Elmar Kal
@elmarkal.bsky.social
Senior lecturer in Physiotherapy @Brunel University London. Movement scientist with interest in balance, gait and motor learning.
What a terrible thing to defund. Sure, improve access, but don't end the youth parliament! #democracy - it would be a good idea: we need a world where everyone makes politics what they do, not have done to them @younggreens.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
UK Youth Parliament looks set to be axed
Some say scrapping the parliament for 11 to 18-year-olds would be a blow for democracy, while others say it is overdue.
bbc.co.uk
Het zou de hele dag over dit nieuws moeten gaan. www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2026/...
Poolse premier Tusk: Rusland plant aanvallen met drones en raketten op bondgenoten Oekraïne
De Poolse premier Donald Tusk waarschuwt voor aanvallen door Rusland met drones en raketten op NAVO-lidstaten. In een ingelaste toespraak voor het Poolse parlement zei hij donderdag te beschikken over...
nrc.nl
Trots als een aap ben ik, en eindelijk kan iedereen zien waarom. Van mijn bankenboek is een korte fictie film gemaakt, Free Fall. Echt goed gemaakt, won overal prijzen en haalde longlists en shortlists van Cannes tot de Oscars. Nu staat-ie dan gratis op Youtube. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BTF...
Free Fall | A Trader Sees an Opportunity on 9/11
YouTube video by Samansa US
youtube.com
Honestly, might be better if government ministers kept their half-baked views on education to themselves
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last wk.A cheery message from the new minister responsible for research funding for the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences (and the subjects that the majority of UK taught undergraduate and Masters students study).
Dismayed by defeat of the assisted dying bill. Nothing was won today – no new palliative care funding, no new disability support. And the suffering that brought this bill to parliament remains.
Dark day indeed
Assisted Dying Bill narrowly fails – a dark day for democracy
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill has been narrowly voted down at its Second Reading in the House of Commons. The vote was 270 in favour, 286 against. Andrew Copson, Chief Executive at Huma...
humanists.uk
Andrew Copson@andrewcopson.bsky.social · last wk.Dismayed by defeat of the assisted dying bill. Nothing was won today – no new palliative care funding, no new disability support. And the suffering that brought this bill to parliament remains.
I am sorry, I may have said this before, but there really are moments when British politics are astonishingly naive, and I really think this may have something to do with the fact that the British have not experienced occupation, tyranny, displacemen within living memory.
John Oxley@joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 2w agoWTF - first BBC question to Pat McFadden "Are you focusing too much on the protestors, and not on the issue that millions care about: small boats?"
The fact something as fundamental and superb as the RNLI is a charity is one of the most magical and strange things about Britain. You can support them here. rnli.org/support-us/g...
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
rnli.org
New PISA data out England is now top ten in all three areas (reading, maths, science) and the second highest performing country outside of east Asia (after Estonia). This is a huge public policy success.
Since its foundation in 1824 the bravery of Royal National Lifeboat Institution volunteers has saved more than 146,700 lives at sea. Hundreds of those volunteers have died attempting to save others. They are the best of us.
Hey, I’ve got a sector far more valuable than car manufacturing to the economy which has lost TENS of thousands of jobs and looks forecast to lose TENS of thousands more, just if any minister is interested…
Seems the difference between ‘protestors’ and ‘terrorists’ is that protestors wear balaclavas while terrorists hold placards.
There is a world in which AI could be used to actually improve our lives rather than make everything worse, but it will take drastically rethinking the current AI rollout — and empowering workers, @doctorow.pluralistic.net said.
“Instead of a group discussion or a tutor teaching you, it’s a class activity done with a robot… I feel like I’m teaching this robot how to take jobs away from my teachers.” It’s the @doctorow.pluralistic.net Reverse Centaur to yet another perilous new extreme: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Macquarie University swaps in-person psychology classes with AI chatbot for two subjects
University’s move is part of trend that critics within academia say will lead to further staff cuts and the loss of ‘everything that makes the job worth doing’
theguardian.com
Sewage Watch – Protect our rivers and beaches Since April 2023 Sewage Watch has been keeping a running log of press coverage on the state of sewage dumping into our rivers and onto our beaches westenglandbylines.co.uk/features/bro...
Sewage Watch – Protect our rivers and beaches
Since April 2023 Sewage Watch has been keeping a running log of press coverage on the state of sewage dumping into our rivers and onto our beaches
westenglandbylines.co.uk
It might actually be impossible for a Tory to win in London at the moment. Because to win in London you do actually have to show that you love London and the modern Tory party stands opposed to everything London represents.
Rob Davies@byrobdavies.bsky.social · 3w ago"I want your children's lungs to be smaller and less functional" is a bold electoral strategy.
Labour's approach to Higher Education is a non-policy shaped by confusion, inertia and disinterest
Grumpy Philosopher@stevecooke.org · 3w agoI learned today that some charitable trusts are now nervous about awarding grants outside the so-called Golden Triangle of Oxford-Cambridge-London. They‘re worried about wasting money as universities close departments & make staff redundant. Labour’s HE policy is entrenching elite privilege.
Are brains and artificial neural networks converging onto universal representations? There is a seductive idea making the rounds in NeuroAI / machine learning: train systems well enough, and they all converge on the same representation of reality (i.e. a unique world model). We have thoughts™ 1/n
The Umwelt Representation Hypothesis: rethinking Universality
Recent studies reveal striking representational alignment between artificial neural networks (ANNs) and biological brains, leading to proposals that all sufficiently capable systems converge on univer...
cell.com
Israel's E1 settlement project is the behaviour of a rogue state. It requires a very firm response. inews.co.uk/opinion/were...
We're about to find out who Andy Burnham really is
Ian Dunt: Our new PM is starting to look tough and decisive
inews.co.uk
Powerful and important letter about artificial so-called intelligence from Sheila Hayman from Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, University of Cambridge, in the FT today
The Netherlands has pulled out of Eurovision 2027, saying the contest "can no longer be considered neutral" due to divisions over the Gaza war and Israel's participation.
As Canada is learning (the hard way), the "art" of all of Trump's deals can be summed up in a single word: "renege": pluralistic.net/2026/07/22/t... 1/
The best cities to experience are the ones where cars are not given total access, but people are.
Grenfell cladding firm Arconic paid shareholders $31m more than to fire victims/survivors. 72 Britons died in fire due to faulty cladding. US shareholders sued for inadequate disclosures about cladding, received $74m compensation. Victims of fire, their families received $43m. No one prosecuted.
Grenfell cladding firm Arconic paid shareholders £23m more in compensation than to fire victims
Report’s author said findings highlighted ‘near-total failure’ to hold corporations accountable over the disaster that killed 72 people
theguardian.com
Well done Feargal Sharkey for calling out the privatised water companies on #r4today 🔥 "They leak over a TRILLION litres of water per year" I think people are happy to be part of the solution - once they're not being ripped off by privatisation PUBLIC OWNERSHIP NOW
14 hours later and my mentions are still full of angry treatises about badly behaved cyclists. Bike lanes are not a reward for good cyclist behavior! They are infrastructure proven to make cities safer for ALL ROAD USERS. Whatever way cyclists have wronged you is irrelevant to the discussion!
Katie Mack@astrokatie.com · last mo.Every conversation about bike lanes is like: "Car crashes kill a huge number of people every day, including pedestrians, cyclists, & car occupants. Good bike infrastructure has been shown to make everyone safer (& doesn't increase congestion)." "But sometimes cyclists break rules & hit people!"
The treatment of Jason Arday was massively out of proportion to his faults. People who have committed terrible crimes have received less scrutiny, yet I don't believe anything he did or said even crossed the threshold of criminality. How many of us would have survived what he was put through? 🧵
White professor ‘ MattGPT ‘ whose most recent book contained fabricated quotations, non-existent source references, & left ChatGPT URLs accidentally embedded in footnotes is sad about Jason Arday’s death but still wants Arday & all black academia held to higher standards than his own writing .
