Woah. I mean this is amazing. And Yara as first author. AND JAVIER! Very very very cool work by extremely cool scientists. :)

Goooood morning. Here's a little introduction to my terribly grafted ginseng ficus. I bought them upon moving to London ten years ago, it's survived it's first repotting - and a few months of neglect. Hoping this fellow's going to be my life-long photosynthesising buddy.

#TakashiKashiwagi carving based on a #ShinjiTsuchimochi drawing. Tsuchimochi is a Tokyo based illustrator who creates modern landscapes in the Ukiyo style. Title:Ginza in the rain Kashiwagi is an author who graduated from a school specializing in woodblock carving.

Have you heard of Michał Piotr Boym? A Pole, born in Lwow (1612), died in Guanxi. Considered to be the first European Natural History Researcher in China. Responsible for creating the first map of China, coining the word "flora" and introducing Europe to fruit such as lychee 🧵

Alex de Waal (world expert on famine) on the weaponisation of famine in Gaza. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...

In 2012, an armed group of poachers killed seven people and 14 okapis at Epulu wildlife facility. 13 years later, Okapi Wildlife Reserve in the DRC, in partnership with the Okapi Conservation Project, has announced the return of an okapi to the reserve area.

Sometimes I turn Radio 4 on and marvel at the extraordinary breadth and range of it's content: an astonishing array of intelligent, curious cultural, political, and scientific programming. But then sometimes I turn it on and it's The Archers.

Added benefit of WFH: being able to take deliveries of new book proofs. Sure, it looked amazing on the PDFs, but its size in the hand, the foil on the cover, the SMELL of the ink! Here's a detail from p27 of my main character feeling subtly chuffed she's going on an adventure. #kidslitUK #kidlit 🦕

Fantastic ending to Baroness Kidron's speech in the House of Lords yesterday, which led to the government's defeat on AI & copyright. Speaking the UK's creators: "Their property, their labour, is worthy of your protection - because apart from anything else, it is not ours to give away."

For anyone interested, Puffin books UK have a children’s Graphic Novel arm. 🙂 It’s really new and it’s running a competition for new and aspiring graphic novel creators. Hit the link below for more info. ☺️ www.penguin.co.uk/discover/chi...

Woo! Congratulations folks!! 🎉🎉

Ok #kidslitUK #kidlitUK gang. My 5 year old has come back from school so inspired about #space and I've realised I have tonnes of natural history #books in the house but no kickass books with facts about the solar system... Apart from astrocat, what are your favourites?

Greater London National Park. (Commuting out of NW)

I caught this last night and stopped what I was doing to listen to it. So of course it was a @fallingtreeprod.bsky.social programme. Continued to fuel my resistance to the capital concept of "progress" 🫣🌕

This scene focusses on the fish. But the seafloor is also full of the things I work on. Small (and some surprisingly large) invertebrates. Slow growing and slow moving ones. Relatively fast hunting and burrowing ones. As well as micro-size but important places where biogeochemical reactions occur.

Hello from Patagonia and Patagotitan!

I was super lucky to have co-organised an event at @rbgkew.bsky.social yesterday with a heap of majorly talented PhD students from there and the @nhm-london.bsky.social. And yeesh, this was the view behind the lecture theatre 🤩

YES this is amazing

"Electric flames played over the rigging". So, this is my favourite #Attenborough moment. It's from The Living Planet (which is amazing) and it's just him giving an amazing piece to camera. It's really something. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsxv...

Happy birthday, big man. Have a good one, baby. 💚

You've heard of the tyrannosaurs - but have you heard of the megaraptors? These large-clawed carnivores are pretty mysterious - but new research has shed light on where they, and T. rex, came from. Find out more about their Asian origins 👇 www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/new...

The feeling when you think you've just spotted an otter but it turns out it's just a nutria. But then you realise you're not from mainland Europe and a nutria is still really exciting #mammal spot.

Aha. Here it is. A Boom in Comics Drawn From Fact www.nytimes.com/2024/01/24/b... (I imagine @louiestowell.bsky.social will get a kick out of this...)

I remember reading somewhere that 1 in 4 books sold in France are graphic novels. A lot of that is non-fiction/journalistic. When you look at the quality of something like Green Algae, it's really not hard to see why...

Been in northern France for less than 24 hours - barely over the channel - and the state of our borrowed roof box speaks volumes on UK vs mainland European insect abundance.

Please don't judge the mess in the yard... But look how well she's doing!!!

@joaovascoleite.bsky.social Hi João. I'm hoping to get in touch about a Graduate Centre event I'd like to contact you about at the NHM in May... Would you be able to share your best email address with me? Otherwise I'm at nick.crumpton at NHM.ac.uk :)

SWIFTS!!

We live in London and have a *tiny* backyard. Nevertheless, we have a very scruffy robin fledgling being raised in it. Upon viewing, my 5-year-old immediately wanted to illustrate it and I should very much like to draw your attention to it's ear tufts 🥰 #urbannature

Waterlow Park, Highgate. A "garden for the garden-less". North London.

I've been reading a lot about Schrödinger this weekend which had led to tangents on eastern mysticism, how we protect children from predatory tutors, and... perhaps most unexpectedly, this picture in the Library of Congress of Stephen Fry enjoying two cats in 1927.

Blows my mind that just 100,000 years ago there were at least six species of humans living on Earth.

The Phoenix Garden, squeezed between the hustle and bustle of the West End, is my most recently discovered central London delight. 💚

Today would have been the Polish #palaeontologist Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska's 100th birthday. 🍰 If you're interested in n*zi-bashing, mid-20th century adventures in Asia and, obviously, dinosaurs, why not pre-order my new kids book about her, out July 31st?🦖🇲🇳🎂

might have to put my out of office on for the next few weeks because I am going to get absolutely zero work done from home now 😌

Huh. I'm 39 and this morning was the first time I've ever seen a carrion crow eating... well, carrion. It's not until you've watched a content corvid pecking out the fluid delight of a drowned rat's eyeball that you really get a glimpse into how these weird little dinosaurs made it through the K-Pg.

Delighted to share our paper on data equity in #palaeobiology as part of Paleobiology's 50th anniversary issue 🥳 We look at how palaeo data is collected, stored, curated & shared, and how equity in these processes is crucial for our field's future (1/n) 🧪⚒️ doi.org/10.1017/pab....

This is some very cool micro-biogeography here... I've walked barely two miles this morning across Hampstead heath in NW London and spotted tonnes of these on the northern border. But we never get lemon or white lipped snails down on our road.

Jeez, this was worth the hype.

I highly recommand this infography which highlights most of the nuances with biological sex.

Today of all days I urge to read my wonderful friend @joshlukedavis.bsky.social's brilliant book A LITTLE GAY NATURAL HISTORY and delight in the messy, complex reality of sex on Earth. Begin with the chapter about the fungus species with 20,000 sexes. 🏳️‍⚧️ www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/a-litt...

It's never about the science. It's always about having a legal basis for your fear and hatred of other people.

@stuffandpiffle.bsky.social 👋🏻

So…yeah, it’s. mostly urine, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad or gross. And by the way, people with penises can do it too! Some do! It just happens. It’s a sign someone probably had a really good time. Go with the flow. youtube.com/shorts/9my9-...

I'm only on chapter 20 of Dandadan, but it's ridiculous, beautiful, very very silly and - occasionally - heartbreaking. I'm very much looking forward to watching the anime if only for the kind of perfect opening credits. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4na...

Hi hi. I'm part of the team at the @nhm-london.bsky.social that developed our new on-demand, online learning platform Naturally Curious. Amazingly, we've been shortlisted for a Webby! Please do sign up and - if you like us - vote for us! :) vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...

We at the @nhm-london.bsky.social are running two incredible training courses this summer at the NHM, New Forest & Lake District on #freshwater #ecology and limno-terrestrial meiofauna. They're both *free*, and taught by world-leading experts. Apply! www.nhm.ac.uk/our-science/... 🧪 #dna #taxonomy

Aw man. My parents popped up a couple of weeks ago and left this with my 5 year old - a relic of my childhood bookshelf. I remember *nothing* from the actual stories, but the illustrations have a sort of tactile familiarity to them. #kidlitUK

Darwin on how to evolve your imagination

Kazuyuki Ohtsu (b1935 ) White narrow path in Gotemba #japanese #woodblock