"The impact poses no danger to Earth..." The rest of the Solar System isn't a resource & a garbage dump for billionaires; how long before one of their bits of junk lands in a inhabited part of Earth; and read to the end for a mic-drop aside about tardigrades supposedly dropped on the Moon in 2019. 🧪

Scott Smith@changeist.bsky.social · 12h ago

But is it art? www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

My column on how capital becomes a death cult. Faced with a choice between profit and human life, the radical right chooses profit. Then it tries to persuade us that mass death is what we want. It's the new phase of climate denial: accept your fate, earthlings. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Murderous heat, an endangered food supply, decimated landscapes: embrace the Mediterranean life | George Monbiot

As climate disaster stares us in the face, the radical right says ‘Embrace the Mediterranean life’. Embrace death, more like it, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com

U.S. publication day for A History of England in Twenty-Five Poems, with Pegasus Books. 🎉🎉 They picked a different author photo - looking suitably studious... www.simonandschuster.com/books/A-Hist...

Zack Polanski is to deliver an urgent message to the Prime Minister. Watch on Bold Politics YouTube channel at 11am.

Yes I am watching the first episode of the new #TedLasso series at 4.54am #Insomnia

Rebecca's WTH Reaction in Ted Lasso

Alt: Rebecca's WTH Reaction in Ted Lasso

static.klipy.com

As thousands of research academics are made redundant the whole system of free/cheap peer review will collapse.

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 · yesterday

Done properly, rewilded landscapes are more fire-resistant.

More photos of the larkspur at the small flower farm near Wicken, Cambridgeshire, for a good dollop of floral dopamine 🌿:

The Routledge Companion to #Gender and #Celebrity is out now! It includes my chapter '(Re)framing Britney Spears: the celebrity bimbo in the #MeToo era', which explores the 'bimbo' of the early noughties via Spears and the 2021 documentary Framing Britney Spears. www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Celebrity offers the first comprehensive global study of how gender shapes celebrity culture across diverse contexts and media landscapes. Bringing together 37 or...

routledge.com

Studies in Romanticism is thrilled to announce the publication of its Summer 2026 issue, a special issue titled "Mediating the More-Than-Human"! The issue is available open access via Project Muse @projectmuse.bsky.social: muse.jhu.edu/issue/57172.

Spending a reported £4.5m on new land while threatening to cut up to 100 jobs? Make it make sense. Glasgow Caledonian staff are on strike today to defend jobs. Show your support to colleagues! www.ucu.org.uk/article/1459...

A few of you asked about the copper alloy fox in my latest find-the-tiny-owl photo.It’s a Tudor mount that would have decorated leather,eg a bridle. I collect ancient accessories & haberdashery-nerdy as hell 👀,but here are some medieval,Tudor, 18th-19th C buttons/clasps & a Greek coin with a 🐦 on it

Excited to see that my monograph on the literature of the Anthropocene sublime has been published with Routledge: www.routledge.com/The-Anthropo...

The Anthropocene Sublime in Literature: Immanence and Entanglement from Romanticism to Digitality

One starting point for the Anthropocene – in which human industry has so profoundly altered the planet’s geosphere – is the invention of the steam engine in the late eighteenth century, a date roughly...

routledge.com

"an age of apparent magic" The key framing device for Nolan's #TheOdyssey I will not be taking questions at this time

Lifelong Learning courses at Aberystwyth are now open to book. I'm teaching The Family in the 20th Century and a new module, Family in early modern Europe and Colonial America. All courses can be found here: www.aber.ac.uk/en/lifelong-...

While higher education has talked a lot about EDI, are Black academics noticing the difference in their day-to-day lives? A conference gave them a space to reflect: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/making-space-black-voices-higher-education #Highered #Academicsky

Making space for Black voices in higher education

While higher education has talked a lot about EDI, are Black academics noticing the difference in their day-to-day lives? A conference gave them a space to reflect

timeshighereducation.com

12 August 2026 partial solar eclipse | Royal Observatory Greenwich share.google/dtEIb3AcN5Ts...

How to see the 12 August 2026 partial solar eclipse

Learn more about the best solar eclipse visible from the UK and Ireland so far this century, when around 90-96% of the Sun will be covered by the Moon

share.google

Careful now, last time someone posed this problem, parts of Wales got flooded.

Ruth Watson@ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 2d ago

England needs to find ways to store water while politicians wake up to the climate catastrophe.

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

So much for a fresh start with Burnham. New oil and gas won't cut bills or make Britain more energy secure. But they will lock us into more climate damage. It's time to invest in clean energy, warm homes and the jobs of the future - not to double down on the fuels of the past.

The Creative Industries added £124 billion to the UK economy in 2023, but yes, let's not bother to fund any training and education in them. I mean, it's not like we're known for music, fashion, artists, filmmakers, performers. Make it make sense.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 6d ago

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

791 pages plus intro & endnotes, let’s goooo

Odyssey Is Not The Only Epic

On my 'to view' list since I saw the trailer

RogerEbert.com@ebertvoices.bsky.social · 2d ago

"Young people often spend so much time thinking about tomorrow. [This film] reminds us that it’s the meal we eat today that satisfies us." @briantallerico.bsky.social reviews TONY:

the amount of money that universities have given to management consultants is eye-watering. Where does that money come from? Have my son and daughter gone into terrible debt to fund this bullshit?

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 2d ago

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Your weekly reminder that universities cannot enhance the employability of our graduates if there are not graduate jobs to go to. Let’s hope Saint Burnham of Manchester can begin to fix the economy…

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.

A completely dreadful situation In 14 days, an entire community of educators gone

Plashing Vole@plashingvole.bsky.social · 3d ago

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.

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...

tfw your - discipline is lost another 5 academic staff members by 31 July 2026 - employers added Sunday to the next Saturday visiting day #DoingMoreWithLess

Really appreciated a piece that lays out the multiple horrors of UK HE in humane detail.

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 2d ago

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...