My look back at a year of claims about deextinction that didn't live up to the hype. No, the dire wolf is not back from the dead 🧪 Featuring @toriherridge.bsky.social @devoevomed.bsky.social @nicrawlencenz.bsky.social and @grenyer.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2505...

De-extinction was big news in 2025 – but didn't live up to the hype

Biologists poured cold water on Colossal Biosciences’ claim to have brought the dire wolf back from extinction, and some worry the overblown headlines will undermine conservation work

newscientist.com

“It’s like claiming to have brought Napoleon back from the dead by asking a short French man to wear his hat.” A short piece in The Conversation by me on why “de-extinction” is nothing of the sort, and bad, bad conservation. theconversation.com/why-de-extin...

Why ‘de-extinct’ dire wolves are a Trojan horse to hide humanity’s destruction of nature

Extinction is, for the time being, forever – and a symptom of our global economic system.

theconversation.com

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.... New paper - England’s Biodiversity Net Gain policy could easily and inadvertently harm invertebrate populations because it doesn’t value habitats, condition, connectivity, or scale in ways that invertebrate populations respond positively to.

Leveraging Biodiversity Net Gain to address invertebrate declines in England

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is a new approach to infrastructural development in England, mandating that developers achieve a 10% BNG by enhancing and creating habitats. As currently implemented, BNG...

resjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

OK, this looks fascinating: Marder et al in Science this week: www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

Direct effects of mountain uplift and topography on biodiversity

Biodiversity hotspots in Earth’s mountain ranges suggest a strong connection between topographic development and biological processes. However, it remains unclear whether high biodiversity in mountain...

science.org

I’ll happily die on the hill of academic freedom of speech. But I’m damned if I’m sharing it with the Oxford Union who have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Just breaking my own Twitter embargo to congratulate @johnmittermeier and colleagues on refinding Otidiphaps insularis after 146 years, and also on outrunning pirates. We need to adjust the postgraduate research skills training accordingly :) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-63672501

My use of Twitter is paused pending future statements by the company about changes its policies on disinformation and promotion of violence on the platform. Please use email as I won’t see DMs.🤞

This isn’t a new government. That seems like a strategic error.

https://influencemap.org/report/Industry-Associations-Biodiversity-Policy-19612

The perfect time for the government to spend a zombie month while the Brexit ultras try a last power grab and we all pay. “…my lifeless two-year-old wasn't enough of an emergency to get the help of the ambulances. The cuts to the NHS are just so scary.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-633256...

Quick check of the ne… oh.

I spent the summer off Twitter, pretty much. I’ve returned to it this week. And honestly, I think I need to fundamentally rethink whether and how I use it. I’ve curated my feed intensively, and professionally and politically it tells me a lot of things I want and need to know.

Amazing-looking paper in Nature on the new @IUCN ecosystem typology. It’s a hugely ambitious idea, with profound and quite hard-to-predict consequences for monitoring: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05318-4 It���s also got an eye-opening (presumed) response to a reviewer…

Yes, a screenshot of a retweet. But the UN just retweeted to the world a warning from major conservation bodies about the Conservatives’ plan to destroy three fundamental legislative pillars of nature protection in the U.K. without clear replacement. It’s bad on a global scale.

One of the saddest things about the ongoing attempt to pack the council of the @nationaltrust with conservative fundamentalists is that the great West Country work of @TheRestoreTrust and indeed their whole hard-won public image is being stolen. If there’s a trademark lawyer…

For anyone wondering how all their water got onto the ring road last week - I don’t think they’re meant to look like this normally.

Good run down of NAO modelling and outlook for this winter, as well as consequent gas demand and consequences thereof. In short - ���😬https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/will-a-cold-european-winter-exacerbate-the-energy-crisis-part-2

Those notorious Jacobins, the National Trust. https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/press-release/our-response-to-recent-government-proposals-

Helpful context if the new government’s gamble isn’t making much sense. https://www.niesr.ac.uk/blog/inflation-slows-energy-price-cap-mitigating-further-rises

This seems appropriate today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3f-vypUPPs

Really quite a contribution to ecology by New Road, North Ascot…

I’m not particularly skilled at presentational politics, but I can’t help thinking that “Shall I publicly associate myself with pumping actual human shit onto beaches and rivers in August?” only has one answer, and it isn’t yes. https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/sewage-vote-how-my-mp-dumping-raw-...

A new strain of avian flu is decimating wild birds. Humans should worry https://on.ft.com/3QTFUWa “Good” summary article if you need one for non-technical types. I wish it was clearer on was the need for mitigating other threats, especially food supply, during recovery.

I’ve just found out that 20% of Thames Water is owned by the USS. 🙃

Is there a name for assorted digital cruft that builds up in your life but to which you are strangely attached? One of my accounts still gets promotional mails from a limo company I used once in NYC in 2004. I was even worried about them during lockdown.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02057-4 hands up anyone who had “easier crime” as a consequence of a fossil fuel economy

There’s an amazing post on the B&I wild flowers FB group with some photos of a fasciated Echium pininana that looks straight out of Geiger https://www.facebook.com/groups/735961066428140/permalink/5724515527572644

A perennial favourite link that seems to be standing up to the test of time very well. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1218703/boris-promises-cheaper-household-gas-bills-if-brits-back-brexit/amp/

https://labs.openai.com/s/sNrRfeqJ9xkLryc5pKKXxDJ4 #dalle2 It is basically like this all day.

I pre-emptively resign from this government, just in case they get that far down the list by tomorrow.