I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10

As if you needed another reason to hate everything that AI companies are doing, this report has them slicing and pulping rare books because they've contaminated the corpus of the internet too much to use...

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele@drdragases.bsky.social · last wk.

No longer content with pillaging intellectual work and dismembering our environment (already critically weakened), AI companies are now hellbent on destroying books galore including rare editions. Shut down these nefarious enterprises already.

End cretaceus hell

Just been sitting right here thinking about that tech bro so desperate to live forever. Just imagine: some of us get to enjoy the privilege of spending time on this astonishing planet, and yet for folks like him it's still not enough.

No no no no no.

Zoë Crowther@zoecrowther.bsky.social · 2w ago

The AI minister thinks the UK should focus on being the world's best AI adopter, not the world's best AI model builder He said Britain can move "further and faster" than the US in applying AI across healthcare, public services and the wider economy (3/6)

Fahnbulleh as Climate minister is a good choice, in my opinion. She will be pushing for more and faster transition to renewables. Mahmood and Phillipson staying on is *much* less reassuring, and seems to be a total failure to read the room on whose votes Labour has lost and why.

Hicham El Guerrouj was my sporting hero as a kid. His running was extraordinary. But if one of his records had to fall, I'm delighted it's to Josh Kerr. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athlet...

London Diamond League results: Josh Kerr smashes men's mile world record

Great Britain's Josh Kerr smashes the long-standing men's mile world record in a spectacular performance at the London Diamond League.

bbc.co.uk

Delighted that Otherlands Illustrated has been longlisted for the @wainwrightprize.bsky.social in the Children's Non Fiction category. And alongside the next in the excellent "Everything you know about x is Wrong" series by my good pal Nick Crumpton, who shares Gavin Scott as illustrator!

$50.1 million could fund over 400 doctorates; 933 years worth of annual curator salaries (UK), or running cost for a millennium-worth of free events like the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. It is inane that people can accumulate such wealth, and use it explicitly to cause public harm.

Steve Brusatte@stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 3w ago

Gus the T. rex fetched $50.1 million at auction, a new record price for a dinosaur If this is how much dinosaurs cost now, how can museums afford them? Where does that leave science & education? Will the public still have opportunities to be inspired? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Of those I have spent time in: Edinburgh Stockholm Chicago Budapest Copenhagen All places with great culture, fairly easy to get about (Chicago at least in relative terms in the US), good food.

Brent Toderian@brenttoderian.bsky.social · 3w ago

QUESTION: What are your FIVE favourite cities anywhere in the world? Bonus points for persuasive explanations why your choices are “right.” Mine (in no order) are: Paris Barcelona New York Montreal Vancouver

It is mad that we have, somehow, allowed net zero - a policy common to all major parties under 5 years ago and supported by a majority of the public - to become a synoym for mad radicalism. It is doubly mad that we've allowed this to happen during the hottest summer on record.

Jo Michell@jomichell.bsky.social · 3w ago

I’m sorry, but what is ‘radical’ about the policies pursued by Miliband?

Elon Musk's xAI has installed more than double the number of gas turbines than it has publicly acknowledged to power its Colossus 2 data center project, without federal permits, and the pollution is hitting predominantly Black neighborhoods the hardest reut.rs/4bIghEm

23 month research associate job now available with our team to work on Middle Jurassic mammals from Scotland. Requires strong experience with segmentation of CT data but does not require a PhD. Deadline for applications is 26th July. edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Research Associate (Leverhulme) - School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences - 105138 - Grade 6

This is a Research Associate position to assist in palaeobiological research conducted as part of the project “New Insights Into Early Mammal Evolution From Exceptional Scottish Fossils” funded by the...

edzz.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com

Disappointing to see Miliband, who has been a real positive force in this Labour government and for whom I have had a lot of time, bending the knee to fossil fuel interests and undermining his good work. Approving new gas fields? Economic and environmental madness.

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social · 3w ago

Even those in the Labour Party when claim to care about the climate crisis are set to bring about our destruction for profit. They must be replaced with people who care about our planet. Join.greenparty.org.uk

My younger son's choir is doing a Les Mis medley at the moment, and it's bringing back the best school musical experience I ever had back in 2006. But it's poignant as three of the then cast and crew independently died a few years later aged only 20. Craig, Siobhan, Tom. Empty chairs indeed.

This (BBC's 'Evolution') does sound brilliant, mixing modern and extinct life with proper science. But you can't tell me that image is not a Pokémon about to scream its name and unleash a fearsome bubblebeam.

Philip Ball@philipcball.bsky.social · 3w ago

Well this sounds good. www.ft.com/content/c6c0...

To be a Tory these days you need to be explicitly against both human rights *and* objective reality...

James Murray@james-bg.bsky.social · 4w ago

A sad and not a little shameful day for a once serious party. www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Despite all the noise today I'd really like you to read this, as I think it's crucial. The government's in the process of p*ssing up to £264 billion into the ground, at the behest of the fossil fuel industry. Yes, £264 *billion*. It's utterly mad, and has to stop. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The great carbon capture con: behold the wasted billions Burnham could claw back | George Monbiot

There are far better ways to tackle climate breakdown, but successive governments have chosen to listen to the fossil fuel companies instead, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

theguardian.com

Billionaires are buying influence in British politics. It's time to cap political donations and make every vote count equally.

My child's maths homework this week was a whole lot of "if x weight of apples cost £50, how much would cost £70?" But it was all in pounds and stones. Had to do some googling to convert - it was all metric in my day...

This Prime Minister has abjectly failed to meet the moment on the defining issue of our age: climate breakdown and ecosystem collapse. The next PM must not repeat this. Andy Burnham cannot treat climate and nature as second order. Me in @PoliticsHome: www.politicshome.com/opinion/arti...

Starmer looked away from the climate crisis. Burnham must not

We haven't heard much from the prime minister-in-waiting about the defining issue of the age.

politicshome.com

"You don't need to try so hard" from a fellow science book writer, shortly after being amazed that I currently make a living solely through writing. I'm still not sure what he meant, but I disagree with every interpretation I've come up with...

S R Jones @aegisimmemorial.bsky.social · last mo.

If you see this, please tell me the worst/most baffling bit of creative feedback you've ever recieved. Mine is still the time somebody told me my aliens had names that were too alien. Not that they were unpronounceable, just that they didn't sound enough like human names.

Despite the warnings on our screens and newspapers, even usually sensible people seemed to approach the heatwave with scepticism, writes Ellen Halliday

Heatwave sceptics reveal our climate delusion

This week’s heat made plain how difficult it is for us to comprehend what is happening

prospectmagazine.co.uk

Lying in the cool of the garden, as the sun sets. Looking up, the clouds seem to vibrate and shimmer as if they are being reflected on water - is that me seeing the refraction of a cold mass of air arriving? Scattered bats and raindrops appear in the sky, but not for long enough.

I especially love this diagram.

While London swelters, thanks to the fossil fuelled climate crisis, right wing climate deniers including the US Energy Secretary are conspiring to stall global action to safeguard our climate. #ukpol #climatecrisis www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Hard-right figures take aim at Ed Miliband and UK net zero policies at ‘anti-woke Davos’

Kemi Badenoch, who joined US anti-abortion activists and European far-right parties at ARC, described energy secretary as a ‘villain’

theguardian.com

Excellent news - at London Climate Action Week, the UN Secretary General calls time on the tech industry hiding its climate and environmental impacts www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Tory leader of Enfield Council going after the Uruk Hai vote here, announcing the important policy of ... the council canteen. www.instagram.com/reel/DZul5eT...

Lotr Funny: Meat's Back on the Menu!

Alt: Uruk Hai leader in Lord of the Rings shouting "looks like meat is back on the menu, boys"

static.klipy.com

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

A lone bee moving a ball around to climb on the ball and reach a flower. Reminds me of all those tricky pillar and boulder puzzles in games like Golden Sun and Pokémon...

Science Magazine@science.org · 2mo ago

A new Science study shows that bumble bees can position a ball underneath a fake “flower” to reach a reward, suggesting they can exhibit spontaneous problem-solving and challenging the notion that such advanced cognitive abilities are exclusive to large-brained vertebrates. https://scim.ag/4vs08dC