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!

A real treat today to see the original work of John Tyndall, all still kept at the Royal Institution. He demonstrated the greenhouse effect (using this kit) in 1859, during a very active scientific and mountaineering life.

The first steam-powered passenger rail trip was on 27th Sept 1825 (200th bday is nuanced - regular passenger steam slightly later). Here's transport carbon footprint today - Eurostar easily cleanest cos fully electrified. I hope the next 200 yrs has even more (electric) trains! With lower prices...

In discussion with a computer scientist from the University of Cambridge last night: Me: "you've described some of the things that AI is good at. How would you describe the category of things it's not good at? **pause** Him: "Anything where it has to be right".

About to start on BBC R4 (and available right afterwards as a podcast): the last episode of this series of Rare Earth, on TRAINS. It's 200 years since the first passenger train journey, but what is their environmental legacy & what exciting new innovations could shape their future? Find out here:

There's a really nice explanation (with clear graphics) in this @quantamagazine.bsky.social article of why most molecules in the atmosphere (oxygen & nitrogen) don't act as greenhouse gases, but a lot of the far less numerous ones (like carbon dioxide and methane) do. A great teaching aid :)

It's a huge honour to receive the Athelstan Spilhaus Award from the AGU for public engagement. But it's particularly pleasing because the Spilhaus projection was the original UK hardback cover of Blue Machine, and still the best of them all. Kudos to @davidho.bsky.social for the original suggestion.

It's never occurred to me that it IS an assumption. This is the most astonishing start to a paper I've read in years: "Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."

Reason No. 324 why no-one should think that "AI" (artificial but certainly not intelligent) is an unmitigated Good Thing: it's mathematically inevitable that AI will hallucinate. We need far more discussion of the risks of all this and less frantic hype. I mean, really, what's the hurry?

I generally assume I’m a bit behind the times of modern culture, but it’s the start of the university term here at UCL and the park outside has a fresher’s week event blasting the Eagles “Taking it Easy”, I’m singing along on my way past, and it could be any decade out of the last four.

In this week's edition of Rare Earth on animal migration, @tomheap.bsky.social and I had a great time finding out about the incredible things we're learning as tech improves and what the future holds. Available now on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

New Science Shambles podcast and video out for your enjoyment. Go on a hunt for Dark Matter with @helenczerski.bsky.social, @jengupta.bsky.social, @particleclara.bsky.social & Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Recorded live at @latitudefestival.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=knQq...

If you're in London today (Sat 20th), don't miss the spectacle that is the Great River Race! This historic race is a fabulous way to see all sorts of traditional (from many traditions) boats - skiffs, coracles, gigs & more - race through central London. You can keep up here: greatriverrace.org.u...

“Hard to abate” is the climate wonk’s term for an industry with no immediate route to zero carbon emissions. But I think there’s “hard to abate” & “expensive to abate” & then there’s “it’s just a bit difficult & we can’t really be bothered to abate”. None of this is impossible. We need to *choose*.

Well, here's some good news to start the weekend. Negotiating a treaty is one thing, but the work only starts once it's ratified and it looks as though the High Seas Treaty (aka BBNJ) will soon be up and running. This provides structure & standards & is a big step in protecting our ocean. 🎉🎉🌊

This might be impressive gene-editing but it’s nonsense as “de-extinction”. They’re not the same and they can’t be. At the end of this piece, the company basically admits that it’s just a flashy claim to drive money into their company. This is not conservation, & it diverts money from work that is.

The Swedish translation of Blue Machine, published this week. It’s a beautiful hardback. Do share the news with any Swedish speaking friends who need the ocean in their life! And thank you to the Voice of the Ocean foundation for hosting me in Stockholm today.

I had a lovely morning (after the lost bag debacle) riding on a battery powered train during trials. The station rapid-charging tech is impressive (it reaches down from the train to a track-level charger). What else might the future of the railways hold? Listen to next week’s Rare Earth to find out.

A HUGE hooray for having actual humans on Elizabeth line platforms, and 👏👏👏 for them being such superstars. I left my laptop bag on a platform, didn’t realise until two stops on, and they were so quick and efficient at communicating between stations to find it. We still need humans!

All avoidable injuries are bad, but context is essential. Alongside this story, it's surely essential to say that there were 133,000 car-related injuries in 2024 in the UK, including 1624 fatalities & 28k "serious" injuries. E-bikes aren't the major problem. Data: www.chas.co.uk/blog/uk-car-...

If its not built of it its probably built by it but can #steel ever be green? Rare Earth @bbcsounds.bsky.social with @helenczerski.bsky.social @edconway.bsky.social @steelwatch.bsky.social @willarnoldengineer.bsky.social Also BBC R4 today midday

The nuts and bolts of our world are literally made from steel: furniture, tools, buildings, containers & more. But making all this steel produces 8% of our carbon emissions, so one of the pillars of a clean future is green steel. Can it be done? We find out, in this week's Rare Earth

Bottom trawling is incredibly and depressingly destructive, and the new footage in the Ocean documentary makes that very clear. It’s not only unnecessary, but counter-productive. And yet the UK government has just decided against a blanket ban. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

We've just recorded a Rare Earth on animal migration & this app is amazing. It's called Animal Tracker (www.icarus.mpg.de/29... ), and it's real time data on 100s of animals - birds, foxes, bison & more. Their tracks are fascinating, taking clear routes with intent. More to come next wk on the air!

Another one of our Latitude panels is out now for Patreon and paid Substack subscribers. Go on a dark matter hunt with @helenczerski.bsky.social, @particleclara.bsky.social, @jengupta.bsky.social & Maggie Aderin-Pocock. Sign up or watch at patreon.com/cosmicshambles

We've just recorded a Rare Earth on animal migration & this app is amazing. It's called Animal Tracker (www.icarus.mpg.de/29... ), and it's real time data on 100s of animals - birds, foxes, bison & more. Their tracks are fascinating, taking clear routes with intent. More to come next wk on the air!

Useless private medical tests=bad. But I heard recently (as an eg) abt work on a clock accurate to 1 second in the lifetime of the universe, while (peri)menopause is still poorly researched. Data *would* help, if collected & analysed properly, directly benefitting 1/2 of us. Why aren't we doing it?

No idea what’s going on, but isn’t the Mall in London amazing as a pedestrian street? A place for people, not metal boxes. More of this!

tl:dr - NONE of the options for either pulling carbon out of the atmosphere or shading Earth from the Sun will make any difference if we don't drastically decrease our carbon emissions. This is absolutely *not* a trade-off, where we can "pay" for continued emissions with carbon removal.

In the 1950s, this (a scientist in a tie(!) pulling levers to influence the weather) was the image of geoengineering. But as the climate crisis advances, is it back on the table? In this week's Rare Earth, @tomheap.bsky.social & I take a look at the ideas around today www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

My feed is full of depressing and serious things, but there IS still beauty and fun in the world, so here’s a pelican in St James’s Park gently trying to filch @davidho.bsky.social ‘s shoe. It decided it wasn’t worth it and solemnly set about collecting leaves in its beak to make a nest on a bench.

Mirrors in space, blanket forestry, capturing gigatonnes of carbon. Can #geoengineering save us? on @bbcsounds.bsky.social with @helenczerski.bsky.social Shaun Fitzgerald from @climaterepair.bsky.social @peterbrannen.bsky.social @alexdavey.bsky.social