Clearing out the shed and just want to make it clear that if I chuck my rugby boots and gumshield it doesn’t mean I couldn’t still do a job if called upon, ok? If you’re reading, Steve.

What's a good antonym for 'unprecedented'? 'Precedented' exists but just doesn't really seem right, and none of the other alternatives I can come up with (usual, habitual, normal, etc.) has the right feel.

PDRA positions at Leverhulme Centre for Anthropocene Biodiversity (York, UK) These include four that I am involved with: beta diversity change ecosystem metrics ecological monitoring & Indigenous and local knowledge food system dynamics & biodiversity sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/l...

There's an episode on this in the Everything Is Fake and Nobody Cares series I've been banging on about, called The Lance Armstrong Defence www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m.... Something to strongly resist, because not everything's fake and many of us do care.

Live from Florida…

Absolutely nobody will notice that I've used gt to programmatically create all the tables in the paper, but at least it's taken a good deal longer than if I'd just typed them from scratch. I'm calling it a win gt.rstudio.com/index.html

Want to guess what I've juts been completing a survey on?

Lots of caveats and small print in this of course, but it remains a fantastic achievement and something to celebrate - we've come a long way in the last couple of decades.

In a nice coincidence, my seed potatoes have just arrived, the day after I watched The Martian with my son

It's April 1st, so remember to be on the lookout for fakery and misinformation today, and don't get taken in. Fortunately, this is not a problem during the rest of the year, so you can let your guards down again later.

This is great data viz - striking and effective www.theguardian.com/science/ng-i...

Thoughts on post-humous authorship? Seems a bit weird to me, in general. Can't see what anyone gains from it that wouldn't be better covered by a line in the acknowledgements.

Doing free work because "it's good for your CV" is a scam

Saw this advertised via MarineB yesterday, marine biodiversity data postdoc on La Réunion, if it was a longer contract (e.g. 20 years) I'd be tempted myself… www.univ-reunion.fr/wp-content/u...

Stupid light evenings, making me forget to stop working

PLEASE SHARE. PhD Opportunity with me, Ben Raymond and Jan Engelstaedter and Andrew Letten at University of Queensland. Experimentally testing mechanisms of how temperature may change selection and spread of AMR in E. coli. Coupled with some advanced modelling and sequencing. 🧪🦠 #microsky

📢#JobOpportunity #WeAreSeeking a motivated Marine Ecosystems Scientist to contribute to an exciting & evolving area of work focused on operationalising benthic habitat indicators for a range of policy applications. bit.ly/JNCCjob202573 Closing date: Sunday 19 April 2026

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.

#JobAlert 🪶 Come work with us! 3-year #research position with a focus on #seabird and prey interaction 🐟🪶🌏 📍Based in wonderful Tromsø, Norway ☃️ www.jobbnorge.no/en/available...

I’m generally of the view that my son deserves whatever crap comes his way, and don’t offer a lot of sympathy, but the fact he has to study the songs of Queen for GCSE music just seems cruel and unusual.

📢#JobOpportunity #WeAreSeeking an International Biodiversity Officer - to work with UK Overseas Territory governments & administrations to deliver robust evidence & expert advice to underpin our international conservation work. bit.ly/JNCCjob2026009 Closing date: Sunday 19 April 2026 #Biodiversity

Come and join us!! www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQZ547/r...

I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to preprints, but apparently we have one - former PhD student Sylvan's work modelling seabird prey (sprat and sandeel) in space and time in the N Sea, avialable here: doi.org/10.22541/au....

Don’t want to give spoilers but I found the AI generated bit of the final episode of this (excellent) series reassuringly easy to spot.

This was a gift from @drcraigmc.bsky.social when he visited recently, since when I’ve been systematically testing its ‘Great on Everything!’ claim, and I have to say that so far it holds up pretty well

Using ggview::canvas / save_ggplot for the first time, can confirm - it's extremely useful when compiling figures for publication, making sure all dimensions, text etc. work. Combines well with improved ggplot guides / legends specification, and plays nicely with patchwork. github.com/idmn/ggview

We are looking for contributions for long (15 minutes) and short (10 minutes) oral presentations at #BEeS2026, in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, from 7 to 10 July. Take a look at the topics! 👉 bit.ly/4bj2eFy The abstracts will be published in our final Book of Abstracts and submitted to @arphahub.com.

AFBI seek a skilled, forward thinking fisheries scientist with strong experience in marine data collection and stock assessment, and a passion for advancing ecosystem based management - closes Friday 27th March at 12:00 (UK Time) irecruit-ext.hrconnect.nigov.net/jobs/vacanci...

I call our Oregon grape Sideshow Bob

So there's an R package for fitting shape-constrained additive models, called scam. Searching for information about this is… challenging. Turns out the internet has alternative scams to offer me.

Due to some curriculum restructuring, I've just given my Ocean Warming lecture for the last time. Which is a relief because, as I say towards the end - the absolute *worst* thing about climate change is that my lecture goes out of date almost faster than I can refresh it…

So, there they are, the @marinespecies.bsky.social top-10 marine species of 2025! Do you have a favorite? www.marinespecies.org/worms-top-te... #toptenmarinespecies #taxonomistappreciationday #OceanDecade #GenOcean

A variation on the ‘writing is thinking’ theme from Kim Gordon “A lot of times I actually don’t know what I think about something until I start writing about it” www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

Been enjoying this - Everything is Fake, and Nobody Cares. Feels like a sort of companion piece for Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart, a primer on how we’ve got here www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

Fame & fortune seem just around the corner.

Nice moth for you @mothyblackburn.bsky.social. Possibly something in the background too.

Me coming out of a run of student R help sessions

Coffee and Pulp - couldn’t resist #Sheffield

Saw a cock pheasant on the way home today, stood on the parapet of the bridge at Hillsborough Corner, in rush hour, watching the people/trams/traffic. The urban invasion has begun…

This conference is getting exciting👇. Consider coming! Early Career? Give us some details by March 23rd to be considered for partial fee waiver (links in 🧵). First GRC? We welcome you!

Roses are red, violets are blue I paid Lee Anderson to illegally* record a cameo message for you (*allegedly)

This is an extremely cool project -- if you love morphology, evolution, and rodents* of unusual size, and want to come and work with us... post doc job advert COMING SOON! *not just rodents

I’m looking for a post doc (up to five years) interested in phylogenetics and earth systems - please spread the word!

Paul Erdos apparently said that mathematicians are machines for turning coffee into theorems. I'm not a mathematician but as an academic I'm pretty good at turning coffee into grievances, at least.

Taking my son to this at the weekend. Any suggestions for what I should wear to ensure I fit in and don't embarrass him at all? Because that would be the last thing I'd want to do.

Good news everyone - I've just ordered a new waterproof coat, so that should stop the rain for the rest of the year.

Just discovered terra::tap() which is incredibly useful - I have a SpatRaster with monthly sea bottom temperature data across 30 years (from Copernicus), I want to get annual means - easy: sbt_annual <- sbt %>% tapp(index = "years", fun = "mean")

Hadn't heard this shocking and sad news. This is a nice tribute.

Being thorough is hard work though isn't it? e.g. when you find a statement in a high profile paper that you want to include, but you feel you should check and then find that the source they have cited doesn't actually show that at all.