We're delighted to welcome Rebecca Cross to ARC team as Baskerville Operations and Resource Manager! 🎉 We look forward to working with Rebecca and wish her every success in her new role supporting the Baskerville service and its user community. #HPC #BaskervilleNCR ^YZ

Python to the rescue! Researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed PIRAN, a new open‑source Python tool making advanced space weather and radiation belt modelling more accessible, collaborative, and reproducible. @unibirmingham.bsky.social blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2026/08...

From head to tail, AI is helping researchers see sperm cells in a whole new way! Using fine-tuned computer vision models and HPC ay @unibirmingham.bsky.social, this project advances more accurate sperm segmentation for reproductive health research. 🔗 blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2026/07...

📢 We're delighted to welcome James Tripp to ARC as our newest Research Software Engineer! Wishing you a fantastic start—we're excited to have you on the team and look forward to working with you. Welcome aboard! 👋 #RSE #HPC #ARC ^YZ

TidyTuesday is back! 📅 July 21 • ⏰ 15:00 • 📍 Elm House The University of Birmingham R User Group is hosting a hands‑on R workshop exploring a real TidyTuesday dataset. Open to staff and PGRs — beginners + experts welcome. Refreshments provided. #tidytuesday ^JS

SeqProFT is a smarter, more efficient way to predict protein function from sequence alone. Using BlueBEAR GPUs and LoRA @unibirmingham.bsky.social , it matches or beats larger models with far less compute. Read more: blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2026/07... #Bioinformatics #AI #HPC #DeepLearning

Please join us in welcoming Elliot Wright to ARC! 🎉 Elliot starts today as our latest AIS Graduate Engineer. Wishing him a great first day and every success in the role! ^YZ #hpc #ARC

👋 Welcome to Jack Sullivan, who joined REDG on 1 July as our new Senior Engagement and Training Coordinator for Baskerville NCR! Many of you may already know Jack as a former BEAR Champion. We're delighted to have him on the team! 🎉 ^YZ #hpc #baskerville #ARC

What if you could "see" planets millions of miles away by catching their tiny timing mistakes? That's transit timing variations @unibirmingham.bsky.social . Read how computational power unlocks multi-planet dynamics: blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2026/07... #Exoplanets #Astronomy ^AKG

AlphaFold is transforming how we study DNA replication, predicting protein structures and interactions to unlock new biological insights. A powerful example of AI+HPC accelerating discovery. blog.bham.ac.uk/bear/2026/06... @unibirmingham.bsky.social @agagambus.bsky.social #AlphaFold #Bioinformatics

🥇 Congratulations to Team The BEAR Metal Coders​, the winner of #BEARChallenge2026! 🎉 Each team member will receive a tablet as their prize. A well-deserved victory! 🏆 #BEARChallenge2026 has successfully come to an end. Thank you to all participants and partners!👏^YZ

🥈 Congratulations to Team Four Cores One Queue​ for finishing in 2nd place at #BEARChallenge2026! The team demonstrated outstanding teamwork and problem-solving throughout the competition and will receive Lenovo goodie bags. Fantastic work! 🎉 ^YZ

🥉 Congratulations to Team BEARly Third Class​ for securing 3rd place in #BEARChallenge2026! A fantastic performance across all challenges. As a reward, the team will receive ARC goodie bags. Well done on an excellent achievement! 🎉

🏆We're honoured to welcome Adam Tickell, the Vice-Chancellor of the @unibirmingham.bsky.social to #BEARChallenge2026. The Vice-Chancellor gives a short talk after presenting prizes to our teams and ARC staff, celebrating their achievements over these three days. ^YZ

We're delighted to welcome Professor Andrew Morris, Director of Baskerville NCR, Chair of the RCMC, and Professor of Computational Physics. Andrew delivered a fascinating talk on lLLMs and coding, exploring how AI is transforming software development and research workflows. #BEARChallenge2026 ^YZ

❓ Quiz Time! A fun break from the challenges as teams put their knowledge to the test in our BEAR Challenge quiz. Plenty of laughs, friendly competition, and surprising answers along the way! ^YZ #BEARChallenge2026 🐻🎉

Participants are hearing from Simon Thompson, the Director Server Portfolio & Strategy from @LenovoHPC about career opportunities, industry insights, and what it's like to work at the forefront of technology and innovation. ^YZ #BEARChallenge2026

🍕 Lunch time at #BEARChallenge2026! Teams are enjoying a well-earned break with plenty of pizza before the final stretch of the competition. A huge thank you to Intel and Lenovo for sponsoring today's lunch and supporting the event! 🚀^YZ

🖥️ Participants at #BEARChallenge2026 are taking a virtual tour of the Park Grange HPC Data Centre and hearing from AIS staff about careers in research computing. A fantastic opportunity to explore the technology and people behind ARC at the @unibirmingham.bsky.social. ^YZ

🚨 FINAL 20-MINUTE COUNTDOWN! 🚨 Challenge 5, the final challenge of #BEARChallenge2026, will close in just 20 minutes. This is the last opportunity to earn points, refine your solutions, and make your mark on this year's competition! 🐻

What is High Performance Computing? Participants at #BEARChallenge2026 learned about the fundamentals of HPC from Lenovo, how modern supercomputers are accelerating research and innovation, and the technologies that power today's most demanding computational workloads. ^YZ

⏰ 30 minutes remaining in Challenge 4! The countdown is on. Teams are making their last adjustments, testing solutions, and preparing their submissions before the deadline. One final push for day 2—good luck to everyone! 🚀💻 #BEARChallenge2026 ^YZ

🎉 Challenge 3 is complete! Another challenge conquered by our teams at #BEARChallenge2026. We've seen some excellent ideas, innovative approaches, and outstanding teamwork throughout the session. Congratulations to all participants on their hard work and achievements so far! ^YZ

🎤 Learning from experience at #BEARChallenge2026! We're delighted to hear from a previous BEAR Challenge participant, James Cornall, as he share his experiences, lessons learned, and career. His insights are invaluable for this year's participants. ^YZ

🥪🍎 Time for lunch! Our teams are taking a well-earned break with sandwiches, fruit, cakes, and drinks before getting back to the challenges. Many thanks to Intel and Lenovo for providing today's lunch and supporting #BEARChallenge2026! 🚀💻 ^YZ

⏰ 20-minute countdown! Challenge 3 will be closing in just 20 minutes. This is your final chance to refine your solutions, test your ideas, and make those last-minute improvements. Good luck to all teams! 🚀💻 #BEARChallenge2026 ^YZ

🏆 Challenge 2 Results are in! A huge congratulations to all teams for their fantastic efforts. Challenge 2 showcased some excellent problem-solving, and collaboration. Now it's time to begin Day 2 of #BEARChallenge2026. Let's see what today's challenges bring! 🚀💻 ^YZ

⏳ 30 minutes left in Challenge 2! Final push, teams — check your outputs, submit your results, and don’t forget to breathe! #BEARChallenge2026 ^YZ

🎤 We're now joined by NVIDIA for an online session at #BEARChallenge2026! The talk explores the GPUs, software frameworks, and technologies powering next-generation research and AI, alongside insights into career opportunities and pathways in the field. 🚀💻^YZ

🏆 Challenge 1 complete! Every team successfully created their own team logo, showcasing plenty of creativity and teamwork along the way. 🎨💻 Congratulations to all our teams on a fantastic start to #BEARChallenge2026. We can't wait to see what comes next! ^YZ