These are the long tailed tits! Smaller, rounder, cuter!!! Even with a little pink on their bellies! They bob up and down when they fly! #ukbirding #birds 🪶🦉
Kevin Olsen
@drksolsen.bsky.social
Martian science at Oxford Birds and food too.
It's been a momentous period in the @oxfordphysics.bsky.social Space Instrumentation Lab. The team has been hard at work building the Flight Model of our half of the @esa.int Comet Interceptor instrument. Last week we received the second spectrometer from @vtt.fi!!! #planetsci 🧪🔭
![Comic. [Person 1 with short hair on stage behind podium reading off paper while addressing audience. People are shown sitting in chairs while Person 2 with ponytail and Person 3 waving are walking toward stage.] PERSON 1: This year’s Nobel Prize in “calibrating your equipment carefully and not embarrassing yourself by publishing spurious results” goes to Dr. Adams and Dr. Smith, who did *not* announce the discovery of microbes on Titan. PERSON 3: Thank you, thank you.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreihztdrvxjeyzmz6dmz3xb4vi6wiwwtge6fwdoxjcum5aptndv3kfm)
Hot off the press, a new analysis of InSight seismic data for Mars has revealed some tantalising new structures! This is interpreted as hardened lava tunnels - a transcrustal magmatic system! 🌋 The team is from @ox.ac.uk Earth Sci #planetsci 🔭🧪 doi.org/10.1038/s415...
Seismic evidence for a melt-depleted lower crust and transcrustal magmatism on Mars - Nature Astronomy
Seismic data from NASA’s InSight mission reveal a melt-depleted lower crust on Mars and indicate that Earth-like, vertically integrated, transcrustal magmatic systems and associated crustal differenti...
doi.org
Another #oxfordpubreview. This one's from The Grapes, but not in Oxford, these grapes are in Livingston. Haggis and steak fajitas 🤣🤣🤣🏴
As promised, no more Canadian birds, no more winter! Here are the first British birds, English tits! In the same family together, chickadees are found in North America, while the tits are found in Eurasia and Africa. This is the blue tit. Small, fluffy, adorable, and colourful! 🪶🦉
As I've noted before, I was given a pair not too long ago (a holiday gift from a large corporation). They haven't come out of the box.
Peter Clines@peterclines.com · 3w agoNice work, everyone! Keep it up!
Friends, we need your help—a 🧵 The White House Office of Management and Budget, led by Project 2025's Russell Vought, wants to destroy how U.S. science has been done since World War II. This @arstechnica.com article is a great primer (apologies for the thumbnail): arstechnica.com/science/2026...
Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.
arstechnica.com
peer review is a secondary consideration, any federal agency may cancel any grant at any time for “national interest," ban grants on culture war topics, limit international collaborations, and block spending on things like publishing papers and attending conferences.🧪 arstechnica.com/science/2026...
Proposed new US funding rules: We can cancel any grant at any time
Peer review now optional, political staff would screen grants for forbidden topics.
arstechnica.com
Can't believe they didn't mention that Google Glass wearers were called glassholes and the wearable tech was just as unpopular then futurism.com/future-socie...
The Backlash Is So Strong That People With "Pervert Glasses" Are Afraid to Use Them in Public
Meta's camera-equipped "AI Glasses" are so divisive that some adopters are reportedly leaving their expensive smart glasses at home.
futurism.com
Little bio piece about Claire Parfitt, our future-Mars-mission contact at ESA and chair of the International Mars Exploration Working Group (I'm working on one of the subgroups right now!) #planetsci 🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Scientist who cleaned space toilet on work experience now leading Mars exploration teams
Claire Parfitt says her time at the National Space Centre gave her a unique insight.
bbc.co.uk
At last, the transition birds!! Chickadees!!! In here are the black-capped and the boreal (brown sides). Looking fluffy, round and cute!! 🦉🪶
The adorable, unassuming dark eyed junco! From Alberta, in the snow at Christmas! 🪶🦉
Probably the comeback of the tourney. Two goals in the last five minutes 😅 ⚽
A very rare find! This is a Lapland longspur, these migrate through Alberta from the high Arctic to the southern prairies. Around some horses, this one found shelter, a food supply, and access to open water. Thus, it was overwintering at the foot of the Rockies near Hinton AB 🪶🦉
And a pine grosbeak worked it for us, posting on the snow (Hinton AB, Christmas) 🪶🦉
And I need to catch up on the birds! #ukbirding #birds 🦉🪶 Here's the northern flicker passing through Alberta at Christmas. Very lucky catch, thanks for stopping by!!
Why not? Another #Oxfordpubreview? This is Oranges and Lemons, recently opened where the angel and Greyhound was. Wild beer selection, well decorated inside. When they opened they had Greek food and mezze plates. The value for 5 or 7 sharers is high, but it's just a bunch of reheated fried stuff. 😥
And yet another #Oxfordpubreview!! Lunch at Chiang Mai! Spicy beef salad for the win. Tangy and hot, lots of fresh cucumber and tomato! Yum!!
Yet another #Oxfordpubreview French bistro Pierre Victoire. Excellent wine selection, really great food. I've had better steak frites with Bernaisse sauce in town, but the starters and desserts were impressive. The menu is pricey.
Another #Oxfordpubreview!!! Meat is back on the menu at the Punter! Since the pandemic it has been the local vegetarians dream. I suppose this is to boost sales because Botley road has been barricaded for 4 years!!! Terrific fish sandwich. Their veggie scotch eggs are still best in UK!
What the World Cup 26 refs look like with the referee cams
British Planetary Science Conference #BPSC2026 Emma and Bethan representing @oxfordphysics.bsky.social contributions to the @ukspaceagency.bsky.social UK Space Frontiers 2035 planning 🧪🔭 #planetsci
MAVEN’s scientific legacy is secure, but the goodbye isn’t easy for teams working on the project, which scientists first proposed to NASA in 2006.
After 11 years at Mars, NASA's MAVEN spacecraft went out with a whisper
“I think the team has really experienced the loss of a loved one with the end of the mission.”...
arstechnica.com
One more #Oxfordpubreview: this was a fun find. Really exquisite food. The flaky pork, mac n cheese on a burger! The Crown and Horns in East Isley. #chefkiss
Another #Oxfordpubreview, this roast is from the Coach and Horses Inn in Chisel Hampton. Nice gravy, plentiful. Nice veg, pud, and beef! #Oxford #food
The next #Oxfordpubreview is a Sunday roast from The White Hart at Fyfield. It's on the more expensive side, but it looks fine and it was fine! The beef, the start of the plate was one of the best! #Oxford #food
