Our latest: Theoretical morphospace reveals mixed optimisation of the avian wing planform for flight style - the work of Benton Walters, with very little help from myself and @emilyrayfield.bsky.social

Ok this one is my favorite

So, if the ball, delivered by the bowler, not being a Wide, passes the striker without touching his/her bat or person, any runs completed by the batters from that delivery, or a boundary allowance, shall be credited as Byes to the batting side.

The first review of The Story of Birds is out, in today's @theguardian.com! 'Charismatic…The Story of Birds swoops through the incredible journey of avian-kind, revealing how small cousins of Velociraptors gave rise to the panoply of birdlife around us today.' www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

Curiosity _ some pictures of Navcam R _ sky and clouds on Mars - From 2di7 & titanio44 - https://flic.kr/p/2g4ZVnM

viking (3) - From Jacint Roger (landru79.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2iKVSej

NASA Mars Perseverance Rover Sol 1,835 (19th April, 2026) The view west-south-west of the rover MastCam-Z (L) @ ~10:22 lmst S/D: 087/4184 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Credits: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS / Martian-Observer

Phobos Over Mars - Tharsis, Valles Marineris and a Dust Storm - ESA Mars Express 300MP - From Andrea Luck (andrealuck.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2rMW4so

Perseverance_sol2_NCR_5 - From Thomas Appéré (thomasappere.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2kE4wVA

A wild thread: 490 million years ago, the seafloor which would become the city of Baltimore was a serpentinite-hosted hydrothermal vent complex. Those vents laid the ultramafic structures that would, in 1812, be discovered as America's first chromite mine.

Did Mars once have a vast ocean? This new paper reports a topographic signature of a planet-girdling coastal shelf. This is a new and clearer signal than we saw previously from the deltas and possible shoreline deposits. Very exciting.

Not generally a Labour supporter but I don’t think Starmer should resign. He is a good and honest public servant and the best prime minister we have had in a long time.

Humanity did that. Science did that. Publicly-funded research did that. Excellent universities did that. Diversity did that. International cooperation did that. Artemis II is a perfect example of what we can do at our best. Welcome home, Integrity crew!

Feels relevant #Artemis

It’s been a big week! Another new paper out in Palaios describing some awesome silicified cyanobacteria fossils and their taphonomic history. #fossils #cyanobacteria #cambrian doi.org/10.2110/palo...

the thing about a publicly funded space program is that you get to be represented by these people as opposed to, say, Jeff Bezos's second wife

This might be one of my favorites from Artemis II. A cinematic alignment of the Moon and Earth, each cradled within the warmth of sunbeams. Taken from behind the Moon on April 6th. flic.kr/p/2s6BABn

Anyone else getting strong Croesus-at-the-Oracle-of-Delphi vibes from this statement?

This is the face of a lunar scientist who has just been told that the #Artemis II crew saw SEVERAL impact flashes (the flashes when meteors hit the lunar surface) in real time 😃 🌓💥

This shit again.

Away we go! — and what care we For treasons, tumults, and for wars? We are as calm in our delight As is the crescent-Moon so bright Among the scattered stars (William Wordsworth, "Peter Bell", 1798)

Then vs now. Such a shame.

‼️🚨 Job Alert ‼️ 🚨 Two Post Doc Opportunities: PDRA in Macroecology / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... PDRA in Extinction & Conservation / Paleobiology my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru... Any questions, please get in touch! Closing date May 1st.

I enjoyed this unusually literary bit of marketing from my university with @mckeever.bsky.social

Ever wonder where the science landed on bio-signatures on exoplanets? Our @oxfordphysics.bsky.social colleague @astrojake.bsky.social has written up a succinct summary of the drama and what the latest paper adds. It's a good read! astrojake.substack.com/p/the-k2-18b... 🔭🧪 #planetsci

A new 225-meter (740-foot) crater appeared on the Moon while nobody was looking. NASA's lunar orbiter imaged the dramatic aftermath. Such large impacts are once-in-a-century events. This one happened in the spring of 2024. 🔭🧪 www.sciencenews.org/article/moon...

Is it a giant wooden horse

This is... not going to happen

Desert varnish on Mars?

The US is no longer a liberal democracy, according to the top global watchdog on freedom and democracy. We're falling fast, and are now classed the same as Guatemala, Colombia, and Peru www.v-dem.net/documents/75...

it just occurred to me that let there be light was the first prompt

The Mars Sample Return program - cancelled by the US because of cost overruns - was cheaper than this. Humanity could have brought home the most promising potential signs of life ever found beyond Earth. I guess one way or another we are learning who we are.

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends. It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

🚨Lectureship vacancy in Planetary Science at UCL/Mullard!

No asteroid impact into the Moon?

”…meaning does not just sit in a literary text like a prize at the bottom of a cereal box”. AI makes the humanities more necessary than ever. www.publicbooks.org/aib/

Glob-glob! Absolutely magical sea anemone larva (about 7 mm) from The Lombok Strait, Indonesia 🇮🇩

Sup chat this is Slouching Towards Bethlehem with your boy The Rough Beast, and it looks like today’s stream could be a big one, as some of you might’ve already seen there are rumors going around social media that the hour has come round at last, so we’re gonna get right into it

The Palaeontological Association has written to the President of the University of Leicester, requesting that the concerns of the PhD community over the planned redundancy of their supervisors are addressed. [1/3]

Excellent explainer

Quite rare to see a chart that says quite so overtly that no one involved has the slightest clue what’s happening here

So proud of my @theukca.bsky.social PhD student @astr0mia.bsky.social for her public engagement award! Check out our Tartan Tardigrade podcast that Mia hosts: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Today for #FossilFriday a lovely example of science in action: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... A bunch of us described structures in 2017 that we interpreted as very small burrows. This great new paper describes new material, and throws an impressive range of analytical / ⚒️🧪🦀🦑 #evosky

Perseverance celebrates 5 years on Mars! This is a painting of the day Ingenuity unfolded (rip 🥲🚁) #space #astronomy 🔭🧪🐡

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes! "Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

A new article in the journal Astrobiology argues that high concentrations of organics in a rock on Mars cannot presently be explained non-biologically. It's an interesting and valuable paper, but I think a bit one-sided because... science.nasa.gov/blogs/scienc...

sigh