Big (moon) if true!

It was a great pleasure this week to welcome renowned astrobiologist Dr Frances Westall back to her alma mater @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social to receive the honorary DSc degree in recognition of her many contributions to astrobiology (Photographs by www.andrewperry.co.uk).

Looking forward to this important @cdbu.bsky.social event and very grateful to my MP @ianmurraymp.bsky.social for booking a room for us in parliament.

My friend Alex Liu is offering TWO postdoc positions in #paleontology and #sedimentology at Cambridge focused on some spectacular new Ediacaran-age localities in southern Namibia... www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc... www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/researc...

Amazing.

‼️New PhD project in Edinburgh: "Animals, traits, and oxygen in the Ediacaran Nama Group, Namibia". Supervised by Rachel Wood (Amelia Penny and I co-supervising) — big UK+Namibian team — help us understand early animal evolution! Apply by Dec 14th #paleontology e5-dtp.ed.ac.uk/project?item...

A university without arts and languages is not a university.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

Why is life the way it is? It was a pleasure to share a stage with Nick Lane, @mamaphysikerin.bsky.social, and Cait MacPhee yesterday evening for the @royalsoced.bsky.social seminar event preceding Nick Lane's Gifford Lecture. You can watch the recording here: #astrobiology #evolution #biochemistry

Congratulations to Ruby Allen-Brown for winning the UKCA-Harding Essay Prize 2025. You can read Ruby's winning entry at: www.astrobiology.ac.uk/opportunitie...

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

So often universities are spoken about in instrumental language: as institutions that confer skills and training, and as engines of economic growth. Universities are both these things of course...

What a beaut!

A mere 4 million years after an asteroid slammed into what is now Lake Lappajärvi 🇫🇮, microbes showed up to colonize the place.

Yet more lay-offs at JPL. MAGA = Making America Geocentric Again?

Ordovician Star Cluster 8/17 24" X 20" Colored Pencil on Paper #sciart #gawoski #fossil

Really nice to see my work with Peter Vickers, Cyrille Jeancolas, Cat Gillen, and others make the cover of Sciences et Avenir :-). You can read the original paper here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Farewell to the NASA we knew, and to all the employees that made America the great place it was for so many decades. From here on out, things will never be the same." Just heartbreaking. bigthink.com/starts-with-...

Today's Defenders Day in Ukraine. Our defenders are addressing the world to remind everyone what Ukraine is fighting for: a safe childhood for children, peaceful land, internationally recognized borders, justice for every innocent victim, and a free, independent Europe. Thank you, Heroes!

Another great study from Khawaja and colleagues. www.nature.com/articles/s41.... Tantalising clues here that Enceladus might actually be doing stuff, not just spitting out the same comet-like organic molecules it contained when it formed. But more data needed! #astrobiology #originoflife

I am once again asking NASA to find a way of launching Trump into the Sun. He'll finally get the tan he's always wanted.

Beautiful #Ediacaran fossil light on the E surface at Mistaken Point 🤩

We are pleased to share this letter written by one of our members, Professor Leo McCann 👏https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/16/how-ai-is-undermining-learning-and-teaching-in-universities

We are pleased to publish our Position on the Unsustainability of UK University Funding Models. Visit our website to read it in full:

If this plan is implemented, it will cripple British universities and health care, and tear apart families. All 'skilled' immigrants will require £60k salary & cannot use NHS. Permanent residence will be scrapped entirely. Citizenship made insanely hard. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

New Paper by Parry et al., reinterpreting the oldest diverse #jellyfish fauna as sessile polypoid dinomischids 🪼 These findings significantly expand the temporal and geographical range of dinomischids, elucidating their morphological and taphonomic variation. buff.ly/ERV7P3C #PaleoSky #Fossils

For those in UK #academia, please give @cdbu.bsky.social a follow and think about joining us. CDBU's work to influence UK university policy and governance on behalf of academic values is very much needed in the present polycrisis. For some reason we never got much attention on Twitter... cdbu.org.uk

New paper led by my PhD student, Edwin Rodriguez! Building on previous work, we present a systematic description of the ONE BILLION YEAR OLD fossils of the phosphates of the Diabaig Formation, NW Scotland — including some early eukaryotes and new species... #paleontology #fossils #geology

Just discovered this absolute gem of a time-saver. Thanks @anboa4.bsky.social!

Ambiguous evidence for possible biosignatures on Mars, you say? Who could have anticipated such a thing?! www.lyellcollection.org/doi/full/10....

We observed the habitable zone planet TRAPPIST-1e with JWST to search for an atmosphere. You've seen the headlines, now let's dive into the science! 🧪 THREAD (1/N) #Exoplanets 🔭

Everyone writing about Perseverance today should be asking how many of the scientists and engineers who were involved in this discovery no longer work for NASA bc of Trump.

My take on the exciting new Nature paper out today. Key point: in astrobiology, the lack of a non-biological explanation isn’t where life detection ends – it’s where it begins. When we can’t think of a non-biological explanation for something, it’s usually not because there isn’t one...

The Type IV secretion system is a complex bacterial structure that extends across the inner and outer membranes

Nice gift "Plate Tectonics Flip Book" from the author Ch. Scotese to our tectonist J. Lazauskienė 😀

I'm on strike this week for the first time. Such a shame that a great university like @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social has fallen into the hands of grossly overpaid executives with zero credibility in matters of financial prudence. Our brilliant students and staff deserve much better. Thanks @ucu.org.uk

Want to study an MSc in astrobiology and planetary sciences? Come to Edinburgh!

Led By Donkeys have got Fartrage's number.

"…Paleontology, a science seemingly immersed in the depths of the planet, serves as a window to the cosmos, through which we will learn to see the patterns of the history of life and the emergence of thinking beings." —Ivan A. Efremov 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio

Hey Jurassic World fans: if you want a behind-the-scenes glimpse at movie props and art, and a 'class' on the real dinosaurs in the film 'taught' by yours truly, then check out: JW REBIRTH DINO SCHOOL! In the extended extras, streaming now, details👇

More of the same from Edinburgh University Nothing screams ‘financial crisis’ like a VC on £420k salary paired with a redundancy scheme Still £24m was saved through frozen promotions & severance — enough to keep senior management's pay deals nicely cushioned www.holyrood.com/news/view,ed...

I really like this new paper by Rust and McCoy. Bottom line: life-histories and ecologies can influence how organisms preserve as fossils as much as traditional taphonomic factors like decay-resistance. Resin-harvesting ants are more likely to get stuck in amber... #paleontology #FossilFriday

Contact (1997) played tonight at the UK Centre for Astrobiology's monthly film night. Third or fourth time I've seen it... but so few movies capture the wonder, emotion, and excitement of science and exploration this well. There's a bit of Jodie Foster's Ellie Arroway in every scientist I know.

Looking forward to the final dissertation talks by Edinburgh's MSc Astrobiology and Planetary Sciences students tomorrow and then the celebration afterwards. It has been such a pleasure and privilege to teach these brilliant young scientists. You can hear about some of their adventures here:

HiPOD: Streamers of Frost This image of Penticton Crater shows streamers of seasonal carbon dioxide ice (dry ice) only remaining in places in the terrain that are still partially in the shade. More: uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_06... NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona #Mars #science #NASA

Discovered this album today. Just gorgeous.

„Such censorship of scientists has been attempted by failed governments of the past such as Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and early communist China, always with disastrous consequences for their citizens.“ Watching MAGA-US sleepwalking into disaster. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

Turns out studying philosophy is actually valuable. Philosophy majors don’t just argue well, they actually become better thinkers and do better on tests. Data from 600k students shows they outscore every other major on reasoning, curiosity and open-mindedness.

this iconic advertising copywriter named Kathy Hepinstall Parks died over the weekend and I wanted to share something from her website I thought Bluesky would like