Shocking to discover designating AI data centres as “National Critical Infrastructure” means water companies are prohibited from restricting water to them even in times of drought. Households will lose water first. Thanks to @olliehayes.bsky.social at @globalactionplan.bsky.social for joining me

Data Centres vs. Drinking Water: What Matters To Us Most?

Podcast Episode · The Rest Is Politics · 30 July · 16min

podcasts.apple.com

RECRUITING 3 Senior Research Associates to develop responsible AI-enabled approaches to unlock animal behaviour for conservation. Roles include: 🧠 AI/Computer Vision 🐠 Behavioural Ecology 🌊 Marine Field Ecology Join @lec-reefs.bsky.social & @dsailu.bsky.social, Lancaster Uni, UK. Ads coming soon!

Rowling looming over a progressive Irish cultural festival with her menacing insinuations & a phalanx of expensive lawyers dashing off legal letters. And all because the organisers don’t want transphobes peddling hate at their event. A nauseating spectacle of spite.

Earlier this year UKRI launched a funding call to invest £40M in ONE AI lab. www.ukri.org/opportunity/... For some unknown reason they decided to fund TWO AI labs at the cost of £60M. An extra £20M. Just found. That's the equivalent of 7 more years of Jodrell Bank. www.ukri.org/news/ukri-la...

UKRI launches two AI research labs to stay ahead in global race

Two new labs will back British researchers to develop next generation artificial intelligence (AI) systems, helping secure the UK’s position as a global leader.

ukri.org

Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans@astroroyalscot.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm absolutely devastated for colleagues at Jodrell Bank who found out this morning that funding for the UK's e-MERLIN radio telescope array will be terminated. This is a short-sighted move, to save a tiny fraction of the overall UK science budget. #SaveJodrellBank 🔭🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today is my first day in office as the new curator of vertebrate paleontology at @nhmdk.bsky.social & @ucph.bsky.social! 🇩🇰 🏛️ 🦴 🦕 😁 Starting off right with some proper Paleozoic Greenlandic friends (🐟/🐸, 🦈) and an extremely Danish office surprise! 🧱

⏰️1 week left to apply! We're recruiting for an Associate Editor with data integrity expertise! 📊 join us in improving the clarity, transparency, & accessibility of ecological research. 🌳 more information on the role and how to apply can be found here 👉️ buff.ly/R8z4TLe

Guess what? I’m at risk of redundancy. My job - and those of my colleagues in my department and across our wider faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences - is one of those currently targeted for cuts. I received a personal letter today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

University of Exeter in talks to cut about 150 members of staff

The university says it is consulting with colleagues over "limited and specific potential changes".

bbc.co.uk

Calling all scientists - nature magazine wants to know what you really think about your job. I will be writing about the results later this year and am keen to have lots of responses from Africa and the Global South. You can win an $250 voucher for your trouble! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Share the highs and lows of your career in science: take Nature’s global survey

Science and society are undergoing rapid change. Nature wants to know how this is affecting careers, workplace culture and salaries.

nature.com

Lovely, but exhausting, weekend at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. Hundreds of visitors visited the stand to learn about trilobites, how animals turn into fossils, and getting to meet real palaeontologsts! Very proud of our team, representing the very best of @thepalass.bsky.social!

Ever wondered what impact climate may have had on dinosaur body size? Us too! 🧵 Check out our new paper that tries to answer just that—out today in Palaeontology! @thepalass.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Body size evolution through shifting climatic conditions in Mesozoic dinosaurs

Body size evolution is commonly associated with climate change. For example, birds and mammals have been found to decrease in size with anthropogenic global warming. Recent studies have inferred dist...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

"Fellows shall not act or fail to act in any way which would […] bring the Society into disrepute." But this morning ministers condemned Elon Musk FRS for enabling violence on the streets of Belfast. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Would the @royalsociety.org like to comment?

By December 2022, all universities in Afghanistan had closed their doors to women.

What happened to Afghanistan’s female academics?

By December 2022, all universities in Afghanistan had closed their doors to women.

tcnv.link

🚨 New paper alert! Delighted to have been involved in this @nature.com study using trait-based ecosystem modelling to examine plankton extinction patterns in the first *100 years* after the Chicxulub impact event at the #Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. ☄️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Darkness and body size shaped end-Cretaceous marine extinction patterns - Nature

Trait-based ecosystem modelling shows that impact-driven darkness and body-size-dependent extinction thresholds, rather than carbon-dioxide increase or acidification, drove most of the observed end-Cr...

nature.com

Was für ein großartiger Bericht von @luilog.bsky.social! Es ist selten, dass deutsche Medien den kolonialen und extraktivistischen Hintergrund solcher Fälle thematisieren. Definitiv lesenswert. #IrritatorBelongsToBR

Dinosaurier aus Brasilien: Irritator geht nach Hause

Ein Dinosaurierschädel aus dem Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart soll in sein Herkunftsland Brasilien zurückgehen. Ein Beispiel neokolonialer Forschungspraktiken.

kontextwochenzeitung.de

🚨 New croc paper alert! Another study led by Ana Laura Paiva (PhD student I co-supervise with Max Langer) is out today in Palaeontology! We revisit a classic question with new tools: how big were notosuchians, really? 🐊📏 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Art: @mirantakouvari.bsky.social

Yesterday, I posted a thread explaining (1) the problems with the 🇧🇷🇩🇪 Declaration, (2) how they are aggravated in the 🇩🇪 version, and (3) the change in the 🇧🇷 version. Make sure to read it first.👇 Now, I'll tell you what this means for the future of #IrritatorBelongsToBR & #DecolonizeScience. [1/8]

Letícia Haertel@lmhaertel.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I've been part of the #IrritatorBelongsToBR movement since the very beginning. When the declaration announcing the German “willingness” to return it came out, however, I had serious concerns. I explained them on @diplomatiquebrasil.bsky.social and will summarize the article here. [1/13]

I've been part of the #IrritatorBelongsToBR movement since the very beginning. When the declaration announcing the German “willingness” to return it came out, however, I had serious concerns. I explained them on @diplomatiquebrasil.bsky.social and will summarize the article here. [1/13]

www.science.org/content/arti... #IrritatorBelongstoBR

Famed Brazilian dinosaur fossil finally heads home

Germany and Brazil reach agreement over controversial spinosaurid fossil, heralding new collaboration between the two nations

science.org

Irritator challengeri, the best preserved Spinosaurus skull ever discovered, is finally heading home to Brazil! The announcement comes years after tireless attempts from Brazilian scholars to see the fossil repatriated from a German museum. #Paleontology #Spinosaurus 🧪🧪 New at @science.org

Famed Brazilian spinosaurid fossil finally heads home

Germany and Brazil reach agreement over controversial fossil, heralding new collaboration between the two nations

science.org

Finally some high-level news coverage for #IrritatorBelongstoBR!

Taylor Mitchell Brown@tmitchellbrown.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Irritator challengeri, the best preserved Spinosaurus skull ever discovered, is finally heading home to Brazil! The announcement comes years after tireless attempts from Brazilian scholars to see the fossil repatriated from a German museum. #Paleontology #Spinosaurus 🧪🧪 New at @science.org

Check out our blog for some great tips for improving your science graphics! Our most recent post talks about using online images and illustrations in your figures! 🧪#SciComm

GraphicsSci.bsky.social@graphicssci.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Looking to make some eye-catching graphics for your next presentation or poster? You don’t have to make your own! Check out our blog post on illustration & image resources for your science to find out more! www.sciencegraphicdesign.com/blog/illustr... 🧪 #Scicomm

Really disappointed to see the #BBC coverage of the giant octopus fossil yday (by @hbriggsjourno.bsky.social) use a comment from a problematic palaeontologist who lost a major grant for bullying... They don't even work on fossil cephalopods! There are lots of us out here, use Google to do better.

The editorial board of Geobios aims to support 2 early career researchers (PhD or postdoc) in #palaeontology, #palaeobiology, #palaeoecology, #palaeobiogeography, (bio) #stratigraphy or #biogeochemistry. Each award is 500€. Deadline May 31. All the information: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/geob...

Calling all fossilologists! Can anyone help identify this? It was found loose in a drawer, no data or providence. What on earth could our little weird friend be? Please RT for reach because it's flummoxing us!

Final call for late abstracts for this year's Life and Planet meeting! lifeandplanet.com

Once upon a time I just admired nudis and sea slugs. But it was not enough. Now apparently I'm creating an R package to celebrate their colour palettes? 😅 First up, my Sydney fave, Hypselodoris bennetti. #rstats #nudibranch #dataviz 🦑🐙🧪 #marinelife #invertebrates

I am so unbelievably proud to present 8 years of hard work: the worlds oldest octopus is not an octopus... Pohlsepia is actually a really rotten Nautiloid (but oldest soft tissue nautiloid ever found!). 🐙❌ royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

New preprint on the recent history of phylogenetic biogeography, with co-authors Isabel Sanmartín and Joel Cracraft, now up on EcoEvoRxiv: ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

Why not check out our portfolio? We design figures, journal covers, graphical abstracts and more! 🧪 Graphics designed for scientists, by scientists! #SciComm Find us here: www.sciencegraphicdesign.com

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.