Last week Farage announced that he would be 'performing' a speech. I don't tend to follow much of what he says but I'm using that for my teaching from now on. 'Bit knackered today, I've just performed three lectures', etc.

Stumbled across this on R4’s comedy of the week and it’s a delight www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

PhD position - Changing Ecological Role of Coral Reef Marine Protected Areas. One of the new @exageo-dla.bsky.social advertised projects: www.exageo.org/phd-student-... - deadline for applications 9th January. International applications welcome. Come and join us @lec-reefs.bsky.social

I know you're trying to be polite and I appreciate that but 'gentle reminders' don't cut it with me any more I'm afraid. Go hard or go home.

Listening to Tommy Robinson What did I learn by giving the right-wing activist my ears for 90 minutes? https://tomstafford.substack.com/p/listening-to-tommy-robinson

People use 'singular' to mean 'single' quite a lot these days, I've noticed. Not sure I'm particularly fussed but it just slightly jars every time I read it.

Turns out whippets stack quite efficiently. I might get a few more.

Opportunity! Anybody knows of young marine ecologists (within 7 years from earned PhD) that would like to come to Gothenburg, Sweden, for a nationally funded Assistant Professorship? It is highly competitive but well funded. (1) of (3)

Enjoyed the Scotland-NZ game but I found the (Scottish) commentator’s constant rhapsodising of the All Blacks as some kind of mythical ‘gods of rugby’ really grating. They’re a good side, sure. But.

🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄We’re recruiting!!🌿🍄‍🟫🌱🍄 I’m looking for two postdocs and a technician to join my group @sheffielduni.bsky.social @sheffieldpps.bsky.social to work with me on my exciting @royalsociety.org Faraday Discovery Fellowship project, details for each post as follows:

"Each pea has AI in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine"

Yes I know that *in general* everything's crap and getting worse, but I quite like the new split view in Chrome.

Worth remembering that a trillion dollars is only £760Bn in real money.

We’ve made this investigation free to read because so many people in Sheffield are affected by this story. Our journalists have been knocking on doors for weeks and we’ve had to employ lawyers because of the legal threats made against us. We can only do this kind of journalism with your support.

“How many hours a month do you work on your ‘newsletter’? What is your real job?” When we asked Andrew Milne why he was sending 'very aggressive' letters to Sheffield leaseholders he threatened to take us to the High Court. But the distress of those we spoke to meant we had to publish. Story 👇

Does anyone have nice examples of real-world conservation reports that make for good student coursework assignments? For instance, IUCN Issues Briefs, POSTnotes, MCCIP report cards. Any others?

🦜 New PhD project with @ACCE_DTP and project partners Macaw Recovery Network and Longleat — using bioacoustics data to help conserve one of the Neotropics’ most charismatic parrots, the Critically Endangered Great Green Macaw. Find out more about ACCE+ DLA and how to apply 👉 accedtp.ac.uk

five days left to submit an abstract for #speciesonthemove in Taiwan in April! SOTM is my favorite conference—a small, ECR-friendly meeting that gathers international scientists working on every aspect of climate change + range and phenological shifts. www.speciesonthemove.com

Applications are open for the free NERC short course "Integrative biodiversity discovery" at the Natural History Museum, London from 2-6 March 2026. Deadline: 1 December 2025. More info: https://www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/study/training/integrative-biodiversity-discovery.html #course

Bit on the nose for a meeting about workloads…

There's this one lecture I struggle with every year and I must admit the temptation to just hand it over to AI and say 'can you make this interesting?' is reasonably strong. Although ironically in its current form it does sort of read a bit AI-y…

🚨 Come join the fantastic long-tailed tit team 🚨 🐦We are recruiting a field technician to collect behavioural data on a long-term studied population of wild long-tailed tits (passerine birds). 🪶20 months contract in Sheffield, UK. 🌲Deadline: 23/11/2025. jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Technici...

The new podcast, 'That’s Science', explores the myths and truths in science! In the first episode, we investigate the Wood Wide Web - from its origins to what modern science really says about it. Listen: player.sheffield.ac.uk/events/wood-...

Come join @lec-reefs.bsky.social ! 2 new post-doc positions with the amazing @timlamont.bsky.social at Lancaster Environment Centre. An exciting time to join + form his new Future Leaders research on transforming ecosystem restoration. 🌊 🧪🦑

Epic compilation of philosophers interpreted through the medium of Peep Show (via Zadie Smith on Adam Buxton’s podcast) youtu.be/pHxw1yI-VSY?...

🚨 Only 30 places left for #NBNconf25 ! With 2 weeks to go, we’re nearly full — book now to join us in Bristol! 🐝🌿 🎤 Programme & speakers: bit.ly/NBNconf25 #Biodiversity #Data #Networking

Somebody had a pretty good tape measure when they measured this thresher shark…

Two PhD positions available to come and work with us - please share! [1] Detecting rapid evolutionary responses to climate change in UK plants tinyurl.com/ye262pk2 [2] Natural GM: The role of horizontal gene transfer in crop adaptation and evolution tinyurl.com/32tkce2w

** PhD in Food Web Modelling, Pharmaceuticals & Soils ** Come model the impacts of pharmaceuticals from festival reclaimed fertiliser on food webs & biodiversity. Theoretical ecology/ecotoxicology & programming in R, Python, C++, Julia or Matlab required. www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

Nothing like looking after a couple of young whippets to really press home the fact that you are no longer a young whippet yourself

Lot's to agree with here. So many academic talks are still ugly and/or otherwise unengaging. I've softened my position on text on slides though - for some audience members text can be essential. But do avoid having loads of text on a slide then saying something completely different!

The lovely old dogs we used to sometimes look after both died last year. So now we get three weeks with these hooligans instead.

I try to avoid the ‘everything you like is bad’ kind of environmentalism. But walking the dogs earlier I found myself wondering about the total footprint (land, water, food waste etc.) of Halloween pumpkins and squashes.

Saw a few talks last week about automated digitisation of pinned specimens. Would like to see how they fare with this beauty.

It’s me! 🧬 www.mba.ac.uk/pioneering-s...

📢 JOB VACANCY Marine Ornithologist - Scottish Government Application deadline: 7 Nov shorturl.at/tXeHn #ornithology

#PhD Studentship - Marine Heat Waves & shellfish fisheries - informing future #marine policy. Join our team at the University of Essex, School of Life Sciences. All the details available here: www.essex.ac.uk/Postgraduate... START JANUARY 2026 - APPLY BY 14 NOVEMBER 2025

We are looking for a part-time research assistant with an enthusiasm for working with insects and plants to join our Leverhulme-funded project on butterfly scale development jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Research...

Heard about this at #LivingData2025, if you have biodiversity data you want to share but are not sure how, I think this will be really useful.

A new week has just started! 🗓️ Don't forget to have a look at our job opportunity and apply if you think you're a good fit (deadline: 2 November). Know a peer that might be interested? Share this post, help us find our new amazing Data Management Specialist in Seville! 🧚 Info: tinyurl.com/3tms7vdp

Excited to find out whether putting the clocks back immediately on my return home will be good or bad for my jet lag.

It seems I’m destined not to travel smoothly this trip. Plane currently stuck on tarmac for over an hour, and counting, waiting for head office to confirm off it can safely fly without the screw that’s missing…

The street art throughout Bogotá is impressive but I particularly liked these in Reserva Distrital de Humedal La Vaca on this morning’s #LifeWatch2025 excursion

Traffic in Bogota is horrendous. But the (very well used) cycling infrastructure would put most British cities to shame.

Thanks to the organisers of #LivingData2025 for such a stimulating conference - it’s rare that my marine biodiversity data communities and macroecology/biodiversity modelling communities overlap so much. And special thanks for getting lunch out today just before I had to leave!

We are proud and delighted to announce the signing of a renewed partnership between OBIS and @gbif.org at #LivingData2025 With this, we strengthen our shared commitment to make marine biodiversity data more interoperable, accessible, and actionable! ⤵️ Read more obis.org/2025/10/23/o...

🌊 Seas the day! Today at #LivingData2025 GBIF and @obis.org renewed their Joint Strategy for Marine Biodiversity Data which enhances collaboration between OBIS and GBIF nodes and facilitates opportunities for training and aligned documentation.

Fantastic trip up Monserrate this morning, 3200m and still lush with vegetation, great views of Bogotá, and some fantastic birds. And back in time for more #LivingData2025!

Not sure what the criteria were to make it onto this list of names on the #LivingData2025 welcome poster, but I’ll take it. Might have to have a word with my agent though to get me an ‘And featuring’ credit next time.

There’s a Tim Key poem about a clumsy guy at a wake that I keep thinking of as I wander around the crowded conference hall with my rucksack on.