SUVs and big Utes "are 44 per cent more likely to kill an adult pedestrian or cyclist in a crash compared with a sedan, and 82 per cent more likely to kill a child" www.theage.com.au/national/vic...

Holy moly. That is not where you want half of your dome shutter to be. Glad no one was hurt.

The change is coming, Melbourne. Geelong (red line) just dropped 13 degrees in 10 minutes.

I haven’t seen this label used before but it seems apt. The video contains a good discussion of what “science populism” is and how it’s harmful. youtu.be/sQnOFGWsXNM?...

Save the CSIRO Our national science & research agency is now facing more job cuts than under Tony Abbott Call on the Albanese Govt to fund the scientists & research we need to tackle big issues we face from climate to food security and everything in between www.davidpocock.com.au/save_our_csiro

For those unfamiliar, this involves: - Cutting down trees that have sucked up carbon as they grew - Burning them for energy - Capturing the carbon that results from burning - Transporting the carbon - Injecting it underground - Guarding it for the next few thousand years at least

Nice things are possible.

And still not a single mea culpa from the architects, many of whom continue to be regarded as sages by much of the press.

How can a website cost $96 MILLION?! 🤯 Yes the BOM website is complex, but this seems like is a waste of taxpayers dollars that we need see some accountability for so it doesn’t happen again. www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...

If you use GMail, AI (Gemini) was turned on yesterday by default and now scans all of your content for machine learning. To turn off, go to Settings>General and scroll down. Uncheck the box for "Smart features." There's other "Smart" add-ons as well, but that's the one that reads your content.

I helped Professor Dave lay out exactly how Avi Loeb has manufactured doubt and pushed a false narrative about 3I/ATLAS, which is still an interstellar comet. Please enjoy the video and please repost this to share the word. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9o...

Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad

I seriously cannot get over how stupid it is to be cutting back on research right now #ThePoint thepoint.com.au/off-the-char...

Most people don’t read beyond headlines. This isn’t responsible, ABC News

David Pope in Canberra Times

"CSIRO 350 job cuts a damning indictment on Government priorities, misses 'golden opportunity' on research" my column on the CSIRO research cuts #ThePoint thepoint.com.au/off-the-char...

“CSIRO has announced it will slash up to 350 jobs as the national science agency grapples with long-term financial challenges … with current funding failing to keep pace with the rising costs of running a modern science agency.” Not “challenges”. They’re choices. 😡

That's more than 1,100 jobs lost at the CSIRO over the last two years. "Combined, the staff association estimates that equates to cutting the agency’s size by a third." This is more cuts to the CSIRO than was attempted by the Abbott government. www.smh.com.au/national/csi...

🙃🙃🙃 cannot believe how short sighted this government is, honestly. Now is the time to be POURING money into research, not cutting it.

When I was a kid and the windshield & windows in our family car would fog up, my father would say: “Everyone stop breathing for a few minutes”. It was a joke, of course. Just like this is

So the Liberal party now have no climate policy. Narrator: They never really did* (*Except for the ones to make climate change worse)

In an Australia first, I used FOI to get the AI chat logs of Australia's top national security bureaucrat. They show how he used Microsoft Copilot to ghostwrite speeches and messages to colleagues. This comes as the government looks to push AI use in the public service. www.crikey.com.au/20...

I'll entertain technical arguments about the Summary Offences Act (NSW) when someone can explain how Police can kettle and move on small groups protesting climate issues but somehow this out front of state parliament renders them powerless. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

"Acquiring the Karger journals will provide OUP with many more downstream transfer destinations, helping OUP to publish more of the articles that get rejected by their higher impact journals." Depressing assessment of the commercial strategy guiding academic publishing.

still mulling Musk's fellowship @royalsociety.org❓

Just, not amongst them

Gaming regulator announces temporary halt on accepting bribes www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

Yikes. The UCs have benefited tremendously from the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship program. It is an outstanding recruitment tool for talented faculty; this is a major loss.

You've heard of democracy, but have you heard of an ostracon? I hadn't. This is from a kids book about ancient Greece. Maybe we should bring back the ostracon?

“Quick, we need interviews with property investors, banks, real estate agents, landlords and young people with rich parents who are buying them a house.” chaser.com.au/general-news...

Apparently I am “very quotable”. Anyway nice and clear article!

I had a chat with Julian Morrow on ABC Radio National about Reflect Orbital’s plan for space mirrors to power Solar farms at night. Lots of feasibility issues and environmental impacts. That hasn’t stopped venture capital funding (yet). www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

✍️ Add your name to call on the Federal Government to urgently establish a National Firearms Register. nb.australiainstitute.org.au/australia_ne...

The things we can see with our eyes are just one layer of the richness of the night sky.

Absolutely delighted to read this news after an anxious wait - Christian Schwab and I will be looking for a postdoc on extremely precise radial velocities at Macquarie soon! Congratulations to everyone on what looks like an unusually large haul of projects for astronomy.

Python was awarded a funding grant, funding grant asked Python foundation to remove all diversity and inclusion initiatives they have. Python foundation said no and rejected the grant. If you use Python, send a few dollars to the charity to keep it going. I’m pushing a dono on behalf of ScamGuard.

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

Continents xkcd.com/3159/

Stop it Scientific Reports, you are drunk (again). Basically the transients in this study are mostly plate flaws so who knows what they are correlating with nuclear tests. Could they just correlating good weather at Palomar and Nevada? www.nature.com/articles/s41...

My friend told me that her 14 year old son started doing laundry on Sundays for some of his elderly neighbors. He doesn't charge for the labor. And now he is the most popular person in the building and has non stop pies, cookies, and cake. The 14 year old should be our model of modern masculinity.

It is grimly amusing that Australia’s second largest Defence acquisition deal ($46bn!) was referred to the NACC - for good reason - but the Commissioner won’t look at it bc he’s still a ranking ADF officer. Readers will be astonished that this referral two yrs ago has yielded nothing yet.

Two coal power units in Victoria tripped on Thursday and nobody realised, because a gigawatt of wind and solar was available to step into the breach. Six of the state's 10 coal units were out neatly replaced by batteries, renewables, and a bit of gas. #energy #climate

Barabbas to the Future… Did Barabbas Loins predict the future of Barnaby Joyce?

"xKid’s Always Interrupting platform is a game-changing (and mandatory) feature that nobody asked for."

A reminder.

Tell me your sports club isn't really about sports, without telling me …

It gradually begins to dawn that replacing web sites with apps distributed through easily-controlled chokepoints was a terrible idea

The answer may be simpler than you think!

ADS has given astronomy THE BEST literature tools available anywhere. I almost never have to use the garbage that other academics have to suffer through (GoogleScholar, JSTOR, LexisNexis, WoS, PubMed...) Literally anytime I have to interface with those tools I weep

Very much enjoying the culture of trust and respect implicit in the installation of room usage monitoring devices on academics' office doors today. Imagine my shock on discovering that managers' doors remain unsullied…