It’s Christmas Eve, I’m on holiday in France, and somehow I’m getting emails from a journal chasing me up about whether I’m going to review a paper. They want me to reply within 3 days! Even their own offices are closed right now, according to their website…

Are they actually trying to destroy British universities???

Solidarity with @uonucu.bsky.social members striking over the possible 200+ job cuts at the University of Nottingham, after 650 staff lost their jobs in the past two years. I also share their deep concerns about new plans to suspend 48 courses, including nursing, modern languages, and music.

She smiles and says “I will always love you”

Did @uniofnottingham.bsky.social consult any students before announcing the proposed course closures? @uonucu.bsky.social www.bbc.com/news/article...

You know it's a pretty bad decision when the response from people is to create about 100 different petitions... Sign every one. Let's fight this by all means necessary.

Wake me up when this has been independently verified by an external research group!

Some petitions to sign to protest Nottingham’s cuts! #AcademicSky Save Modern Languages - c.org/D5v6qstzyW Save Agriculture - c.org/bgxhcKVHYk

Mathematical Physics MSci at UoN earmarked for closure as mgmt start the cuts. As the custodians of Einstein’s famous blackboard, this is especially worrying. Will we still teach his greatest ideas in years to come? @uonucu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

It's not just music and language courses- it's 48 courses across the university. But here's the thing- our UCU colleagues at other universities (like @Cardiffucu.bsky.social) have faced the exact same threats, fought back, and won. So we can too.

I can't express how damaging this is, music and languages aren't just optional extras, they are at the core of what a university does: cultivate knowledge and culture in the next generation. And if they'll cut those, what's next? It's institutional self-destruction. www.bbc.com/news/article...

I’ve always thought the problem with quantum computers is that they don’t cost nearly enough money (ideally, at least a million dollars per kg!), and should experience heavy vibrations and crushing G-forces after being calibrated. ⚛️🧪

Reminder of the preferred approach when sharing arXiv preprint links

As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease. There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done." 1/🧵

Dear students, unless UoN commits to rule out compulsory redundancies, I expect my Principles of Dynamics lectures to be affected by @uonucu.bsky.social industrial action next week. I was gonna tell you by email but the uni says we can’t. If you see this, pls let other students know

Just finished the final day of the Nottingham Workshop on Quantum Non-Equilibrium Dynamics!! Lots of great talks, and great discussions too 😄

We have made it clear from the beginning: our industrial action ends as soon as the university agrees to no compulsory redundancies. This is a demand that the university takes on the responsibility and consequences of their poor financial decisions without putting it on us.

After hearing this news, UCU branch representatives reached out to the university again demanding that compulsory redundancies for our members be suspended. They declined to remove this threat.

It’s a really dire situation in UK academia. Here at Nottingham, we’re being told to expect 20% cuts across the board. All because the university mismanaged its money: spending millions on a new campus without a plan, that now has to be sold! And now they want £50m more for a new medical building.

Check out my brand new handle 😎 By the way, this was literally as easy as uploading a single text file to my website (and making it publicly available). A simple guide: lucacozzuto.medium.com/how-to-use-g...

If you want to know more about our strike action, you can find it here: www.canva.com/design/DAGzC...

Strike action is ON!!! Next week will be the first of 4 weeks of striking from our members as we continue to say NO to the compulsory redundancies forced on us by the university for their poor financial choices. #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

Good news. The Royal Society has disgraced itself by keeping one of the most evil people in the world among its ranks. (In case you need reminding, it's estimated his cuts to USAID had ALREADY killed hundreds of thousands of people by July, and will kill 14 million by 2030)

The British Isles, according to the New York Times. (I think some of my old colleagues from Leeds might have an aneurysm if they see this!)

"My bold prediction? Scholar gets the axe within 5 years. Google will announce it with 12 months' notice, Bluesky will have a collective meltdown, universities will scramble for alternatives, and research workflows will be in chaos for years."

Tutorials begin at QEC2025 at @yaleqi.bsky.social. Here is an artistic rendition of some famous codes at the Google Quantum AI tutorial.

Calling all quantum steampunks! This proposed quantum thermochemical engine has a 1D Bose gas as its working fluid, and theoretical calculations show that it should combine near-maximum efficiency with high power output. Read more about it here: 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/quantum-th...

Not your usual grafitti… ⚛️

Discussions shape us. But papers do it too. For me, one that shaped the way I think was: 🧠 Introduction to topological superconductivity and Majorana fermions by Leijnse & Flensberg. I read it during my master’s thesis—10 years ago!—and it just clicked. 🧵🧪⚛️

I took part in this! It was a fun survey, glad to see the results are out :) PS: I’m one of the people who “baulked at the set up of the questions” 😅

At the @uonucu.bsky.social picket line, excellent showing of #PupsOnPickets! #SaveHE #StopTheCuts

a lot of us at UoN are on strike today because of the threat of compulsory redundancies as part of Phase 1 of Future Nottingham right now, it's APM (admin, professional services, managerial) being targeted next, it will be academic and associated family of staff @uonucu.bsky.social

Striking at Uni of Nottingham to stop compulsory redundancies - part of ‘Future #Nottingham’ cuts @uonucu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Pros of showing up to an anti-cuts rally: • Stand in solidarity with colleagues • Protect your university from shredding its reputation • Defend research and innovation • This cute little dog who barked (loudly!) every time people clapped 🥰 #AcademicChatter

With compulsory redundancies still on the table, were still going to push back. On Monday at 11:45, let's show up in force, say NO to the university treating us as expendable, and show 'em what solidarity looks like! #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

This is a cool video I just found on double pendulums! Technically I believe this is a mixed phase space, something physicists in my field encounter pretty frequently (e.g. in the context of quantum scars, special states which can cause otherwise chaotic systems to behave regularly) 🧪 ⚛️

I see UCEA has very generously offered us a paycut of 2.6% this year, on top of cumulative pay cuts of 16% since 2020. It’s unacceptably low when so many of the basic costs of living have been spiralling. And this is on top of my own employer (Nottingham) planning mass redundancies! #AcademicSky

we worked so hard on this, nights and weekends, trying our best to do a good job for the American people

Proposed NOAA budget zeros out ALL climate laboratories and cooperative institutions. GFDL, NSSL, GML, etc. This appears to also end the US greenhouse gas sampling network, including at Mauna Loa, the oldest continuous carbon dioxide monitoring site on Earth. www.commerce.gov/sites/defaul...

The proposed NOAA budget for 2026 contains the literal line: Total, Climate Research: $0 www.commerce.gov/sites/defaul...

Many others are posting abt this too but this graphic viscerally shows how dire the presidential budget is for NASA 🔭🧪and worldwide astronomy. I can’t express how sad this makes me, as an American scientist. And it’s mostly already paid for projects, so also no logic in terms of saving money.

Colleagues over in Unison are running a petition to halt Nottingham’s completely unnecessary “Future Nottingham” program of cuts. Right now they’re targeting professional services but will be moving onto academics in September. Please sign! (And join a union!) action.unison.org.uk/page/168838/...

Hey! I have a website now 👨🏻‍💻 jaredjeya.github.io Still a WIP as I’m figuring out how it all works and what to put on it, though (I used a slightly over-engineered template 😅). Also if anyone knows how to make images show up in the link card, that would be cool!

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd. It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

My partner never even got a desk at GISS before they kicked everyone out. And she’s got out relatively lightly compared to people who’ve built their entire lives around it 😠 @alessandraquig.bsky.social

Propaganda we're not falling for: 🦈Sharks are scary (amazing creatures, important for the ecosystem) 🌊Benthic invertebrates aren’t cute (they are precious) 🪨Geology is boring (rocks ROCK) 📈Long-term data sets aren't important (they are SO important!) 🔬Science isn’t cool (science rules, obviously)

The NASA budget req would end NASA's participation in ESA's Rosalind Franklin Mars rover (as anticipated) along with MSR, NASA's two Venus probes (DAVINCI and VERITAS) and coop with ESA on theirs (EnVision), and somewhat surprisingly OSIRIS-APEX and Juno, both already in space.

Our article was featured in Communications Physics!

I thought xkcd was meant to be funny 🫠