Really interesting on how far we can engineer serendipity for science - eg in how buildings are designed. ‘“Just placing people from different disciplines together is often insufficient,” Krauss said. Researchers needed a common problem, not just a common space.’ observer.co.uk/news/science...

Can we engineer serendipity? Science is trying - is it working? observer.co.uk/news/science...

Is he an anti-bin establishmentarian?

EXCL: Nigel Farage was given an undisclosed £5m by crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in general election @annaisaac.bsky.social reveals www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

A Binface vs Farage run-off could be the defining political contest of the 2020s

Found the original, it very much is: picryl.com/media/public...

What were you doing at the age of 26? Guessing it wasn’t publishing a landmark study on a type of brain cancer that had been a mystery for 50+ years. observer.co.uk/news/health/...

Musk’s wealth is so obscene we need to think of it in global terms. The Musk-to-GDP ratio is about 1% for the world. It’s more than everyone in the UK pays in personal taxes. observer.co.uk/news/busines...

Alzheimer’s researchers desperate for more drug trial participants Uk charities are calling the government to change how the disease is diagnosed so testing and access to treatment can be expanded, reports James Tapper https://bit.ly/43YxJA9

How Richard Dawkins evolved into a novelist James Tapper writes that The Selfish Gene writer has begun a Jurassic Park-stye tale about bringing Homo erectus back from extinction – but the wider scientific community isn’t sure it’s wise… https://bit.ly/4xftduF

Some people shrug off the use of illegal (ghost or cloned) licence plates as low level crime, evading speeding tickets and congestion charges etc But increasingly police are aware of their role in organised crime, and even murder - like that of 21-year-old Kyron Lee observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

When I was a kid, I ❤️ Lunchables, although they didn’t taste great. But I got to squeeze chocolate frosting onto a “pizza!” For a kid, what could be cooler? Philip Morris was using the same psychological techniques to hook kids on ultra processed foods it did for adults w cigarettes. My latest.

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I see Simon Heffer, in Michael Gove's Spectator, is once again repeating his lie that Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech wasn't about race.. I debated Heffer recently (at the Oxford Litfest) - here's what I said. archive.ph/bqKZF

No. Hunger is the dawn chorus - a flutter of birdsong from inside that swells until you know it’s time to eat. Food noise is the roar of traffic that drowns out the birdsong so that you can’t hear your body properly. You eat because you mistake every murmur inside you for hunger.

there are two phrases in bonobo speak: "wanna smash?" and "yes"

The prize that could make ‘talking to the animals’ a reality observer.co.uk/news/science...

How climate change & pesticide interact to affect bee performance; looking ahead at var. approaches (incl. microbes) to help bees tinyurl.com/2s3ndu3j @theobserveruk.bsky.social highlight work from richjgill.bsky.social and @pgraystock.bsky.social Labs at @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social

I think Trump saw Being John Malkovich and made it a life goal www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/u...

This is very confused. 1. If those views are legitimate, then it's legit for Reform UK to propose them - the views don't magically change because the party does. 2. If it's legit to propose them, why is it unacceptable to oppose them? 3. How is opposing them the same as wanting mass deportation?

NEW: More than 160,000 private renters on low incomes face rent shortfalls worth up to hundreds or even thousands of pounds a year due to Labour’s housing benefit cuts Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are particularly badly hit By me, for the Big Issue: www.bigissue.com/news/housing...

The deputy leader of Reform UK, Richard Tice, owns a property company - Quidnet REIT. From 2020 to 2022 it paid Tice and his trust £600k in dividends. Quidnet should have paid £120k of tax on those dividends. It didn't. A 🧵 with evidence from the company's own filings:

On 26 April, I plan to be on the start line of the London Marathon. I’m in my fifties, I’ve only been running for a few years, and this will be my first marathon. I’m doing it to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT).

Flawless comms all the way to the moon and now they’re back it’s glitchy. Earth world problems.

Sure, the pictures the Orion astronauts took of the moon are great, but the thing I'm looking forward to most is someone sampling "copy, moon joy" or some other clip from the Artemis mission. observer.co.uk/culture/musi...

The teenagers have friends round so we’ve been banished upstairs, and both have colds so going out is, er, out. There’s an old TV, but the remote is awol. There’s only one option: terrestrial TV.

Thrilled to be nominated for Audio Journalist of the Year at the Wincott awards alongside Jonathan Lewis for our podcast Bumble vs the men's rights activists! Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/5IpX...

What's the most under-rated driver of gender equality? (In praise of job-creating economic growth) www.ggd.world/p/whats-the-...

Kalahari by Abdullah Ibrahim youtu.be/8GEPxDW7L88?... To be fair it clicked around 10 mins in.

Existence-as-a-service

This is absolutely beautiful and very well done. > Nothing you own is finished. Everything exists in a state of permanent incompletion, permanently needing. https://www.terrygodier....

Faisal Islam has totally lost control of Newsnight.

Exc: As many as 80 Labour MPs are braced to oppose the home secretary's immigration policies Dozens of backbenchers and ministers are understood to be hostile to Shabana Mahmood's reforms. After the Gorton by-election they're pushing for a "recalibration" observer.co.uk/news/politic...

The maestros using new technologies to transform science observer.co.uk/news/science...

NEW: Hilary Cass gave the MHRA both barrels for pausing the puberty blockers trial. She told me it seemed more about politics than science and its idea of raising the participant ages to 14 would make the study “really really flawed”. observer.co.uk/news/nationa...

Slightly larger picture byline than usual today in @theobserveruk.bsky.social

It’s bad for the Tories to make false claims about mental health, but it’s also v bad for Reform to suggest being a barrister and serving in senior positions means she can’t possibly have had mental health problems. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Denmark has a cancer care system that is literally the envy of health systems in the western world www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This whole, horrible situation has exposed the US’s 2nd amendment as a sham. The entire point of it, all the dead children in schools, was all apparently so that ordinary citizens could arm themselves against tyranny. When tyranny arrives, what happens? www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Reupping this for the science and medical research peeps observer.co.uk/news/science...

UCL and GOSH have managed to grow mini-stomachs from stem cells. It's a big deal for people with rare diseases and the large number of adults with stomach problems. observer.co.uk/news/science...

Looking forward to seeing the British Museum’s sarcophagi at Portrush harbour.

"I told Bibi [Netanyahu] to stop taking credit for the Dome. It's American."

“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.”

What this has done in fact has simply moved content off the timeline and into private interactions with grok. So deepfake porn is still happening, in a less transparent way

It’s not surprising that this meta analysis shows that people regain weight after stopping taking weight loss drigs but actually there are very important cavests not being mentioned in the coverage www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

I've seen a few posts snarking about the junk food ad ban because gambling ads are everywhere on TV. That's a reason to restrict gambling ads ofc, rather than wash our hands of restricting junk food commercials. Advertising works. Promoting a product makes more people want it.