🧵I write a column for @newscientist.com called FUTURE CHRONICLES, from the POV of a historian in the 22nd century, looking back on plausible and positive discoveries of the 21st. The first this year was on making synthetic spider silk at scale 1/12 www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

Merry Christmas!

Mani’s coffin

Happy solstice blessings to you with this gorgeous golden eye lichen (Teloschistes chrysophthalmus) #nurturebynature #pembrokeshire

Day 20 of #InsectAdvent Nearly there, eyes on the prize of Christmas Day. Talking of eyes, some of the best eyed creatures are stalk-eyed flies including Plagoiocephalus latifrons (image @bertonemyia.bsky.social) we saw in Costa Rica @royentsoc.bsky.social @dipterists.bsky.social

Great shots of Phobos. JAXA (Japanese space agency) is launching a mission there next year.

Lovely example of Russian Doll secondary endosymbiosis in these brown seaweeds (their cells have absorbed cells that have absorbed cyanobacteria)

Very impressive micro-palaeontology. 145 million-year-old Diplodocus skin, examined with electron microscope….

Such a mega podcast it won't fit on one page: 💥The rise of autism in girls 💥Tips for a long life 💥New quantum vision of reality 💥Mystery of the LRJ people, 43,000 years ago open.spotify.com/episode/1fYF... (cont. 1/2)

Reading Jeremy Fox’s book on ecology and chuffed to bits to see our paper cited - on Darwin and the first ecological experiment !

It’s not about changing the way you eat - but that would be good too 👍

Lovely chat, this. Including tantalising idea for unwritten Culture novel (man has weapon with his own memories encoded in the ammo) 👇

Our latest epic podcast covers EIGHT of the most thought-provoking features from New Scientist over the last year www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2TW...

Such a mega podcast it won't fit on one page: 💥The rise of autism in girls 💥Tips for a long life 💥New quantum vision of reality 💥Mystery of the LRJ people, 43,000 years ago open.spotify.com/episode/1fYF... (cont. 1/2)

Sleeping in the Kew Gardens sun #FoxoftheDay @chrisgpackham.bsky.social

Vampyrella "small vampire" stalking its prey

This is Funafuti, Tuvalu. Imagine living on this narrow strip of land. Climate refugees have now started arriving in Australia www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

The intro to Doctor Who but irl

Went off Dyson for his views on climate change but then discovered his book Origins of Life which put together the ideas of Schrödinger and Lynn Margulis and I explore that in my forthcoming book

Why does the special Christmas issue of @newscientist.com feature a clam with Shakespeare's head?? Because I wrote about the world's longest-lived animal - who was already 100 in Shakespeare's time - and lived to be 507 years old.

THERE IS NO ANTIMEMETICS DIVISION is a book that takes Richard Dawkins’ concept of the meme and inverts it, imagining an ecosystem of antimeme entities that feed on ideas and memories. Super-original sci-fi horror. Nolan should film it!

Teared up at this bit “an extraordinary, ordinary man whose decency and kindness on January 20 2023 prevented an atrocity in the maternity wing of a major British hospital”

It's the Disney Interpretation vs the Tarantino Interpretation in this week's orca/dolphin news www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJu...

@iammilliam.bsky.social I v much enjoyed this back in the day (not sure about the mad scientist trope of the cover though…)

Big orca news this week don’t you know m.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJu...

New podcast: 🐬 Orcas and dolphins - an uneasy alliance 🧠 Distinct psychiatric conditions - same root causes? 🎇 The new field of Galactic Ecology 🎧: open.spotify.com/episode/6245... with me, @pennysarchet.bsky.social, @mjflepage.bsky.social, @alexwilkins.bsky.social and @alecluhn.com

Best ever is an owl pellet gifted by Catherine Brahic, second best is this 3D-printed skull of Homo habilis

"If you're curious by nature, which as a scientist, that's what we are, then it's just a fantastic job." Next in our A-Z of the Biosciences video series we have @rowhoop.bsky.social, podcast editor at @newscientist.com Watch the interview: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz5m... #BiologyCareers

Note: regardless of your answer, at no point can you use this to speak to your dead grandmother

This - in the Arabian desert between Qatar and Kuwait - is an Indiana Jones-like opening into a lost world 1/4

Why does the special Christmas issue of @newscientist.com feature a clam with Shakespeare's head?? Because I wrote about the world's longest-lived animal - who was already 100 in Shakespeare's time - and lived to be 507 years old.

Does a graphic like this need a warning sticker?

Robot dog spotted in the wild in Kensington. Glad to see my predictions about artificial pets are coming true: www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

I wrote about the ocean quahog, aka the Icelandic cyprine

Been reliving this gig in my head all day. Best gig I’ve been to for YEARS! A generator of togetherness

Aurora in a shell

The Last Dinner Party! WHAT A GIG!

I was just reminded of the Haldane quote when at the @nhm-london.bsky.social last week: Diptera and Hymenoptera each outnumber Coleoptera

If only Babbage had Lego - a Legopunk computer!

Tom’s stint at a wildlife hospital earns him the August slot!

This stayed with me: "The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks." (Jeff Hammerbacher)

Listened to Rutger Bregman’s Reith lectures. Brilliant. (Pretty sure I noticed the edit the BBC made about Trump)

Watch to the end. Mother Nature is not messing around

Legend. Saw this Frank Gehry building at MIT a lot when we had an office in Cambridge Mass.

The world, the universe and us is LIVE 🚨 @rowhoop.bsky.social , @pennysarchet.bsky.social and the team on: 🏃How exercise shrinks tumours and starves cancer 🦠Weird molecules found on comet #3IATLAS 💡Einstein v Bohr on the nature of light podfollow.com/the-world-th...

On Atlas/Bennu “origin of life” delivery: the question isn’t “where do we get organic molecules from?” but rather “how do the organic molecules that are all over the place become organised into life?” open.spotify.com/episode/13fB...

We're learning more about how exercise helps fight cancer - and it seems to partly be due to a battle between different types of cells! Another fun pod episode to be part of 🥰 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fubg...

Niels Bohr: ⚽ Goalie for Akademisk Boldklub 💥 Worked on the UK atom bomb project that pre-dated the Manhattan Project ⚛️ Devised a quantum experiment with Einstein that has now been conducted Podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/13fB... cc @jjaron.bsky.social @kpc.bsky.social

On the podcast this week: 🐁Muscles out-compete tumours for sugar ☄️Organic molecules seem widespread in universe ⚛️ Einstein-Bohr quantum experiment performed after 100 years www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fubg...