Reportedly Lavoisier was such a trooper for science that he even contributed knowledge via his own execution: he committed to keep blinking for as long as he could *after his head was chopped off* to yield info about that. I hope that someone had a decent timer.

Tbc, this announcement does not relate to me. There are several Caroline Fiennes'es*. It prob relates to Caroline, step mother of Ralph & Joseph & co., widow of Mark Fiennes. *Just last month, I got an email about my husband being stabbed: he wasn't (thank god) but a lazy journo once assumed that

Always always always think tactically about your vote:

Fabulously terrible bit of dataviz here 🫣

Because of a £20m donation to London Zoo, you'll soon be able to watch live porpoise post-mortems! Sound the trumpet!! 😳 www.civilsociety.co.uk/news/record-...

Tomorrow I have...a three hour exam! My first of those in >30 years! Sit still, shut up & don't even look at your phone - for *three hours*: I can't even do that on a flight! Please pray for me 🤣

It would be a net win for society if people would learn this about all forms of communication: it is not true just because it looks polished and convincing. AI highlights a problem in education in general, the mess we are in did not start in 2023.

NASA just dropped more than 12,000 photos from the Artemis II mission. It'll take me a few days to go through them all, but so far it's one stunner after another. Link: eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos... Credit: NASA/Artemis II Crew (h/t @jonostrower.com)

Also if you are in a rich country where most workers are employed, it's easy to not realise that, in many countries, most workers work 'informally' ie, are not employed (eg, street vendors, piece-workers, taxi drivers) which is often precarious & has scant / no safety net.

Happy Star Wars Day. Here's your annual reminder that "May the Fourth be with you" was invented by the Tories to celebrate the election of Margaret Thatcher.

Violet-le-Duc was like France's version of Gilbert Scott, IMHO: a c19th architect who re-designed / re-modelled much of what you think is the nation's top Gothic architecture, eg, Notre Dame de Paris, Carcassonne...

Chinese researchers have created a bamboo-based plastic as strong as petroleum-based plastics, which can fully biodegrade in soil in just 2 months phys.org/news/2025-10...

Fyi, the 'transit hotel' in Delhi airport is completely useless: you can't reach it if you're in transit! Hence I now have 22hrs in this rather basic waiting room 🥺 [Reaching the hotel requires a counter-issued boarding pass. Counters are outside immigration, inaccessible in transit. Airside...

Some useful public speaking tips from Freud here.

This former Bishop of Oxford took a landmark legal case* about charities investing in line with their principles & not to maximise ££. It ushered in social investment etc. Bravo & RIP Richard Harries. * against an arm of the Church =his employer, so not nothing. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harries...

Happy Buddha Burkina! - festival of Buddha's birthday. What a year: Buddha's birthday (= lunar calendar) coincides with Labour Day; Ramadan coincided with Lent (both lunar, but they move differently 🤷🏽‍♀️); & recently the Papacy & the Archbishop of Canterbury were vacant www.news18.com/lifestyle/sp...

It's been pointed out before, but worth repeating - USAid cuts were about the same figure.

Here in Nepal, it seems normal to have tea at ~6am, and then eat 'lunch' at 9am!!! 🤔🤷🏽‍♀️

Btw, Sherpa are an ethnic group. It's not a job. Some Sherpa people work as mountain porters & guides; many don't; and many mountain porters & guides are not Sherpa. Sherpa has capital S. Sherpa people are from the region next to My Everest. The usage of 'sherpa' in this article is really wrong.

So Tenzing Norgay summits Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1952. They return to Base Camp and then Tenzing immediately.... pulls out an ultra-marathon!!

Georgia was shopping with her mum to buy trousers for school and recalled: "They didn't have real pockets; they just had fake ones .. and [the boys] had pockets and I thought it was unfair, so I bought boys' trousers." Georgia's letter said that girls needed pockets to carry things, too. #GoodNews

A sub-2 hour marathon in today! - a world first(?) Bravo!

Tomorrow, I start a group multi-day hike in the Himalayas* We carry our day-pack & a porter carries all the rest. Anyone spot the moral hazard here? 🫣 *Lucky me!!

I'm in Kathmandu, and 🤞 going this afternoon to a temple so holy that any act of worship there is worth 13 billion anywhere else(!) So if you have any tricky prayer requests, I'm happy to give it a go! I can think of many, obv. #communal-resource 🤣

Here's a sight to glade your heart: doses of polio vaccine in a fridge* in a rural health facility in India 🥳🥳 *a working fridge. I stuck my hand in it to check!

Visited today a school in rural Punjab. This was on the wall. Can you guess what it is? 🤔🫣

Please help share what must be one of the best jobs ever. We are looking for a writer to join @ourworldindata.org to work with our fantastic team including @maxroser.bsky.social and @hannahritchie.bsky.social. £80k - £120k / ideally full time / location flexible ourworldindata.org/hiring-write...

The team behind my favorite graph - @ourworldindata.org - is hiring a writer. If you can explain complicated things in ways that change how people think AND you want that skill pointed at the world's largest problems, consider applying: ourworldindata.org/hiring-writ...

You notice anything odd about this hotel room? 🤦🏽‍♀️

Top travel tip: on flights, for takeoff & landing, I always have passport, credit card & specs in the pocket of a jacket I'm wearing, & shoes on. Easier to run away from a burning aircraft, and whatever follows will be easier if I can read, pay for things & prove who I am.

Excellently, Ahmedabad airport security separates men & women.... Many fewer women fly than men so it's quicker for us 😊

I know that it's an ancient Indian / Hindu / Buddhist / Jain symbol (of peace), but I will never not be startled by this symbol. (Drawn here in front of a rural Gujarati house to welcome me. I was visiting with SEWA, the Self-Employed Women's Association, the world's largest (?) trade union)

I have learnt one sole word of Gujarati. It's baltic. Bal, not borl. It means.... physics 🤣 (Some people you can't take anywhere...🫣)

If you've read Into Thin Air, re a disastrous day on Everest, read the book by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's son. He was on Everest that day, leading an IMAX crew. He clearly thought that Rob Hall - commercial team leader who died - was reckless. Hall submitted at 4pm, despite a turnaround time of ~noon:

This is how Bruce Springsteen opened his concert in Los Angeles last night. 🔥🔥 Footage from @margaret_nagle on Threads.

Boredom is good for science. Bored in church & watching the incense burner. Galileo (?) realised that as it swings, its amplitude falls but the period doesn't. And bored in church(?) watching a fly on the ceiling, Descartes realised he could describe its position using two perpendicular axes. Handy!

Wild peacock in a mosque this morning(!!) How's your day going? 🤣

If you've read Into Thin Air, re a disastrous day on Everest, read the book by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay's son. He was on Everest that day, leading an IMAX crew. He clearly thought that Rob Hall - commercial team leader who died - was reckless. Hall submitted at 4pm, despite a turnaround time of ~noon:

@scientificdiscovery.dev Just having masala dosa in the garden - in the evening cool, ie, 28 degrees - and reading your guide to dataviz 🤣👍🏽

Pilot of the plane that I'm about to get on!!

This is where I'm going today. Wish me luck!! 🥵 (Ahmedabad, Gujarat)

These are early c18th astronomical instruments - in Delhi. One is obv a sundial. Any ideas for how to use the others to make measurements / discoveries? 🤷🏽‍♀️ The Coliseum one: there are two of those, ~4 metres apart. Its pillar & walls are ~7.5m high. (I'm shown for scale, though I am very small...)

From a kinder past: Poster in a TB hospital with a USAID logo... 😢

This week, I have doubled the no. Hindi words that I know, and used IRL some Hindi & Tamil which I learned 35 years ago & haven't used since 💪🏽 🤣

Health facility in rural India (UP). This is the birthing / delivery room. I asked where the gas&air is (anesthesia) or how they do epidurals. They don't! A normal birth involves zero anesthetic: they just crank them out 🥺🥺 And many of the women are tiny.

Too travel tip: Have one bag for all The Wires & batteries. Saves huge amounts of time rummaging about 👍🏽

And happy Easter from this large textile while I was mighty surprised to see! In the National Crafts Museum. Here are two of the many panels. I have never ever hitherto seen a depiction of Jesus alive still in the shroud / bands:

It’s time for my favorite cartoon of the year.

This is what the British Museum ought to be called...🤭

In England, when you see empty niches on a religious building like in the lower level here, they almost certainly come from iconoclasm in the Reformation/ Civil War. In Delhi: not so much. (Purana Qila, Delhi. Photo credit: me, just now!)