This is the *most* British science story. Rain ☔️ Enthusiastic amateurs. Quietly recording 1000s of records. To be mirrored later by the volunteers who digitised each of those original hand written numbers. Sometimes it’s not the data - it’s the people that make the story.

Today we pay tribute to our friend, Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, a scientist, peacemaker, and visionary whose life’s work forever reshaped humanity’s connection to the natural world.

New Dutch advert:

"Today, we clear a soccer field’s worth of tropical forest every six seconds, a loss dramatically worsened by humanity’s growing hunger for meat" Wean ourselves off meat now, or the switch to a Pliocene climate that's locked in will do it for us www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Since privatisation England's water companies paid £88.4bn in dividends. 90% of water companies owned by foreign investors/govts. 90% of dividend not recirculated in the UK economy. No UK tax paid on dividends. Public ownership would make a difference.

No shit. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

Screengrabs from River Bride kingfishercam. #cork

One for @andyburnham.bsky.social Here’s an AI analysis of the ongoing annual impact of Covid in the UK Sizeable GDP win if you can mandate cleaner air mitigations that put even a dent in these numbers

"You have to stand up to bullies and you have to tell them straight, ‘you are stupid.'" Former Irish president Mary Robinson tells Matt Frei that Donald Trump's comments about climate change are "incredibly reckless". Read and watch here:

Former Irish president and UN high commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson has labelled Donald Trump “stupid” and a “bully” who is complicit in the famine and genocide in Gaza.

Someone had to say it

NEW: Tesla's "Full self-driving" is failing to detect oncoming trains at railroad crossings. Tesla drivers tell NBC News their cars didn't detect train horns, flashing lights and descending crossing arms. We even caught the issue on camera. www.nbcnews.com/tech/elon-mu...

In today’s Sunday @independent.ie this seems crazy and very very damning www.independent.ie/business/iri...

Palantir reportedly due to sign a new defence related deal with the UK during the Trump visit How can this go ahead given the Mandelson context?!

Probably the most important but neglected scandal about Mandelson. Epstein was close to Peter Thiel. Thiel had secret meetings with Cummings and Johnson before Palantir’s 100m contract Mandelson’s Global Counsel was pitching Thiel’s Palantir to Starmer. What a carousel of cronyism

People being pissed on from a great height, the rivers are full of shit and Janan’s response is ‘It’s not raining at all, the uplands are all sunny, and go right in, the water’s lovely As for the batshit Cameron stuff, substances have totally addled his mind (or maybe it’s all a deliberate wind-up)

It’s not enough. They should pay the $150k fine per book.

Post 2 of 3 in my rethinking rivers mini series highlights how rivers have their own distinct rhythms. Life evolves to match these rhythms — and when we disrupt them, ecosystems unravel. So rhythmic in fact that you can make music from them. Dig in to find out how. And stay tuned for the final post.

🦫🫡

Kind of bleak medium.com/@andrew.frel...

How to hasten the AMOC collapse and make Britain uninhabitable (or at least really miserable).

This piece is so good that I feel weird and kind of gross for both discovering it four days after the fact and sharing it after midnight. But anyway this is an exceptionally affecting piece of writing and @roycerk2.bsky.social is a very good journalist. But you all already knew that. Didn't you?

“The council is planning to extend the Palantir system to processes for providing support to children with special educational needs.” www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This explains why Russia is working so hard to melt the Antarctic ice sheet

That disastrous reshaping of the world's ocean currents that would leave the EU in an ice age & shift the world's fertile regions thus causing persistent global famine? According to science, it's no longer "low probability." Sleep tight.

Makes you wonder if people in the Trump administration have an office pool to see who can kill the most people.

5 years after Brexit, it’s shamefully clear that UK is being left behind on environment policy. With few exceptions, Govt has *deliberately* chosen not to keep up with standards of EU neighbours. Worse, in a number of areas they’re planning to actively go backwards @ieep.eu @europeanmovement.co.uk

Friendly reminder that AI data centers are working overtime to help cook the planet. If the fires are scaring you— start using ‘-AI’ at the end of all Google searches to cut out any AI response to your query. Refusal is possible & responsible. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

“The first new reservoir planned for Abingdon in Oxfordshire is sited in the same place as the government’s new datacentre zone, leading to fears the water will be used to cool servers in one of the most water-stressed areas of the UK.” www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

More than half of the world’s 364 known turtle and tortoise species now face extinction, despite global conservation efforts. Asia is the epicenter of the crisis, accounting for 32 of the 66 most threatened species due to intense harvesting, illegal trade and habitat destruction.

I suspected this was happening back around 2018, and spent a little bit of time (limited by budget) investigating the issue for the BBC, but couldn’t get enough info at the time Really sad to see where the situation is now 😰 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

"The source described a recurring pattern in the unit’s work: whenever criticism of Israel in the media intensified on a particular issue, the Legitimization Cell was told to find intelligence that could be declassified and employed publicly to counter the narrative" www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-...

Someone finally wrote the data-center/electricity inflation story. @nytimes.com #CPI www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/b...

The tech bros have created a world to which we never consented www.independent.ie/opinion/comm...

What if Quibi but shorter

3x Covid not great for one of the best guitarists of all time Too bad governments and health services don’t give a **** that if he played a concert today he would likely be risking his life www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/m...

Radioactive water from UK nuclear bomb base leaked into loch near Glasgow because Royal Navy failed to maintain 1,500 water pipes. Many components were beyond their design life. Successive govts used the national security argument to cover up the leaks.

"There’s a feedback loop of nostalgia. Not just nostalgia and trauma....Where is our vision of the future? Because nobody believes in the future any more. I don’t believe in the future, and I’m desperately looking for it." www.theguardian.com/film/2025/au...

Good essay by @fergalkeane.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

BBC International Editor Jeremy Bowen has confirmed that the entire Al Jazeera team in Gaza City has been killed.

Another factor in the budget deficit / austerity / public spending crisis I’m sure I’ve seen figures of £40bn-£60bn for how much the chancellor is short

They should have offered to help him sleep with the fishes

The increasing intermittency of….nuclear power stations: Source: Financial Times | “Heatwaves test Europe’s electricity system as air conditioning use soars” on.ft.com/4fsSclS

Every day Britain loses 3 billion litres of water through leaky pipes - a big problem as Britain's summers become more arid. But water companies have some new tech with which to find them, including satellites that can spot leaks from space. www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Turbocharging the fucking dystopia

The anti-science Trumpers may be planning to destroy two working satellites that provide vital measurements about carbon dioxide & climate (and data that forecasts crop yield, drought conditions, & more). They cost $750 million to make but only $15 million/yr to operate. www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

"Plastic production is on course to triple by 2060, less than 10% of it is recycled, and around 8,000 megatons now pollute the planet" - report from The Lancet just before the next UN plastics treaty talks begin in Geneva www.nbcnews.com/science/scie...

Our bodies are absorbing civilization's waste. Great Monday #longread from @dwallacewells.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...

“AI represents the complete victory of capital over labour” www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

ICYMI from yesterday: more evidence that the UK news media is a racism factory, deliberately training the public to be more bigoted. This is the intended outcome of editorial policy at the behest of media owners and operators for political ends.