I’d probably go Reds, Master and Commander, Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Cóndores No Entierran Todos Los Días, & The Man who would be King

Cornwall doesn’t disappoint

Well, that was a depressing first half

DO YOU WANT TO SEE A WAFFLE HOUSE IN PICCADILY? WANT TO CALL THAT RAGGED-ASS WENDY YOUR QUEEN? DO YOU WANT YOUR CHILDREN TO BE EATING POP TARTS FOR BREAKFAST?

Why do habits evolve? New theory suggests forming and breaking habits can free cognitive resources for other tasks—like staying alert to predators—making behavior more flexible, not less academic.oup.com/evlett/advan...

Hopefully Ed becomes chancellor and we spend this money to protect the Amazon. British popular love of nature is one of the great characteristics of this country, and one which politicians should be less squeamish playing to

Will the education white paper (for England) hamper student access? Well, the evidence suggests that this is already happening, not just for England but for the UK at taught undergraduate level in the subjects most students study: www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r... What about research? 1/2

He truly is the epitome of “politics as posting”, without even the bare minimum of commitment of participation in civic life

If you asked me, off the top of my head, to name a non-Oxbridge university in England synonymous with excellence in the Humanities - I would probably think of Exeter first. This feels like a very deliberate, targeted and ideological Bonfire of the Humanities

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

New meta-analysis: #Pollinator responses to distance from #crop field boundaries depend on pollinator taxa, crop type, and adjacent agri-environment habitats. Smaller field sizes can foster pollinators within crop fields. 🦋🐝🌾 #agroecology #conservation doi.org/10.1016/j.ag...

My accent varies a fair bit depending on whom I’m speaking to, and I’m aware it can make me appear untrustworthy. But as the world becomes more cosmopolitan and people move around more, we’ve got to just be more comfortable with ubiquitous code switching

Hate to quote tweet a LibDem, but this is something which needs more attention than it’s been getting. British science is world class but continue to be so if we continue to cut its funds

Sick of these people being wheeled out every year who seem to think the ideal solution to climate change is to shrink the population through thousands of avoidable deaths

The heat of Co. Durham has beat me, I’m working from home from Fife the rest of the week

It’s wild that politicians don’t seem to grasp the degree to which universities contribute to the economy- local, regional, national. The failure to intervene is a stain on this govt - a shocking dereliction of duty to every worker, every local business, every student, every area that is suffering

there's something remarkable how on a scientific level we're performing what would essentially be miracles and on a cultural/political level, we're going in reverse

This is flat wrong from Unite. It’s just not true there’s been ‘almost no thought for jobs, skills and national security’. There’s been a huge amount of thought on all these issues and a decision has been made that jobs, skills, and security all benefit from a faster clean energy transition.

pink tide rolling out in LatAm, not great with some of the governments they are empowering.

Man, the pendulum of the Americas is really swinging towards shit the last couple years

With 97% of the vote in it appears that Abelardo de la Espriella, a fascist in the mould of Trump whose party traces its origins to the Colombian falangist movement, has won by less than 1% of the vote over Cepeda

What *is* the point of public funding if it's not to subsidise things we need but commercial broadcasters won't do?

The only vibrant high streets in the U.K. are in uni towns but those aren’t seen as “real” since the students are young people from out of town and (horror of horrors) foreign. Also we’re letting the sector die because it’s not proper industry or some other nostalgic nonsense

Israeli attack kills famed turtle sanctuary ecologist in Lebanon |

Not only do I think moving bureaucracy is a poor way to create economic spillovers, it physically takes up space, time and unpopularity that are better spent in “university departments find it easier to scale and build spinouts”.

In case some of you missed my jeremiad on why fieldwork still matters, it is now on youtube

I’m usually a left liberal chap, but I confess when it comes to aesthetics I agree with a reactionary — almost all modern architecture looks terrible, and this is no exception

I used to buy the argument that “economic disenchantment drives the rise of the far right, if we do well on the economy they’ll ebb away”. I know fear it’s cope for us on the left trying to make politics legible in materialist terms, and actively hinders the antifascist fight ahead

OR: pervert glasses are getting harder to spot and we should BAN THEM

'while he was a young college tutor at Cambridge in the 1650s...the botanist John Ray – also known as “the father of natural history” – created his first known garden and began to systematically study plants for the first time.' 1/2

Once again, makes you proud to be Scots

Absolutely fascinating work at the intersection of sexual and social behaviour, showing female dolphins recognise and avoid sexually coercive males

We still live in the world created by the Great War, and the shattering of Utopian possibilities that war wrought. Particularly the shattering of the second international

Complete non sequitur but an opportunity to bring up some trivia; the first every Labour Party conference in 1907 was in Belfast

This man was the chair of Ofcom until literally weeks ago!

Aircon is great and as the climate warms needs to be seen as necessary as heating is for winter. Mandate it for all new buildings and have plans to retrofit old buildings, and let the pernicious European superstitious distrust of this great technology die the death it deserves

The good thing is the actual sway of public opinion in the UK is massively, *massively and overwhelmingly*, against the racist hooligans. They're a small minority here. The bad news is that various facts about our political system and media ecosystem may mean that fact doesn't matter.

I remember my first uni Labour club meeting and some people were one-upping each other in working class credentials, only to later find out that most (though not all) had been the beneficiaries of social mobility in the last generation or two. Which is a good thing! We shouldn’t be ashamed of that

So easy to do that multiple governments have blown themselves up in recent years trying to do it... ... and failed. God please give me this level of self confidence

These sneering, stupid screeds against using air conditioning are getting people killed.

Scientists discover 149 new marine species off Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands

It does all come back to the tax pledge, Hunt deliberately shafting them and Labour choosing to remain shafted has basically undermined their entire governing project.

We beat Cherry! She was beat by a Labour MP! And a ruddy good one as well; chap did some good work with the Edinburgh transport plan. Generally when your party beats another party’s MP you should be cheering that on not lamenting that the other party’s MP didn’t win!

Genomics and physiology of some very sweet birds! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Not to be all "what are you doing" but is there going to be any actual practical changes arising from a series of far right riots leaving people afraid and trapped in their own homes?

A book I’d highly recommend reading — annoyingly the review for it was sent in just after the deadline for the summer edition of Ibis, but expect a glowing review of it in autumn edition

Hidden in Plain Sight: Decades of Industrial‐Scale Fishing in the Ocean's Twilight Zone 🔗 buff.ly/hSOlTw4

Obviously not necessarily opposed (albeit a bit sceptical) to a Burnham leadership (especially for not this petty reason) , but part of me was hoping to get to 2037 without a Tab PM

I prefer the animals to the other options (admittedly I’m a biologist, so of course I do)

Excellent article on the single biggest reason I remain a Labour member and support the Government: because we are, properly and determinedly, delivering radical change to combat the biggest threat we face as a species. Quite why we don't tell anyone about this I don't know.