‘Gaston Bachelard is inviting us to go beyond what we think we know. That is, how to counter boring intuitions with interesting ones. But who is to say which is which?’ Michael Wood on the philosopher of science. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

The Embassy staff of Germany, France and the United Kingdom sing Schedryk in the Kyiv underground. Wonderful!

Reupping this.

This is my recommendation for music today. Ramsey Lewis Trio You can thank me later.

New editorial with John Carlisle: Detecting inconsistencies and fraud in research data: Time for authors to share the data underlying their summary statistics as a matter of course tl;dr Let's stop doing party tricks journals.lww.com/anesthesia-a... Final draft: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Happy Christmas for academics...

This essay from @bschmidt.bsky.social on how history rejected computational methods, & so "quantitative history" ended up in the social sciences, & "digital humanities" in literature, with no historians doing computational work, is fascinating, & worth a read: dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/computa...

I love this country and its traditions, perhaps none more so than how Smithfield butchers are treated like rock stars on Xmas Eve

This had a huge impact on later 20th century thought.

Searched back through Blue Sky for this. Which is one of the best things I saw all year in any medium.

Video has emerged of Gen Xu Qinxian of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army at his court martial in 1990, explaining why he refused orders to crush the Tiananmen Square protests. Xu said he didn’t want to become “a sinner in history”. He was given a 5 year sentence.

A genetic researcher who has spent a decade studying how new drugs are developed (after decades doing it himself) writes that NIH funding is crucial to the process, and has been a huge driver of innovation and economic growth. The White House has proposed a 40% budget cut for 2026. buff.ly/KRt7a0g

This great piece by @addyosmani.bsky.social resonates strongly with my recent experience using AI coding agents

‘In addition to being a superb marketing tool, Doomerism is also an excellent distraction from the real-world harm being done by AI right here, right now.’ John Lanchester on the AI bubble. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Congrats IGS Director @sovacool.bsky.social on three major 2025 research citation honors! Stanford's list of "World's Top 2%" scientists: spr.ly/63320CuXAO ScholarGPS Highly Ranked Scholars: spr.ly/63323CuXAR Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers: spr.ly/63325CuXAT

Latest from me at @journalspectre.bsky.social: I trace how Richard Spencer and other white nationalists have shifted their strategy to stay relevant and rebuild after years of delay forming and antifascist resistance. They are building a new cadre, and have less opposition today.

Australia's main electricity grid, the NEM, will soon have 40GW/113GWh of storage (not including Snowy2.0). That's enough storage to power the grid for about 4.5hrs at average demand of ~25GW /1

My Habermas review for the FT www.ft.com/content/9f89... Jürgen Habermas: Germany’s political and cultural phenomenon

Much of the research in economics and economic geography treats cities as “black boxes.” We show that where #innovation happens within cities matters a great deal. Neighborhood #tech #clusters shape citywide innovation paths!

The Council for Science & Technology which advises the PM is looking for a new member ‘with social & behavioural science expertise’. Great opportunity to bring a social science perspective to the heart of policymaking. Apply by 19 Jan apply-for-public-appointment.service.gov.uk/roles/9075

In the digital age, leadership matters more than ever. 'Data Science MBA'—by @coad.bsky.social—just published in @springer.springernature.com. Discusses the skills of a data scientist & how digital transformation leads to new concerns surrounding ethics. bit.ly/4s28asS #BookSky #AcademicSky #EduSky

We are asking individuals or small teams to produce blueprints, exploring what a good digital society looks like, focusing on an aspect of social life or societal institution (eg a family, museum, a practice like health tracking). Learn more about our research fund: digitalgood.net/call-for-app...

Who knew this theory was nonsense? ... great to see it tested properly.

This is a great read.

“Shaped by his KGB culture and witness to Soviet demise, any peace deal that can be perceived other than complete ‘victory’ – is no longer a policy option available…It would delegitimise the entire regime. Therefore, escalation becomes not a choice but a necessity.” www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

There are two things that make this worse - first a synergy between the populist right and left around antisemitism. You'd think they'd worry about how much their hate overlaps. Second - shameful behaviour of academics playing to the "radical" crowd. It is shameless. They know but keep doing it.

There is an interesting science policy question about how to find and find good interdisciplinary research between economics and demography....

This is another great column. My take - It is made worse by demographics - which might explain the gender differences in politics of right v left zero sum thinking.

LMAO Noam Chomsky doesn’t surprise me one bit. Integrity isn’t exactly a trait for someone who picks and chooses his genocides and genocide denialisms.

Excellent thread. Russia is a threat to the UK. That’s the choice of Russia’s leaders. No-one else.

The Greens are shrewder than the Corbynites (not hard) but they are not emphasising the need for any kind of military alliance - on the contrary, they seem to oppose one. Dialogue is the answer to the acute threat posed by a hyper-aggressive dictatorship built on war and a hatred of us, apparently.

Absolutely nobody asked for this BUT English Anglican cathedrals that have burned down, fallen over, and sank into the swamp: a thread.

Wind developers: "We're ready to build." Grid: "Please hold. Your call is very important to us. Estimated wait time... 8 to 12 years."

Contrast this about progress on frontier models with how AI is playing out in practice as @sarahoconnorft.ft.com and @jburnmurdoch.ft.com explore in their brilliant AI Shift newsletter- this week about how much AI is changing law firms. TL:DR not as much as is hyped or hoped by management or clients

...dire case of patriarchal misogynistic self-oblivious delusion. Or, bluntly, for being a callow a**hole egomaniac (which is, admittedly, a common failure mode for boys whom too many authority figures told them they were very special when young, but even so) braddelong.substack.com/p/let-us-att...

I've tracked 145 cases of sabotage and disruption @apnews.com that Western officials blame on Russia. They say Moscow wants to drain Europe's security resources and identify weak spots. Arson & explosives plots particularly increased: 2023: 1 2024: 26 2025: 6 apnews.com/projects/rus...

The details of the announcement reveal that Britain is not just rejoining Erasmus, but also the EU internal energy market, a first small step to reversing the economic damage of Brexit: ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Haven't read the preprint. But this doesn't look good.

A breath of fresh air. "Richard McElreath: It must not be overlooked that junior researchers DO NOT TRUST US. We, the directors, are a big part of the problem."

UKRI's allocation of budget up to 2030 just out. More about 'buckets' than just allocations for individual research councils this time round. Spending on curiosity-driven research flat, while budget linked to govt priorities, innovation will rise. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

💡 Creative industries micro firms are almost 20% more likely to engage in R&D than firms in other sectors, according to the latest State of the Nations report launched today, ‘Support for R&D and innovation in creative industries micro firms’ by @joshsiepel.bsky.social Key findings below 👇

The Nature journals seem completely incapable of reviewing population level studies. These are retraction-level concerns that would have been spotted by my masters students in their first month of training.

There is a growing problem of big name natural-science journals publishing social science that is "problematic". This reflects a inability to accept the statistical standards and skills in social science are often much much higher than in many areas of the natural sciences. (I'm a chemist btw).

Full speech is here www.gov.uk/government/s...

Owen explaining to a Scot that speaking the language of the colonial power means you're not a proper nation.

Today, national interests are guiding international scientific partnerships, transforming science into a geopolitical battleground.

This is well worth a read. I think there is a consensus that economic and political power has got out of hand, left being people and places have been left behind and Govt plays a more important role. I'm less sure traditional ways of looking at the world have actually gone away.

🚨 Another call for nominations: The Herbert Simon Award. (IACAP) seeks nominations to recognize scholars at an EARLY stage of their academic career (i.e., <10y after PhD) who are likely to reshape debates at the nexus of Computing and Philosophy by their original research. #philsci #philtech

"We're ignoring good ideas in favour of AI slop, big data for the sake of big data, and research with pre-expected applications." There, I fixed it for you. Read Chaos in yhe brickyard (1963): www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #FundFundamentalScience #AcademicSky #Science