...you should read Dr. Barry's book on her mind-blowing journey into three dimensions, so you can understand it in her own words and from a professional neuroscientist's perspective: www.hachette.co.uk/titles/olive... Thanks for reading. Also? YOUR brain is amazing. Look after it.

"Dead as a doornail" dates back to at least Shakespeare, who used it in "Henry IV Part 2: Falstaff Boogaloo" (1596). By the time of Charles Dickens' "Christmas Carol" (1843), the idiom was well-worn, so that the narrator ponders what the phrase even means. What the heck even IS a 'doornail'?

Neuroscientist Dr Susan Barry has just been asked a very odd question: “Do you think you can imagine what it's like to see the world with 2 eyes?” Her reply: “Yes, of course. I'm a college professor, I teach about it in class. I think I know exactly what it is I'm missing.” She's dead wrong. 1/

Neuroscientist Dr Susan Barry has just been asked a very odd question: “Do you think you can imagine what it's like to see the world with 2 eyes?” Her reply: “Yes, of course. I'm a college professor, I teach about it in class. I think I know exactly what it is I'm missing.” She's dead wrong. 1/

AI Overviews seem about as reliable as that red-faced, bulging-eyed bloke you meet at the pub half an hour before closing-time who then proceeds to super-confidently assert the most unfathomably wibble-brained bollocks you've ever heard in your life.

When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions

Setting aside the bad science, the message here is that pregnant women should suffer--and risk harming their fetus with untreated fever--to reduce their chance of having a child with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Which makes clear his disdain for women *and* people with ASD. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Reconstructing animals from their fossilized remains requires meticulous artistry and scientific rigour. What was done to bones partly of a woolly rhinoceros discovered in Germany in 1663 arguably involved neither. Behold the 'Magdeburg Unicorn' in all its tea-spitting glory. (Yes, it's real.)

If you don't know the story, basically Horniman bought the skin in the 1880s and unfortunately the taxidermist had never seen one so didn't quite know when to stop stuffing, it looks like it's about to explode.

Why some Bay Area residents woke up moments before Monday morning's earthquake www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

UPDATE: here's an earthquake scientist's breakdown on the Berkeley, CA quake today: earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/m43-earthq...

Just saw this on Threads:

Yikes. Stay safe, folks. And keep an eye on earthquakeinsights.substack.com over the next 24 hrs - they're really good at unpacking this stuff and I'm sure they're already on it.

"Social media is so awful", blah blah gripe. Okay. But do you know the story of how this wonderful award-winning SF book won the sales jackpot for the second time? Gather round, kids, if you want reminding how wonderfully good things can happen in this world. 1/

In my latest newsletter, a man climbs on a power-line, an asteroid the size of York Minster hits the North Sea, a bear poses for a glamour photoshoot & 6,000 planets appear out of nowhere - and that’s before the paywall. It’s certainly been a week. everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/these-four...

If you’re canceling subscription services with giant companies with ties to terrible people, you should think about replacing them with a library card. Many library systems give you access to physical media (some of which you can’t find on streaming!) as well as other great stuff.

I really feel this so much. Despair doesn't make you fight, it makes you curl into a ball, & makes you bitter and cynical. (Anhedonia might be the opposite of curiosity.) Yes, so much is enragingly awful. But there's something behind it. Something worth returning to - with hope as a signpost.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST LET US HAVE A FEW MOMENTS OF HOPE Do y’all not understand how hope is active? How it is motivating? How it drives people to fight? If you try to stamp out every last ray of hope and every good moment and every tiny bit of happiness you have truly doomed us all.

A group of youth climate researchers affiliated with UC Davis is trying to fix climate models to correct for fossil fuel industry propaganda that has snuck its way in. But... of course their funding was just cut. :( So they're doing a GoFundMe. www.gofundme.com/f/support-Ba...

I’m one of the readers driving the 2nd sales jackpot. Bought it this summer and absolutely adored it! Yay for something good coming from social media.

Lots of great media pouring in as Sun Day hits high noon on the west coast! www.commondreams.org/news/celebra...

"Social media is so awful", blah blah gripe. Okay. But do you know the story of how this wonderful award-winning SF book won the sales jackpot for the second time? Gather round, kids, if you want reminding how wonderfully good things can happen in this world. 1/

“What’s underrepresented in your communities will be underrepresented in your life and overrepresented in your imagination.” - Mónica Guzmán, "I Never Thought Of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations In Dangerously Divided Times" (2022).

I'm very grateful to environmental scientist Sam Matey-Coste showing me these Our World In Data charts when we had a chat recently. (sammatey.substack.com/p/a-conversa...) Yes, so much is a worrying, enraging mess right now. But the bigger picture is a little more reassuring.

I'm very grateful to environmental scientist Sam Matey-Coste showing me these Our World In Data charts when we had a chat recently. (sammatey.substack.com/p/a-conversa...) Yes, so much is a worrying, enraging mess right now. But the bigger picture is a little more reassuring.

Thank you so much. :) Yes, for anyone curious about the game: it's still very much around, its Sandbox version is fully complete and mindbogglingly huge now with some truly massive regions (see fan-made map below) - and the Story mode, called Wintermute, is awaiting its final wrap-up chapter.

“What’s underrepresented in your communities will be underrepresented in your life and overrepresented in your imagination.” - Mónica Guzmán, "I Never Thought Of It That Way: How To Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations In Dangerously Divided Times" (2022).

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

The best video games have a story, and the best stories say a lot more than just the plot. That game looks amazing. And I love that it is set in Canada.

Even now, videogames sometimes get looked down upon as dumb, trivial ways to spend your time. So here's a very personal example of how a videogame recently helped me get through the toughest period of my life, in a way I never expected. Bear with me. (Especially if you hate videogames.) 1/

The collective noun for flamingoes is "flamboyance". There - you can go have a slightly nicer day now. (Pic: unsplash.com/photos/25Jxl...)

And this is Batman's Aff His Nut by Robert Florence, which, in my opinion, is easily the greatest Scottish poem ever written about Batman...

If you're in London today (Sat 20th), don't miss the spectacle that is the Great River Race! This historic race is a fabulous way to see all sorts of traditional (from many traditions) boats - skiffs, coracles, gigs & more - race through central London. You can keep up here: greatriverrace.org.u...

I suspect this is the thing that finally gets me cancelled, but: I'm (hopefully temporarily) giving up coffee because of the acidity, and Barleycup is proving a really satisfying alternative: a cereal drink, zero caffeine, tastes pretty much like a latte if you add milk. *waits to be destroyed*

After the slow ravages of rising seas, was anyone still living in the now-islands of Doggerland on this day? Unclear! cambridge.org/core/journal... But it's a safe bet there were many people along coastlines, perhaps in settlements like Star Carr. Very, *very* bad news for them. 13/

NO. (ok, read this thread. ... and then have nightmares)

UPDATE: when Mesolithic people roamed this now-drowned landscape, they should have been able to see a 2-mile-wide crater - and this seems to be the cause of it: www.theguardian.com/science/2025... Wow! (Hat-tip to @mytholder.bsky.social).

New Doggerland lore just dropped.

People often ask me "Why for pity's sake have you ended up like THAT, Mike?" I just send them a link to this video from the BBC, filmed a few years after I was born: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZWH... My point is, I could be a lot worse.

Update! A gorgeous (and very cold-looking) example here from @antilinguist.bsky.social : bsky.app/profile/anti...

Absolutely relish posts like this!

In January of 2021, photos started bouncing round the internet of this deeply weird thing happening in the sky above Glasgow, Scotland. Photoshop trickery? The bizarre truth: - yes, everyone really saw these - no, they're not faked or manmade - they absolutely don't exist. 1/

nobody told me my debut was on the BOGO list at libro FM - that's two books for one credit! - until I saw it shopping THE LAST DAY OF THE SALE HURRY GO GO GO (I earned out on that audiobook - every cent of royalties goes straight to meeeee!)

People often ask me "Why for pity's sake have you ended up like THAT, Mike?" I just send them a link to this video from the BBC, filmed a few years after I was born: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZWH... My point is, I could be a lot worse.

On this day in 19**, I took my teenage diary, which contained my unfiltered yearnings about one very special girl from school (who tragically continued to ignore me), & decided to hide the evidence by burning it. I was a teenager. I knew what I was doing. Nothing could *possibly* go wrong. 1/

This is also on point: bsky.app/profile/benc... But also, invest in hobbyists whose work fills you with joy! Pay for things that make you feel stuff other than rage & despair. (Take the amazing Lin Gouer, fixing machinery to pay off her student loan: www.thenanjinger.com/news/nationa...) 3/

This thread and the post that prompted it. I think we're going to move to a curated internet experience. It's what X, FB and others algorithms are doing already for social media but there needs to be alternate channels where other, more handcrafted, sources highlight content across ther web.

I did another one of my threads! And it's, erm - horrifying. You're welcome/warned. 🌊🌀😬

Since I'm seeing a flood of folk cancelling various subscriptions right now - it's also maybe a great time to divert a bit of that money towards publications & independent voices doing great work? The longest continuously published magazine in the US is a good pick: www.scientificamerican.com 1/

Since I'm seeing a flood of folk cancelling various subscriptions right now - it's also maybe a great time to divert a bit of that money towards publications & independent voices doing great work? The longest continuously published magazine in the US is a good pick: www.scientificamerican.com 1/