This guy? Some of the Epstein rapists got consequence eventually although their victims from these days got none. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

I LOVE this painting (in a horrible way): it's one of the most powerful political statements out there. The progeny of an unholy coupling between Francisco de Goya and Francis Bacon - both of whom would have understood it perfectly. His mad, senile, terrified eyes...

Do it! It's a great university set in a lovely city, and the Evolutionary Biology Centre is world class. The photo is genuine, not AI, and is not narrowly framed to show the only pretty part of town; Uppsala really does look like that.

Please share. 💔

A French judge explains how Trump sent people from the US Embassy to try to intimidate her during Marine Le Pen's trial for embezzlement — something they've done to other judges around the world

I'm following the European responses to Trump's latest threats about Greenland, in real time. The tone can be summarised as: "Once more, please put the gun down before anyone gets hurt. Just put it down and step away, and everything will be fine." What an utter disgrace for 🇺🇸. Words fail me.

Joint Statement: Statement by Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. We stand in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of #Greenland #dkpol #dkmedier #US stm.dk/statsministe...

Another snowy day, and Uppsala Cathedral is looking fabulous. Building work began in 1273, when the Norse settlement in Greenland was at its peak, 503 years before the foundation of the USA. “That passed, this will too”

The aesthetics of everyday life. I just went down to the shed for firewood and caught this image of @janetahlberg.bsky.social doing her accounts. The blue light on the right is from a plant-overwintering arrangement in the kitchen that currently houses our rosemary.

Stained glass looks it’s best against a snowy background. Art by Frans Wesselman.

Blizzard conditions today!

Today isn’t any old snowy day: we have “kramsnö”, the kind of snow that forms cohesive balls when you squeeze it. Which means…the first snow lantern of the season! I have so looked forward to this. An old candle stump and some snowballs produce magic.

Just back from a lovely New Year's Day walk with @janetahlberg.bsky.social in the local forest, a short distance from our house. The snow has finally arrived! A very Happy New Year to everyone, with sincere wishes for some longed-for joyful turns during 2026!

The Christmas cake has been cut and the texture is perfect! Neither too dry nor too soggy.

Vampire-o-rama! Over the last 30 hours we have watched Eggers’ Nosferatu (2024), Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922; silent movie with a fantastic organ accompaniment) and Coppola’s Dracula (1992) - three tellings of the same story, each with a unique magic. A very interesting experience.

The tree is decorated and the table is set. Merry Christmas everyone!

The Christmas cake is finished! This year I was back on decorating duty and opted for a ‘spotless rose’ design.

The day before Christmas Eve and @janetahlberg.bsky.social is knitting a Christmas stocking following video instructions from Tom Daley.

Melanie and her freshwater mosasaur on the Dutch evening news! 🧪

Saint Lucy’s Day, 13 December, means baking ‘lussekatter’ - ‘Lucy’s Cats’ - which are soft, sweet saffron buns made into shapes the significance of which is lost in antiquity. Just out of the oven! I wish 🦋 had smell-o-vision.

New paper out with the inimitable @melanieduring.com: giant mosasaurs haunted the rivers of end-Cretaceous North America! 🧪 link.springer.com/epdf/10.1186...

A 3-minute explanation of our freshwater mosasaur study: youtu.be/tn8lE65GmHs?...

It also means T.rex 🦖was not the only predator to fear in the Hell Creek..... You can read the full study here: rdcu.be/eUit1 Let me know what you think! @uppsalauni.bsky.social @vuamsterdam.bsky.social @ndgspaleo.bsky.social Eastern West Virginia Community and Technical College

The mosasaur’s shift from marine to freshwater isn’t unique. Similar transitions can be seen today in animals like river dolphins🐬and saltwater crocodiles.🐊This study offers a new understanding of mosasaurs, revealing how they adapted to changing habitats.

This discovery also sheds light on the Earth’s changing environments. The Western Interior Seaway (WIS), where mosasaurs once thrived, gradually became more freshwater. As sea level dropped, rivers began dominating the basin, likely causing the formation of a halocline.

We found similar freshwater signatures in other mosasaur teeth from nearby, slightly older sites. This proves that mosasaurs were adapting to river environments during the final million years before their extinction. #Climatechange #Adaptation

The mosasaur tooth we found is big—belonging to a creature that could grow up to 11 meters long! That's the size of a bus! 🚍 An apex predator in rivers, not seas! #Giantrivermonster

Interestingly, the carbon isotopes suggest the mosasaur may have even fed on drowned dinosaurs! This adds a whole new layer to what we thought we knew about these apex predators. #Freshwatermosasaur

Analyses of oxygen, strontium, and carbon isotopes in the tooth enamel showed a clear freshwater signature. This mosasaur didn’t dive deep like its marine cousins but instead roamed river environments. #Adaptation #evolution

As Nathan van Vranken and @boydpaleo.bsky.social were describing the specimen, they invited me on board to analyse the tooth’s isotopes together with Suzan Warmerdam-Verdegaal, @perahlberg.bsky.social and Jeroen van der Lubbe. The results? This mosasaur lived in freshwater, not the sea! #Isotopes

In 2022, Trissa Shaw from @ndgspaleo.bsky.social found a huge mosasaur tooth in North Dakota, alongside fossils of a T. rex 🦖 and a crocodylian 🐊 . This discovery raised an intriguing question: what was a sea-dwelling mosasaur doing in a river? 🤔 #HellCreek #NorthDakota

Mosasaurs, the giant marine reptiles that roamed the Earth more than 66 million years ago, didn’t just live in the sea. Our new research shows that they could thrive in freshwater too! Let’s dive into what we’ve discovered. #Paleontology #Mosasaurs

In other news, a South African radio observatory has captured the first image of the Daemon-Sultan Azathoth, who bubbles and blasphemes at the centre of infinity: www.sarao.ac.za/media-releas...

In Stockholm for a wonderful concert of English renaissance music performed by a recorder consort. Then on to the atmospheric Christmas market in the Old Town:

In Paris, and able to visit the restored Notre Dame for the first time. Its survival was nothing short of a miracle - I watched the whole fire in real time on a hotel TV in Florence, hoping against hope that the vaults would hold and the windows survive. They did.

Three sharks are killed every second - Europe’s trade in shark meat is driving them toward extinction. Let’s ban shark products once and for all. Sign now! action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-11...

🧪 I am pleased to announce that I have been elected a Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Division of Earth Sciences.

Leicester has long been one of the leading universities nationally for palaeontology & geology - this would be a terrible loss, as would the loss of other subjects such as modern languages: www.change.org/p/save-geolo...

This morning, autumn presents a Yellow Window and a Red Window outside my kitchen.

Publication alert!🧪 Major new volume on early tetrapods and Carboniferous palaeoenvironments. The festschrift for Tim Smithson has just been published by Earth and Environmental Science Transactions of The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Most articles are open access. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Right now: aurora over my house!

Autumn in the garden. The pond vegetation is settling into tousled senescence, but behind it the giant Veronica vies with a self-seeded hazel for brightest autumn colour.

"President" Trump, speaking just now to the assembled generals of the US military, has just declared war on his own people (quotes from the Guardian's news feed): Talking about Democrat-led cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and LA: “They’re very unsafe places and

Out in the forest picking mushrooms today. Great success: porcini, hedgehog fungus, yellow chanterelles, funnel chanterelles…but now I have to clean them all.

Highly recommended! Hanna’s team is doing ground-breaking research, Stockholm is a lovely city, and a Swedish PhD position is very attractive - an actual job with paid holidays, sick leave, parental leave and pension rights.

Amazing TV coverage today of the church in the mining town of Kiruna in Lapland being moved to allow expansion of the mine. It will move 1.5 km at a slow walking pace. So far, everything is going well.

Approaching Drottningholm.

Today’s outing: by century-old steamer from Stockholm to Drottningholm Palace, there to see Telemann’s wonderful opera “Orpheus” at the 18th century court theatre.

Back in Uppsala, and at last this is turning into a descent butterfly summer! Lots of action in the garden today. Here's a small copper, Lycaena phlaeas, feeding on a coneflower.