Govt interference in the market like this *is* stupid, but I thought an important part of the problem is that supermarkets have purchase deals with farmers that ignore increases in their production costs, thus forcing farmers to run at an unavoidable loss. So, rich of *supermarkets* to complain.

It's not immediately clear to me how a duck 🦆 will help with the old station roof at Woking Station ...

If only there were some way of understanding why a nakedly racist party that has assimilated the BNP, turned the most rabidly intolerant wing of the Tories, and constantly dog-whistles racist tropes kept finding racists in their ranks?!? One for Sherlock, I fear.

Leaving aside all of the many other reasons for disliking (to put it mildly) Reform, I'd have thought being comprised of so many traitors happy to knife their former colleagues should be a problem. Especially for a party that (ostensibly) advocates unflinching (and unthinking) loyalty to the UK.

As oceanography hasn't always been quite as joined-up as it is now, I'm always intrigued to read stories about its past evolution. Here's a good recent one about a scientist, James Crease, who joined the predecessor institute to @noc.ac.uk, NIO, and who worked on the interior dynamics of the ocean.

Betteridge's law of headlines clearly applies here. Much like right-wing / populist "Christians" the world over, Reform's platform critically depends on othering people and scapegoating them for problems du jour. Jesus, his actions and his views, have nothing to do with Reform.

I got approached last week to collaborate on a proposal not from a fellow scientist but from a "research manager". So, no science details or shared frame of reference, just an ask about pitching in for some funding. I had heard of this approach to funding before but it's my first direct run-in.

Without getting all melodramatic about it, there's something "Decline and Fall" about the juxtaposition in UK news between the 100th birthday celebrations of #NationalTreasure #DavidAttenborough and the UK citizenry "gifting" a win to a party of grifting elites feigning interest in their concerns.

Reform winning Havering would be a case of nominative determinism were the council in Scotland.

Today in #MDPI review requests ... - Review a manuscript about E. coli (clearly, as a marine BGC modeller, well within my wheelhouse ...) - Do it in a week (a timescale that only makes sense if referees are literally not doing anything else) I feel sorry for the person who sends this crap out.

I don't know if we even do stuff like this on @bsky.app but, for those who celebrate, ... May The Fourth Be With You #StarWars #MayTheFourth #AIArt

Were I, a jobbing scientist, to publish something that got a blisteringly withering take-down like this - which effectively and efficiently burns down *all* of its "evidence" - I'd never be able to face my peers again. And yet ... disingenuous rage-baiting is the @telegraph.co.uk business model.

TIL (from @wikipedia.org, naturally) that the "long s" (which I have previously decried, including just earlier today) actually survives as the integral symbol used in calculus, albeit in a longer-necked evolved form. Who knew? As ever, life ... uh ... finds a way.

Do YOU suffer from imposter syndrome? Do you dread giving scientific talks in front of your peers? Suffer no further - take COCAINE!

Of course, this could be a moment where we reflect on the distortion to the Earth's #NitrogenCycle by our production and "consumption" of fixed N and think about how this could be reduced, but ... that would require us to face some more uncomfortable facts about how we misuse the world.

As if my opinion of #Crypto wasn't already low because of its known associations with drugs, corruption, tax avoidance and general similarity to Ponzi schemes, look who's being bank-rolled by it ... www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Sounds like #AI is not just going to be helping students gain grades they might not deserve - it's also going to be helping professors access funding they might not merit - and give funding panels impossible workloads ...

TIL #Voyager2 was launched *before* #Voyager1 but was overtaken by its faster travelling sibling within months of launch. I also learned this launch took place 4 days after the death of #TheKing. Highly recommended ... www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09gvnty

I wasn't expecting much from #PredatorBadlands - mostly just disappointment - but (🚨SPOILER ALERT🚨) definitely not a heart-warming (if gory) tale of a found family who, after initial difficulties, recognise the value of each other and pull together to defeat a soulless corporate enemy.

So ... reject #GermTheory but be big on fortifying the #ImmuneSystem? WTAF is the immune system for if not fighting off germs? Well, fighting off #BrainWorms too I guess - which, prima facie, would appear to have taken quite a chunk out of the particular brain here.

The correct response here is, of course, to laugh uproariously directly in the face of the current US govt, express hopes for their total displacement by 2029 and/or a reformation of NATO without them if - inexplicably - their brand of stupid continues to blight Americans.

Hey @arstechnica.com - you've a typo in the title here. You've written "investors" but I think you meant "suckers".

Adrian Glover of the @nhm.org kicks off the #SMARTEX project's science / policy meeting on #DeepSeaMining ...

But, yeah, we should totally still drill, baby, drill! 🤦‍♂️ Given solar is cheaper, better for the climate, increases energy security, reduces financial risks from illegal foreign wars, etc., WTF else is needed to persuade drilling fanatic culture warriors they're barking up the wrong tree?

Chief Scientific Officer Prof Penny Holliday talks to @channel4news.bsky.social about implications for AMOC decline in light of new research that suggests weakening may occur more rapidly than latest IPCC estimates. 🌊 npholliday.bsky.social @c4ciaran.bsky.social 🔗 www.channel4.com/news/collaps...

What a brilliant (if brilliantly transparently corrupt) scam: appoint an arch-fan to head up your panel for reviewing your arch plans. I can already imagine how the discussion will go ... Trump: I want an arch Cook: I prefer three Trump: Let's settle on two Cook: Done!

Overfamiliar adventures in science reviewing ... 1. Woefully wrong field ✅ 2. Implausible turnaround time ✅ 3. Journal you've never heard of ✅ Surprise - it's #MDPI!

Reader: these topics are not related. @forbes.com - I think you need to work on the way your advertising "breaks the fourth wall" by nonsequituring from a serious article into clickbait about quackery, Khols (who?) and stools 💩 (FFS!).

I can't speak to US fleas and ticks, but when it comes to protection from parasites, I would strongly advise voting against GOP interests later this year. (While the climate experienced by your pets is different in the UK, I would still extend my advice to voting against Reform in May.)

Nothing says "totally legit" like a (self-described) "renowned international journal" using a gmail address for submissions ...

Currently engaged in careful negotiations to persuade my cat to come indoors. Now convinced the Iranian diplomatic corps is led by a cat. Still, at least I'm not threatening to destroy the cat's bed or bin her food. Yet.

To be fair to this malign tech-bro, to quote H.L. Mencken from 1926, ... "No one in this world ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."

Everyone occasionally has problems with work colleagues. But can you imagine having the same dumbass work colleagues for years, having to put up with their bullshit decisions constantly overriding yours, and all the while knowing for a fact they're B-team losers just brown-nosing for the boss?!?

And to think I actually used to worry about the GOP fighting biology because of theoretical science like evolution. It never occurred to me that they'd instead be so fanatically moronic as to fight it because of practical science like vaccination where saving lives is on the line.

One definitely gets the impression that the "markets" are as thick as pig sh*t if they *still* don't understand what kind of asshat they're dealing with here. I thought they were supposed to be our omniscient overlords who understood the world in ways us mere mortals could not?

Do you think our marine biogeochemical models aren't good enough? Well, here's your chance to make them better! 🌊 Note: BIO-Carbon is linked with the #NASA #EXPORTS project, and UK-US collaborations are encouraged for this call. So, don't be shy!

While starting out trying to find an article on an ecologist god, today's #WikiWormhole improbably took me to this *economic* place and some reflections on the #AI steamroller ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creativ...

This photograph is your regular reminder that, with an albedo of 0.136, the Moon is seriously dark. That the full Moon appears bright is basically testament to just how seriously bright the Sun is. (TIL that Earth's albedo is actually ~0.30 and not the 0.39 that electronic legend #Vangelis told me)

Also, nice to see the Israelis informing a nation's citizens to avoid public transport (= civilian infrastructure = war-crime appropriate infrastructure) ... via an online post that they can't possibly receive because they're in the middle of a record-breaking internet outage. Nice.

What a day to be alive. Humanity's bubble of in-person exploration is stretched a little further beyond the Moon. And, on the same day from the same nation, its leader - backed into a corner by his own foolishness - is openly threatening to commit war crimes. Fantastic! 🤦

I don't recall hearing which term in the Drake Equation the ongoing Artemis mission is specifically addressing.

After #ProjectHailMary put us in the mood for #scifi at the more thoughtful / less sensational end of the spectrum, we dug out my DVD of #CarlSagan's foray from science into fiction, #Contact, for a rewatch. Almost 30 years old now, and ~25 since I last saw it, I had some thoughts. (🧵 1/13)

Super-pleased with how my glass works turned out after several hours at several hundred degrees in the kiln of my tutor. Lacking inspiration, my theme was an anti-Viridis colour map.

One of the more surprising consequences of the arrival of LLMs is the appearance of users with the extraordinary audacity to claim that they're actually writers. Novels are possibly the best examplar of an art where every detail should be carefully considered by the artist, not subbed to a machine.

Kinda feels like it would have been easier, faster and more meaningful to just focus on the true statements he made ...

What happens when you dance on the head of a legal pin just to screw people out of their rights ... but you can't actually dance.

First: vested interest, I have a 🐱. But this line always strikes me as classic human blame displacement: "Not my fault, I only arrived, replaced the richness of the natural habitat with a few hedgerows, introduced tarmac-covered death lines, and sprayed everything with biocides to bump crop yields.

At this point there is literally no #AprilFools gag that I could be told about the US tomorrow that I would not take at face value. Another thing this #OrangeAsshat has messed up for us.