This BBC article states that "climate change is believed to have played a role in such hot spells as this." Let me fix it: Climate change IS making these hot spells more likely and more dangerous. Scientists have been warning of this for decades. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I don’t think it will be long before we can hold a sweepstake to discover which UK university is the one to post a final Tweet on X. Whoever it is, I am sure it will be the kind of plaudit that no university will want. 2/8

Reform UK Gone Since the Local Elections Dr David Bull has been sacked as Chair.

"According to Velloso, less than 3% of paying users actively use Copilot, even though Microsoft has pre-deployed it directly into the Windows 11 taskbar and across the Office suite." lol, lmfao

ArXiV has a new LLM policy (Screenshots with alt text so you don’t have to click through to the other place and see all the stupid responses)

Sneaking a giant screen into the flagshagger march is one of the funniest things @ledbydonkeys.org have ever done. "STAY HYDRATED" 😂🤣😂

I’m delighted to see this new study on pain in inflammatory arthritis - which many experience all of the time, even when notionally in remission. Funded by @arthritisuk.bsky.social this patient-led research can’t come soon enough. #PsoriaticArthritis

MPs on the Commons Education Committee have warned that the £925 international student levy, due in August 2028, will land on a UK university sector where 24 providers are already at risk of insolvency.

from @timeshighered.bsky.social “Attendance rates of UK university students have plummeted in the past two decades, according to a new longitudinal analysis of student satisfaction surveys, despite in-person interactions being consistently named a marker of a good academic experience.” #academicsky

'The key findings were said to be “surprisingly simple”: “a good student academic experience ultimately comes down to quality teaching, access to in person interaction with teachers and a strong sense of belonging”.' 2/3

More on the Kings-Cranfield “merger” here (if you can access): https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/kings-college-london-merge-cranfield-university #UKHE

A ”merger” between Kings and Cranfield was not one I saw coming: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2026/may/14/kings-college-london-to-merge-with-cranfield-university #UKHE

Timeline cleanse… 😊

mind boggling response from a Labour MP. She either: does not have a clue how important universities are to the local economy; knows but doesn’t care because of some sort of ‘anti-elitist’ brainworm; or knows but is too worried to admit it lest it upset Reform voters. none reflect very well on her!

Nine UK universities going ahead with legal action against government over withdrawal of maintenance funding from students on weekend-only courses www.timeshighereducation.com/news/univers... via @helenpacker.bsky.social

After 20 years studying & working in 6 UK universities, I can't recall a single time that i felt free speech was at risk. Is this just pre-election culture war-mongery? 🤷‍♂️

With all the financial chaos, course closures and jobs uncertainty in UK universities, giving degree-awarding powers to this AI-first startup college is a bad sign for the sector www.timeshighereducation.com/news/virtual...

Looks like AI is not the magical tool that CEOs make it out to be.

It’s official: the UK is rejoining Erasmus! 👏🇪🇺

Scilly scrabble…

BBC News leading all its bulletins on demands by former Government advisor Lord Robertson for more defence spending, without at any point mentioning his current paid senior role for US defence lobbyists

Scientists who study climate don't automatically attribute all changes to human activity. Rather, we carefully investigate every possible natural factor that could explain the planet's warming. Could these be the real culprits? The evidence is in--and the answer is NO. This thread explains! 🧵

Signed for a variety of reasons, but one of which is that this would bring much upland land into public ownership (ideally for nature restoration).

Gosh, our research has made it into ‘Daily Coffee News’! Success at last 😆 dailycoffeenews.com/2026/04/10/s...

I love a good STP review! Had one recently from the Turk’s Head on St Agnes, Scilly Isles. Strong recommend - plenty of sauce and a huge scoop of clotted cream.

Does Oxford University have a problem with Sticky Toffee Pudding?

Trump's followers on Truth Social are calling him the Antichrist after his post of an image depicting himself as Jesus

I’ve got some nice bird drawings. Things have all slowed down and shares on these posts helps, if you like the pictures and their existence. #supportartists and all that www.chloecumming.com/birds

This has to be a joke

I wish there was. Streeting has taken the most in donations from private health firms of any MP. It’s a conflict of interest big enough to be seen from space. It’s extremely worrying that Starmer is happy with this. Can only think Labour does not want a publicly funded, publicly delivered NHS.

France 🇫🇷 doubles electrification support to €10bn/year through 2030 — EVs, heat pumps, industry. The reason? The Strait of Hormuz crisis making fossil fuel dependence impossible to ignore. Geopolitical shocks don’t just raise prices. They change what’s politically possible.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

I’ve managed to string together my thoughts through the rage this week, please read & share 💭✍🏼 #Spéirghorm #IrishPolitics #Fascism 🔗 tinyurl.com/wak45j7d

So @jderbyshire.ft.com asked @philgordondc.bsky.social if the Iran war is the US’s Suez moment. He said no, but then pithily and pitilessly sums up how it has been a comprehensive strategic failure. Oof! www.ft.com/content/0cbc...

"Scientists invented a fake disease. AI told people it was real. Bixonimania doesn’t exist except in a clutch of obviously bogus academic papers. So why did AI chatbots warn people about this fictional illness?" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I rather like that he's resorted to self publishing. I did not expect this to happen so quickly. I thought the fall would happen later, after a more dramatic rise. www.thenational.scot/news/2595986...

Madness

"It's just devastating. It sounds dramatic, but it's life-changing." "It's like a grieving process." 💔 No-one who hasn't been through something like this can really understand that grief.

Could some airsafety wonks weigh in on when the US's capacity degrades so much that it's below international standards?

Pretty much everyone I know is now avoiding the US, even as a stopover point to change planes…

Email etiquette, a timeline 2015: Scrupulously edit all emails, FULL punctuation 2017: Don't use too many exclamation marks! People will think you are a small girl! 2021: Occasionally leave out full-stops as a power move 2026: One typo per email to show an AI didn't write it

15 years ago, the UK government said that the horticulture industry should voluntarily phase out peat in gardening products, & that if it didn't, legislation would be introduced so as to end peat use in retail compost for amateur gardeners by 2020... In 2022 came "an intention to ban by 2024"... ☹️

Yes his rhetoric was alarmist, and turned out not to be true. But it was also racist? The population bomb was about gross Other people not controlling their animal fertility. All paths of birth rates talk lead to one place.

ANALYSIS: Badenoch and Farage might not want to admit it, but Conservative and Reform plans to scrap net zero whilst boosting the North Sea would actually make the UK even more reliant on gas imports 🤔 www.carbonbrief.org/...

You can either have the VCs agitating to end the REF so that they can decrease the proportion of research time in staff contracts or the ones reifying REF-ability as the only marker of a genuine academic. Tying pension access to REF status is a new low: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffie...

2023 - one in four UK universities was reported to be operating a food bank for their students. Paper exploring the geographies of food poverty in UK HE out now in Area ⬇️ @rgs.org #OpenAccess

As well as being an appallingly unfair travesty of a decision, this isn’t going to look good in their REF submission either… #UKHE https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/sheffield-hallam-restricts-tps-access-ref-academics-only

'Elsevier made £1.04 billion in profit in 2025, according to its parent company’s latest annual report, up 7 per cent on 2024.' 1/2

Did you know? Psoriatic arthritis #PsA affects men and women equally, but women experience a higher disease burden and are more frequently affected by polyarthritis. #GiveToGain #IWD2026 #Women 🫂👣🙋🏼‍♀️🏄🏼‍♀️​ AutoPiX is committed to inclusivity and addresses gender disparities in arthritis research and care.

Reading the @wonkhe.bsky.social article on student complaints this morning reminded me of this research we did at Plymouth uni. Still surprised by how little consistent analysis there is of student complaints. pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/cgi/viewcont....