Medicinal pig-flavoured fizz with dinner? Joseph Priestley published a way to make carbonated water (copying "medicinal waters" of spa towns) in 1772, bubbling carbon dioxide from a pig bladder through water. Glass vessels later dealt with the hints of pig, then Johan Schweppe scaled up production.

If you need a bit of ocean in your day (and who doesn't?), here's me in full ocean-enthusiast mode, on the BBC podcast/videocast The Climate Question. Now available both as a video-podcast and good old-fashioned audio-only podcast: www.youtube.com/watc... www.bbc.co.uk/progra...

When you hear "deep and crisp and even" these days, is your first thought of snow... or of pizza? On this week's Rare Earth we discuss the joys of winter, what nature (esp hedgehogs!) is up to in the cold, and how our relationship with winter is changing. Listen here: www.bbc.com/audio/play/m...

“Climate action” is just another way to say “we want our beautiful complex planet to continue to be a good place to live, and to continue to be both beautiful and complex”. So much climate damage comes from assuming that Earth is simple, that it is easy to control and that it will bend to our will.

It's a huge honour to receive the Spilhaus award from the American Geophysical Union, the big US earth science organisation. I joined their glitzy New Orleans award ceremony yesterday online & was very struck by this statement at the start: "Celebrating in challenging times is an act of defiance"

NCAR is the keystone in US atmosphere/weather/climate research. Physics doesn't care about politics, and floods, droughts, wildfires will continue to intensify. This is like sacking all of your doctors just as a pandemic gets started.

How could/should/will we get around the cities of the future? For this week's Rare Earth, on air at 12 today & online afterwards, we talked to Chris Boardman, Stephen Potter & Karen Lucas about what the future holds. Listen here or your fav podcast platform: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

In today's recording of Rare Earth I learned 2 new words: "confusticated" (confused) & "hibernaculum" (shelter where animals bunk down for the winter). If you're confusticated about how to arrange your own hibernaculum for our changing seasons, do listen in on Dec 19th as we delve deep into winter.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

So glad to see some recent research on this! I've started trying to write columns on the physics behind this several times over the years and always had to change topic because of the lack of published science. Maybe next time...

*cough* If you're gift shopping for anyone interested in how the world works, do consider these. Storm in a Teacup is all about the physics of everyday life and Blue Machine is all about how the ocean works - the water itself, which is the biggest story on Earth. Share the joy of nature & science!

Now THAT is going down in a blaze of glory... just watch the last few minutes/seconds of this stream as the eruption gets closer and closer until eventually it kills the camera. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqmp...

Oh wow... Kilauea volcano in Hawaii is erupting with enthusiasm RIGHT NOW, and you can watch it on the USGS livestream here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bqmp... (HT to @davidho.bsky.social for the link)

A week ago, I made the point that films/tv etc focus on cars, normalising car-filled city streets. I asked for examples highlighting bikes/trams/buses/walking, and got 1.1k replies. Data! Here is my unscientific analysis of those suggestions (and no, I can’t believe I did this either). [1/n] 🧵

Wow, so many replies to this! Your film/tv knowledge is impressive. My favourites are E.T., Lord of the Rings(!), Paddington, and Run, Lola, Run. And @davidho.bsky.social showed me a great Jackie Chan bike chase scene. But so many are pretty old films… we need to get today’s filmmakers on the case!

Hivemind, I have a challenge. Popular culture is dominated by the car (car chases, cop dramas etc), helping us accept a car-dominated urban environment as normal. Can you think of any examples of popular culture highlighting bikes, trams, walking etc? I can only think of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Something that really stuck with me from the fast fashion episode of Rare Earth, and is still cheering me up: sites like Vinted and Ebay are making a significant dint in fast fashion sales, and people are choosing to buy better quality clothes so they can sell them on. Less waste, wins all round 🎉🎉🎉

What a treat to see the Tudor warship the Mary Rose today. It sank in 1545, lay hidden under sediment for centuries, and was raised in 1982. It’s astonishingly intact, with thousands of artefacts telling the stories of everyday life (including SO MANY nit combs). If you’re near Portsmouth, do go!

Black Friday is a horrible event for our planet, and I hate these e-mails. If you needed something anyway and there's a discount today, it's a win for you. But everything you buy has an impact on the planet. Don't be sucked into getting more stuff just because you can. Aim for better, not more!

Imagine showing a petrol engine to someone who had only known electric vehicles, and trying to convince them to switch to petrol. No-one would choose the dirty, noisy, less efficient, more expensive vehicle. This isn't 1910, hostage to gender insecurity. We can just choose the better tech.

On BBC Radio 4's Rare Earth next week we'll be covering urban wildlife, and we'd love to hear about the fun/creative/unusual things happening near you to make space for wildlife in towns/cities. Do reply to this and let us know! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Remember the Shoe Event Horizon from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? (explained in pic) Is that where we are today with online clothes shopping? Listen now to this week's Rare Earth, on fast fashion, its effect on the environment, and options for what happens next: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

On Rare Earth this week: can the clothing/fashion industry ever be sustainable? Our 3 fab guests - Patrick Grant (Great British Sewing Bee), Prof Kate Fletcher & Simon Platts - all had LOADS to say. Sneak peak here before you can listen to it all on Friday: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Spot the stylishly dressed! Here we all are in the studio today for this week's Rare Earth, on fashion/clothing. Can the massive fast fashion consumption machine be turned off, and what could /should we make our clothes from? Hear it all online or on air on Friday: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

China’s economy is booming – but its emissions are flat? Environment Prof Helen Czerski gives her take on #COP30, highlighting how this year’s conference signals real, if slow, progress on climate action... 📺 Watch Helen's lectures: gres.hm/large-planet @ucl.ac.uk @helenczerski.bsky.social

It's like going back in time 20 years. Pub menus, for very highly rated pubs, with only one vegetarian main course (the least imaginative thing on the list). The world is changing. Diets are changing, and eating meat can't still be the default. Catch up! * yes, not all pubs, but still most of them.

Rare Earth is back on air🎉 & today's episode is available here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... We started by discussing the new sea anemone that spends its life as a crab's hat (see below), but the focus was COP30... what has COP ever done for us, what's happening now in Brazil, and what comes next?

Back in the studio for a new series of Rare Earth! First up: COP30, the big yearly global climate conference. What might come from COP30, where are we after 30 years of COPs, and how might COP evolve in the future? Join us on Friday (or any time afterwards) to find out: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

This a big deal: "China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months" China's economy has grown by ~5% in the last year, so this comprehensively debunks the idea (again) that emissions are tied to growth. So yes, faster progress needed, but this is how you turn the corner.

Oh, I love this. A new species of sea anemone was discovered recently that parks itself on top of a hermit crab shell like a hat. It seems to feed partly off the crab's faeces, but it also excretes a hard shell that extends the crab's home. In return, it's carried around the seafloor like a king.

Exciting times at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, home of the Meridian Line! It's 350 years old & needs a bit of a refurb, caring for the wonderful buildings & making them more accessible, easier to navigate & even more exciting. 2 yr project starts now! More here: www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observ...

Rare Earth will be back on air soon & in preparation for a programme on Darwin, Wallace & evolution, I found this ace example of evolutionary adaptation. The plant C. argenteum makes seeds that look & smell like dung, so dung beetles roll them away, bury them, then lose interest. Free seed planting!

Loved the Oscar Wilde quote read out at the start of Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction ceremony this evening: “If you cannot write well, you cannot think well; if you cannot think well, others will do your thinking for you.” Yay books! (book in pic was in my goody bag, not the winner)

If you're anywhere near Stratford and you have things lying around that are broken and in need of repair, do bring them along to this Repair Cafe (booking an appointment is best but not essential), and get them fixed. It's great for the environment and your wallet... win-win!

Wow. I did not know that Alfred Russell Wallace (co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection) wrote a book in 1904 about the biological potential for life on other planets, and I've just found this extraordinary paragraph setting out the insanity of atmospheric pollution [1/3]. In 1904!

If you need an injection of positivity, I strongly recommend watching Power Station, if it's on near you (screening list & trailer here: power.film/pages/screen...). It's a beautiful story of a community taking action to make their on electricity supply cleaner, greener and cheaper. Brilliant stuff.

If you fancy a bit of ocean in your life this Friday, come to the Royal Festival Hall for this FREE talk on the ocean by Liz Bonnin & me, followed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra playing a whole evening of ocean music (that bit isn't free). Tickets & more info here: lpo.org.uk/event/harmon...

Yay for small things that make the world better! Every time I see something like this (swimming goggles today) that used to be sold covered in unnecessary plastic and now has paper/cardboard packaging, it makes me so happy. Manufacturers, I *will* choose this. Keep going! Make a better world real!

Today I am very much enjoying the range of sea creatures depicted in the 1539 Carta Marina (the "Marine map and description of the Northern lands"). We know now that the ocean has even more wonderful things in it (that really exist!), but I love the brave attempt at making a then-unknown world real.

Wow, this is disappointing. This meeting was supposed to be a final confirmation of a deal agreed six months ago, and it would have been the first serious step in making the slow-to-change shipping industry cleaner & greener & ready for the future. The delay only hurts everyone in the long run. 🌊

When are we going to acknowledge that "video podcasts" are just low-budget tv chatshows? It's sad that "audio-only" podcasts seem to be going out of fashion - good ones are qualitatively different to visual media, not an inferior version of it. But it's weird that video podcasts are seen as novel.

Small afternoon rant: we need to stop talking about the ocean in terms of “secrets” & “mystery”. That tends to be an excuse for not actually looking at its wonderful (known) richness properly. It’s not a void… it’s a fascinating physical part of Planet Earth. We know a lot and we will know more! 🌊

As the night sky becomes less visible (pollution, ppl head down in phones etc), will it get harder to interest ppl in astronomy, satellites & space science? I was talking to space industry types last night & they feel public apathy. But is that a surprise when ppl can’t/don’t see the sky?

Takeaways after fab 2 days hosting at Everything Electric: - vehicle-to-grid charging might FINALLY be here - sodium-ion batteries are advancing quickly and could be made in the UK with local materials, reducing reliance on China for lithium. - People want this. This was our biggest UK show yet🎉

It's been a brilliant first day here at Everything Electric in Farnborough... the tech to make your travel/home cleaner & greener is getting better and easier all the time. So much is on show here and available now. More tomorrow - do join us! uk.everythingelectric.show/south

I'm on my way to Everything Electric in Farnborough, to host panels on so many things... home electrification (heat pumps/electric boilers etc), advances in battery tech, bi-directional charging for cars - all the latest ideas/tech for a cleaner, greener world. Lots of EVs there too. Do join us!

Although the heartwood of a tree technically is dead (the living bits are only the outside layers), that heartwood is what's holding the tree up. I've always thought it was a very strange phrase - heartwood is jolly useful. We make ships & houses & furniture out of it. And it holds trees up.

On Oct 31st, the London Philharmonic Orchestra will be celebrating the ocean, and the ace @lizbonnin.bsky.social and I will be speaking on stage beforehand about all things ocean. Tickets are available here, if you'd like to join us and immerse yourself in our water world: lpo.org.uk/event/harmon...

Still active, an inspiration, and doing conservation work right up to the end. Thank you for being a great and wonderful citizen of this planet, Jane Goodall. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Fluorescent cycling jackets have dyes that absorb invisible ultraviolet (UV) light and re-emit visible light. This UV can pass through clouds & there's lots on a dull day. So the jacket gets a brightness boost. This is also what "optical brighteners" in laundry powder do (see pic). Also scorpions!