Darwin enjoying the sun

Fortunately my work is near Queens College, so occasionally I find time to chill

Excited to announce Physics of Living Matter 19! To be held in Cambridge 24-25th September 2026: www.plm-symposium.org

I lost my Mom to pancreatic cancer when she was 48. She lost her Mom (my grandmother) at 53. It’s a devastating disease that’s almost always diagnosed too late. Screening tools are woefully inadequate, so I can’t even go for regular testing to rule it out. This news gives me so much hope.

10 years ago today, @elisabethbik.bsky.social published a preprint heard around the world.

Two weeks to go! Please donate! Over 100 people will be walking the 9 Edges Challenge. Please donate so we can raise vital money for Oscar’s Pediatric Brain Tumour Charity.

Great news! #VaccinesWork www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Sure , I miss the teaching , the students , and the research, but the environment in academia is 🤢

Well , I got that off my chest didn’t I

Overall I wish I left university 15 years earlier. When you are inside you think everything is about success in university, absolutely everything. But when you are out it’s like getting out of a cult . There’s so much more to life than listening to a salesman scientist boasting about his H factor

Job hunting in middle age is scary but it’s possible to make all of that experience work for you

Older people can get jobs in a tech startup. I was 48 when I got my job in my first start up and 51 when I got my job in my 2nd . Academics have a huge amount of transferable skills , it’s all about how you present them in both your CVs and at interview

7) Both academia and startups can be stressful. However academia can be very bad for your mental health

6) People - academia is the most toxic environment I have ever encountered . Competition for money , space , students and promotion bring out a child like behaviour in some academics . Some very unpleasant people , usually in positions of power , as the system promotes such people

5) Excitement- working in a start up is exciting. University, exciting for the first few years until it grinds you down

4) Free time . Much more free time and better quality of life in startups . Ironically I only started having time to read scientific papers when I left academia . Quality of life has shot up since leaving academia

3) only having left academia after so many years do I realise how institutionalised I was. The job and university take over your life in every aspect and form part of your identity. Not healthy Startups , not the case at all

1) Job security- a big plus as a UK academic in a tenured position in an engineering department.. spent 18 years in same job , could have spent another 18 years there. Tech startups , change jobs every 1-3 years, v lucky if you get 4/5 years. Length of tenure dependent on runway

(1) Well, it’s been almost 3 years since I left my tenured position at Newcastle Uni for life in sustainable tech start ups and I have a few plusses and minuses for both academia and industry (obv n=1!) Anyone wanna hear whether I regret leaving academia after 20 years?

Our brains make new neurons from stem cells ... even when we're really really old! www.nature.com/articles/d41... Researchers @uicbios.bsky.social discovered lifelong #neurogenesis in human post-mortem hippocampi — young adults — aged adults — SuperAgers! #aging #health #science #longevity 🧪

When it comes to the brain's conservation of energy, practice makes perfect. Watch Dani Bassett's lecture on our brain's neural system function and its implications for health, disease and neural computation. Online now: youtu.be/7uGxRE7kmHI

This is my 2nd start up job, working on completely different systems in each company. All those skills I developed in academia have been very useful indeed.

I haven’t abandoned biology , soft matter , ageing , cancer research , and thermodynamics. I’m just keeping those on the down low while I navigate the excitement that is start up life.

New year new Job!!! Based in the heart of Cambridge (next to Parker’s Piece) I’m now a materials and process development manager at sustainable tech startup , Fab Materials.

Darwin on top Christmas form

Working through 3 months of gardening leave. It’s such a weird place of limbo. It gives me time to find a job or setup my company. It’s such a strange feeling having no job to go into in the morning.

We're looking for a new postdoc on our new BBSCR grant (Graham Taylor/Tim Guilford/Cait Newport). See link below! my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

Darwin on top form

Well here’s a life update !! I’ve resigned from my job in the sustainable tech startup . It was a good 2.5 years but time to move on. The question is what to do next . I mist likely will be starting up my own company!!

If replicated in humans this could revolutionise the treatment of Alzheimer’s www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Well it's been 2 years and 2 months since I left academia (after being in academia for 25 years!!). Start up life is pretty crazy but still infinitely less stressful than academia. I should have made the transition 15 years earlier!!

Home electronics projects are fun..next up a radio controlled car

I must be bored, I just typed in to Google “Karoline Leavitt, what does she do all day?”

Darwin on top form

Roses in the new old house

I’ve just discovered Toast of London

A cheeky question to anyone working on photovoltaics out there. Is is relatively straightforward to build an Arduino based device for measuring the efficiency (I-V curves) of a dye sensitised solar cell?

The UK’s Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) is funding Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) projects including thickening Arctic sea ice to make it more reflective, Marine Cloud Brightening (MCB) and Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI).

Returned to Newcastle last week for some business meetings. It was so strange being back after 2 years away. The new Engineering building looks quite fancy…

Wow , it looks like Harvard is gonna be destroyed. Are we living in a nightmare?

Just a little update for the busy, from the world of science: 1) There's no life on K2-18b 2) Vaccines cause adults 3) They are not Dire Wolves Carry on.

If you want to read one more dire wolf take this week, i can thoroughly recommend @maxhenrybarnhart.bsky.social's deep dive on what scientists make of the announcement, just why it broke like it did, and what that means for conservation work more broadly. @cenmag.bsky.social 🧪

At Cambridge University today , meetings in Chemical Engineering. Can feel the intense brainwaves radiating from the Cavendish lab

Darwin and his friend Baxter

each year @newlimitbio.bsky.social, we share an update on our progress with the public this week, we revealed the early results from our programs in metabolism & immunology. we’re starting to see the first hints of reprogramming medicines on the horizon. watch here: m.youtube.com/watch?v=HR0-...

I'm probably getting fired.

Hmm somehow ended up at Imperial College today !! Looks quite fancy these days

This guy, @albertburneko.bsky.social, is a genius. Please read his brilliant article on Elon Musk's deranged and morally repugnant Mars colonisation schtick. defector.com/neither-elon...

How the Royal Society has any association with the Nazi conman Elon Musk is beyond belief. The Royal Society is a disgrace to scientists in the UK.