm of 'specialisation, what's being lost/threatened? Herts History was an excellent example of performing to a top standard in REF, but also much more than that. Questions to think with include: 1/4

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

Not only that but *the entire Humanities offering at Hertfordshire has gone and is being taught out*

Cordelia Beattie@cordeliabeattie.bsky.social · 3d ago

I see some people are reading this post as being about Exeter but it’s referring to the University of Hertfordshire. And that’s Owen’s point. Less coverage about the axe falling there but it’s equally sad.

Worst we’ve known’: UK turns to imports as drought and heat hit vegetable crops. Food insecurity and higher prices would follow. Poor hit the hardest. Despite warnings, no plan for water shortages. Need reservoirs, water storage, better water management. Companies can't do national planning.

‘Worst we’ve known’: UK turns to imports as drought and heat hit vegetable crops

Growers in dismay after scorching weather and lack of rain affect yields, sending wholesale prices rocketing

theguardian.com

So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.

Glad to see LSE speaking out on this. Recent government actions are more than just benign neglect. To name a few: taxing a key export sector, whittling away direct funding (was 40% in 2010 now 10%), fees capped in nominal terms, restrictive immigration rules, and an unjust loan system for students.

Ben Ansell@benansell.bsky.social · 4d ago

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.

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

A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

democracyforsale.substack.com

youve heard of failing upwards. well academic careers in 2026 encapsulate the reverse: succeeding downwards. so many talented, highly qualified people, being punished for their achievements

I wonder whether anyone on the board of either STFC or UKRI had bothered to read what Andy Burnham has said about the “unaccountable state”. 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

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

“We found that the data centers that already exist affect nearby residents and the nation as a whole in five main areas: air quality, water quality, noise levels, land use and energy costs.”

Lee West@whodat35.bsky.social · 5d ago

ICYMI: 5 ways data centers endanger their local communities and the country as a whole. theconversation.com/5-ways-data-....

Creative & performing arts subjects received £16.8 million SPG 2024-25; £12.9 million in 2025-26; £ O million in 2026-27. The University of Creative Arts will thus lose half of its government funding this year; Art University Bournmouth 40.7%, Norwich U of Arts 40.4% and Leeds Arts U 30.3%. 1/2

Arts institutions hit hard as OfS details teaching grant cuts

University for the Creative Arts loses more than half of its funding after support for creative subjects reduced to zero

timeshighereducation.com

Tories block Disability News Service from receiving press releases, and stop answering its calls and emails www.disabilitynewsservice.com/tories-block... Via @johnpring.bsky.social

Tories block Disability News Service from receiving press releases, and stop answering its calls and emails

Disability News Service (DNS) has been blocked by Conservative head office from receiving any of the party’s press releases or even submitting media requests. The move appears to have followed a se…

disabilitynewsservice.com