Fun math trick: Here's how we can mentally calculate cube roots

ECMWF weekly mean temperature anomaly shows the highest category (>10°C above normal) over France this week. Typically, these colors appear only during winter warm spells, when temperature variability is the largest. Seeing them in mid-summer says a lot about the intensity of this heatwave.

Graph of Strait of Hormuz crossings since June 2025. See that little spike all the way on the right? The one that's much lower than the leftward 2/3 of the graph, and immediately crashes back down? That's what the US government and quite a bit of US media tell us is fully open, with normal traffic.

When two talented street musicians from two different countries and genres meet in an improvised concert in Boston:

Imagine the distance between Earth and the sun is one inch. How far away do you think the nearest star is? Nope. Try again. Still wrong. Again? Nope. Huh uh. Space is WAY bigger than you think. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/space-is-w... 🔭 🧪

Think of CO₂ removal like a time machine. How far back does planting 100 million trees take us? One mature tree takes up ~25 kg of CO₂/year, so 100 million trees will take up 2.5 MtCO₂. That's a time machine that takes us back ~33 minutes in a year. Nature will not save us from fossil fuel CO₂.

YouGov's study of the 2026 local elections shows that just 46% of 2024 Labour voters who went to the polls remained loyal, with more backing the Greens (22%) than Reform (6%) two weeks ago The Conservatives retained 55% of their 2024 voters, with 33% switching to Reform yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

There is a way out of our political spiral, and it is thrilling and inspiring. We could have a very different country. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Labour say further education is central to their growth mission. But they're cutting adult education budgets. Staff are haemorrhaging from the sector and FE workers in England are paid less than anywhere else in the UK.

Hmmm 🤔 I wonder why…

No notes.

Inequality kills. People in the wealthiest UK areas have 20 more years of good health than those in the poorest. Healthy life expectancy for Richmond upon Thames man 69.3 yrs, woman 70.3 yrs. Man in Blackpool 50.9 years; woman in Hartlepool 51.2 years. Deaths rising among 25- to 49-year-olds.

France passed a law requiring solar panels on every parking lot with more than 80 spaces. Equals 10 nuclear reactors Reduces heat island, shades cars The US -- 800 million parking spaces. Most of them are uncovered asphalt sitting in direct sunlight. Why aren't we doing this?

A newborn sperm whale is held up by its family as it takes its first breath in our #PictureOfTheWeek. The entire birth was captured on camera off the coast of Dominica, giving researchers new insight into sperm whale behavior. Photo credit: © Project CETI

🌊⚡️ Big milestone for UK renewables: The world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea 3, has officially made landfall in Norfolk. Once complete, it’ll generate enough clean electricity to power 3.3 million homes. A huge step toward cutting costs and reducing reliance on gas 🏘️💡

Hoping that the good people of Hungary make the right decision for a positive change....

Over 8 billion reasons to ditch fossil fuels in one photo.

In France, legislation came into effect recently for all car parks that have over 80 spaces to be covered with solar panels. Estimated to add around 11GW of renewable energy capacity to the national grid. Why not do likewise in Scotland? Braehead, Silverburn, Glasgow Fort etc.

Whoa 🤯 The Moon, in full eclipse, with the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft. Part of the Moon and spacecraft are lit by Earthshine, and both Saturn and Mars are visible to the lower right. Incredible. Details: images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

OH. MY. GOD. THIS IS THE MILKY WAY SHOT BY THE ARTEMIS II CREW. LOOK AT ALL THOSE STARS!!!!

This is probably one of my favourite Artemis II images. Tiny Earth setting behind the Moon as taken from the far side. 🔭 🧪 #astrophotogtaphy #ArtemisII

University of Oxford : maximising oil and gas extraction here would only save UK households up to £82 (€95) per year. A UK fully powered by renewable energy, would save households up to £441 (€510) a year on energy bills. www.euronews.com/2026/03/27/e...

It’s just so stupid on so many levels. The *fundamental* problem is that the world has less oil. We need to use less to account for that. Making petrol a fraction cheaper doesn’t help with the real issue, costs the government money and does very little for households.

You learn something new every day! 🧪

Solar does not care about the Strait of Hormuz. Oil flows through chokepoints. Solar follows a learning curve. Great piece @azeem.bsky.social www.exponentialview.co/p/solar-supe...

Oil prices wouldn't be all over the news today if more of our economy was powered by local, secure renewable energy. This isn't an "energy crisis". It's a fossil fuel crisis. 44% of UK electricity came from renewables in 2025. More of that plus an electrified economy => no more oil shocks.

Studying at a distance doesn’t mean studying alone! 💻👥 With SCONUL Access, #OUstudents can use university libraries across the UK & Ireland. 📚 Study alongside others and feel more connected to a wider learning community, closer to where you live... 👇 https://ow.ly/LboH50YmQrz#OUstudents

FT comments section this morning - saying what everyone else is thinking, right?

Seeing Shatner and Nimoy together 2 years before Star Trek. To quote David from the film Prometheus "Big things from small beginnings...."

Remember in 2005 seeing the agencies spending tens of millions of £s building the campus for the local community to improve access to HE. There is something badly wrong with how HE is beimg funded by successive governments in the Uk for this investment to go to waste so soon

Let's learn how to divide using rectangles

Until income inequality is properly addressed, this is just going to get worse....

Did you know you can subtract left to right?

Let's learn how to factor quadratics where the leading coefficient isn't 1 without guessing and checking. (Okay I know that sounds boring but I like this video lol)

A good subtraction strategy

Mega heat pumps are coming. It’s great to see that so many projects are now underway around the world. There’s a real competition on who builds the biggest heat pump. Technology has come a long way and keeps getting better.

Star Wars Rankings - as its doing the rounds today Top 15 1. Empire 2. Star Wars 3. Revenge of the Sith 4. Rogue 1 5. Andor 6. Last Jedi 7. Return of the Jedi 8. Mandalorian 9. Clone Wars 10. Ashoka 11. Solo 12. Phantom Menace 13. Clones 14. Rise of Skywalker 15. Boba Fett

Open Research Online (ORO) is OU’s free Open Access repository. Anyone can browse peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and more - even records where the full text isn’t available. OU researchers are pre-registered to self-deposit outputs. Explore here 👉 https://ow.ly/e7Q850XcXxb #OpenAccessWeek

Lifelong learning.... Congratulations Maryette!

Earth at night viewed from space.

I wish the geometric mean was taught this way

🌍 Peace isn’t found in treaties or speeches, but in the everyday acts of kindness and unity that colleges can nurture, writes @palvindersingh.bsky.social #InternationalDayOfPeace feweek.co.uk/world-peace-...

KEY to the story about ABC suspending Kimmel's show: Nexstar and Sinclair, two big owners of ABC-affiliated stations, both need FCC approval for pending deals. With a lot of $$ on the line, both have reason to curry favor with the Trump admin. Both decided to yank Kimmel's show.

A weird cloud appears on Mars each year and now we know why. Simulations show the cloud forms because there is an extremely high amount of water vapour in the Martian atmosphere.

This would explain quite a bit of why the current government is behaving as it is.... Warning! The rightwing junktanks behind the Tories’ worst disasters still have the keys to No 10 | George Monbiot www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Wes Streeting’s PFI plan is a disaster for the NHS youtu.be/xgDFaQ8nEEw?... Wes Streeting wants to fund 200 new NHS health centres through PFI. But the Public Finance Initiative was a disaster. This video explains why PFI 2.0 is a betrayal of the NHS.

"Health and care leadership has become enthralled by performance management: dashboards, inspections and league tables... When they dominate, care is hollowed out. People learn to perform adequacy rather than offer real care."

The long division algorithm CAN be understandable and not just a procedure to memorize. Here's how we can make sense of it:

People claim that banks lend the funds deposited with them. They don't. In fact, they can't. It is technically impossible for them to do so. In this post, I explain why that is the case and how banks really create the loans that they offer to their customers. www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/08...