Now more than ever, we must stand up for core liberal values—equality, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Join us in defending these values: http://libdems.org.uk/join

The Conservative Party: No shame. No remorse.

Occasionally I reflect on how much of my moral education came from shows like Macgyver and the A-Team, from Star Trek & Babylon 5, and all of Terry Pratchett’s books. Lots of good lessons.

Great fun to attend the @mpinb.mpg.de Open Day today. Amazing to see their work connecting vision to brain activity in mice, fish, & hawks and in mapping the brain “wiring diagram”. I have a touch of building envy too!

“In an anonymous survey of (UK Physics) department heads by the Institute of Physics (IoP), 26% said they faced potential closure of their department within the next two years, while 60% said they expected courses to be reduced.” www.theguardian.com/education/20...

It’s mind blowing how many people walk around Bonn using hiking poles. I’ve never seen them in the UK anywhere except up a hill, but here they’re used on city streets.

The official number of exoplanets has surpassed 6,000! And you can access data on all 6,007 of them right here at IPAC 📈 🪐 Watch the video & read all about the center of the exoplanet universe (also known as NExScI!) here: www.ipac.caltech.edu/news/the-nas...

These seem like good changes to the @erc.europa.eu eligibility criteria. Up to 10 yrs post PhD for the Starting grant and 15 yrs for the Consolidator is better match to careers. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/scholar...

Sigh. UCU at Imperial pushed into yet another strike by yet another round of institutional myopia. www.ucu.org.uk/article/1418...

"The commitment to free speech extends, it seems, to conservative speech only – conservatives are gunning to use the power of the state to squash speech they don’t like, ruin the lives of the speakers, and impose a kind of right-wing omni-thought on the nation" www.newstatesman.com/internationa...

RIP Robert Redford. Star of oh so many great movies. www.theguardian.com/film/2025/se...

The category “Fundable, Unfunded” is one too much good UK astronomy research falls in. It’s high quality research, there’s just not enough funding to cover it all.

The Effelsberg telescope is big. No, seriously big.

Well today was “Warntag” in Germany. Feels very strange to hear emergency alarms wailing in the streets. Especially at the moment. www.iamexpat.de/expat-info/g...

Feel quite sorry for Angela Rayner. Sounds like she got caught out by complicated life and tax stuff, rather than anything nefarious on her part.

The end of an era. In Our Time has been one of my favourite radio shows for years. It’s shown a remarkable blend of curiosity and good humour, combined with intellectual breadth and depth. Culture at its finest. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

After seven years, very happy to see my book about Herschel (the telescope) finally published. I did describe the big discoveries made with the telescope, but what I really wanted to was capture the crazy stories behind the discoveries. This is not the sanitised version of astromy. #popularastronomy

Finished a three week intensive German course at the Goethe Institute in Bonn. Hard work, but very worthwhile! Renata was an amazing teacher and a great group of fellow students.

Really honoured to have received the Rosalind Franklin Award from the Royal Society. I can't wait to get started on the project we have planned to show girls of all ages how fun and accessible Physics can be!

JUNO, a big new Chinese neutrino detector, is set to begin operations. economist.com/interactive/...

Ah those academic administrative processes where one person doesn’t respond to an email and so nothing progresses for two months. They do not spark joy.

There’s something wonderful about the shape and sound of buoys at sea. And a generational connection to wise folk who placed them as a warning. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/u...

I do like the way you walk in to Bonn Center and randomly find a huge wine festival in the Church platz. There’s a lot to like about this town.

Well that’s a whole lot of negative commentary on the finances of SKA. Misconduct, poor project management, or just plain big project problems? Hard to know. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

It’s sobering to watch a full Trump press conference. All over the place. www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

Occasionally I think I should rewatch the final movie (Revenge of the Sith?) and then I vaguely recall what an insult to the viewer it was. Did I hallucinate horses in space?

Have y'all watched Cosmic Dawn yet?! Streaming now for free on NASA+ ! ✨🚀 #jwst #nasa www.nasa.gov/cosmicdawn/

Wikipedia publishes list of AI writing tells boingboing.net/2025/08/20/w...

UK Space Agency to be merged with Dept of Science, Innovation and Technology - but will still retain its name as a unit in DSIT. Will this bring different gov stakeholders together to drive UK space - or distract from progress? gov.uk/government/new…#UKspacece

Bonn has a plaque on the site of its Nazi era book burning. Hemingway, Marx, Sinclair, Brecht. Lots of familiar names.

Day one of a three week intensive German course at the Goethe Institut. It’s going to be a long journey :)

The Observer takes on the collapse of Unbound - some truly shocking allegations, almost all of which I have seen compelling evidence of as a member of the Unbound author WhatsApp group and through my own experience of being published by them observer.co.uk/news/busines...

I had forgotten the special hell that’s travelling while ill.

I rarely see Planetarium Astronomer jobs being advertised in the UK, we have a distinct lack of Planetariums. The Royal Observatory in Greenwich is currently hiring for one! app.vacancy-filler.co.uk/salescrm/Car...

An inability to face up to difficult problems seems endemic in UK governance at the moment. They just keep ignoring issues until they become catastrophes. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I guess if you take the time to survey potential sites carefully and work out where you want a long term lunar base for an extended moon program this makes perfect sense, otherwise it’d be an expensive boondoggle.

First full day at my new place of work.

The NSF grants suspended at UCLA total $179M, half of which was still outstanding: CAREER grants, a major math institute, and basic science research and training of all types. More at grant-witness.us/posts/UCLA-n..., thanks to GW member Mally Shan, with grant-level details in our database.

Sun rise on a new era. Long may it look like this.

I've had a few other former astronomers reach out to me lately about transitioning into data science/ML, and I decided to write about it. This is my personal journey from astro to ocean, and the most useful steps I took along the way.

Big day for the matriarchy! 🥳 Huge congrats to the awesome Prof. Doughtery, lead on the Jupiter-bound ESA JUICE mission & STFC Exec Chair. If anyone's confused on the astro royal hierarchy: Michele and I are the astro equivalents of 🇬🇧Westminster and 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Holyrood 🤗 ℹ️: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 👩‍🔬🔭🧪

One of my favourite @humanists.uk members of the past – #KarlPopper, born #OnThisDay 1902.

Really enjoyed reading “Humboldt and the Modern German University” fascinating discussions about the idea of the university in different periods and how that evolves and is contested. www.amazon.co.uk/Humboldt-mod...

RIP Tom Lehrer. I assumed he was long dead, although his music lives on. Amazing that he made all his music public domain. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

Status: On holiday.

Pretty tragic to see BP pull a 180 on its “Beyond Petroleum” stance to satisfy the short term profit seeking of hedge funds. Sign of how the winds are blowing at the moment. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

“Yet as Google does the Googling, humans no longer visit the websites from which the information is gleaned. Similarweb, which measures traffic to more than 100m web domains, estimates that worldwide search traffic … fell by about 15% in the year to June” www.economist.com/business/202...

Thanks to @stephenaj.bsky.social's fabulous article (still available at link below) I have had a look at this equally fabulous interactive astrolabe alexboxer.com/astrolabe/. It's a really useful tool for understanding what the instrument does and a lot of fun to play with! #histsci #astronomy

NewAthena will be the largest X-ray observatory ever built, set to reveal the secrets of black holes. By mapping the million-degree-hot matter around them, we will understand how these cosmic giants grow and shape their environment 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl... 🔭