A friends daughter just asked me if I would marry her and her fiance. Apparently I’m the most sensible man she knows. When her brother was 4 I turned up to his birthday party with what turned out to be meningitis. I think we need some calibration on where the sensibility bar is

Testing last night’s creation, hedgerow jelly. Featuring foraged elderberries, sloes and blackberries. It’s even better than the cherry plum chutney!

The nature need report is paywalled, but the article itself isn't. Read it here: www.nature.com/articles/s41... this is the wildest thing I've read in a while...

Think I’m done with the @theguardian.com word wheel daily puzzles when today’s word list doesn’t include LICE or MICE.

Saw some nice fruit growing by the local field where I walk Herbie. Made cherry plum chutney, delicious

@puregym.bsky.social how long will I be waiting for the one leg extension machine at Crystal Peaks Sheffield tonight? Ten minutes so far. One of the busiest in the country, it’s not good enough

I count now 8 @theguardian.com articles on the Bezos/Sanchez wedding. Really? Do all weddings get this level of coverage?

For such critical materials, a whole variety of metals have quite precarious supply chains. From Congolese cobalt to various metals with (perhaps unexpected) military applications, supplies of technologically important materials are under serious strain www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/crit...

The @theguardian.com with possibly the worst collection of men's shoes ever organised in a single article. www.theguardian.com/thefilter/20...

Congrats to Maryam for her 1st author publication in J. Mater. Chem. A,showing that Si/Gr anodes can be used for more that just Li-ion batteries! Tuning the Si content allows for controlled Li deposition in Li metal batteries, unlocking higher energy density.🔋⚡ #battchat pubs.rsc.org/en/content/a...

I love the gentle persistence and the short video is a class piece of work www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Study highlights need for mentorship and more inclusive networks for First Gen chemists - like me! www.chemistryworld.com/news/first-g...

Next grant proposal is to investigate why my feet always hurt when I go to London. I wear the same shoes and socks all day every in Sheffield with no issues. I need answers.

Is it too much to ask for to have functional WiFi on a train in the UK in 2025? Yes. Apparently it is.

Excited to be in London for the Bright Minds Live event later this evening, championing the excellent research being done by PhDs at the University of Sheffield!

Red lightsabers, both of them. They know exactly what they are: pure evil.

That first sip of fresh coffee in the morning:

If @teamlabouruk.bsky.social want so badly to appease the right, why don’t they do something truly bold and stop the daft inclusion in immigration statistics of non-EU nationals coming to the UK for study. It would cut immigration immediately by 40% and support universities

No surprise Farage speaking a load of absolute crap on a subject he knows absolutely nothing about, as usual www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

To be fair I don't think 'don't drink from human skulls' was mentioned in my induction as an academic, but I've managed to wing it so far somehow.

Like when we’ve been making batteries on a hot day in the lab

This is Leo. And that’s a regular-sized tennis ball. He’d like to know when he’ll be big enough to catch it. 12/10 soon, buddy

Why are @theguardian.com making a story out of the US Ryder Cup captain telling his team to go out and 'kick their asses’? What do they think he’s gonna say? There’s literally no story here. He’s still gonna lose though

Those who said we didn't need the EU or a European defence force because we had NATO are now seeing that if you can't rely on the latter you'll need the former. For the millionth time: In a world of nationalistic superpowers, Europe is a strong EU or nothing. We should be in it.

Home after my umbilical hernia surgery. Sore, tired but happy and well.

If we the taxpayer are bailing out Thames Water for the tune of £3bn, we should own Thames Water. Not temporarily, not a bail out. Nationalisation now. End the madness.

I wrote a book. I go on about it a lot. It's called "Managing Your Mental Health During Your PhD: A Survival Guide". I promised myself it wouldn't just tell PhDs to "eat well" like that is a magic fix for poor supervision, uncertainty and/or research not going to plan, and I think I achieved that.

Lots of debate over whether Bellingham said ‘ F*** Off’ or ‘F*** You’ to the referee to get sent off. Maybe don’t say either.

Watching Match of the Day, gave up watching Bournemouth vs Liverpool because the refereeing was ridiculously biased to the point of frustration. Just give them the title. Bournemouth playing 12 men

Really enjoying Celebrity Bear Hunt… and is it the most low key neurodivergent TV show ever? Think all but three of the celebrities are either ADHD or autistic.

Finally gave up the fight and decided to quit Facebook. It’s hard, like a rejection of friends and family… but it’s not at all. I barely see anything from anyone I know, but just scroll through endless nonsense or right wing bile in the hope of a second of genuine connection.

What a fantastic rugby match at Twickenham, end to end, scrappy and entertaining. Great entertainment and a victory of growth for England

"It is impossible to be a top-line manager and administrator and mentor and researcher and writer and outreach officer and IT expert and online instructor and pedagogical innovator and recruiter and teacher and marker and external examiner and press pundit and grant bidder and editor."

Crikey - it's been a while and all three batteries I made look to be working. I'm more relieved than I ought to be!

University of Chicago is asking researchers to halt purchases, starting new experiments, and travel in light of the federal pause on grants

Excited to be keeping my hand in in the lab, making some coin cells myself for the first time in a while…

Diversity makes your science better, pass it on.

Anyone know whether the anti-EDI crackdown in the US is going to impact the inclusion work done by professional societies like IEEE or SPIE?

remember, the blitzkrieg is intended to make you feel like there is nothing you can do about it; that’s the only reason to go forward in this haphazard and sloppy manner all in the first week and the choice of that strategy tells you they are afraid you *will* do something about it

Someone in my household has a medical condition that means we need to use more water as a result. The WaterSure scheme makes sure we don’t pay more as a result. BBC Breakfast have yet another article on the winter fuel allowance this morning. Why isn’t there a similar scheme for gas/electric?

Sodium-ion can match lithium-ion; advances in recent years have really closed the gap, but lots to do yet. Also, the focus on resource costs is a bit of red herring as this makes only a small part of the end pack cost. Reducing the cost of battery manufacture is also essential

Always 💖 Don't make me tap the sign

Went to see We Live In Time, and wow that was great. Probably a 7/10 movie but the stellar performances of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield raise it to a whole new level. Extraordinary work from the two, and Lee Braithwaite shines too, and lovely to see Douglas Hodge not as amazing Velementov!

The University of Sheffield is offering 51 fully-funded PhDs in engineering, science and maths in collaboration with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for 2025 entry. www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate....

Tough week. Finally gave up on some research - had to accept that making something interesting wasn’t enough for a publication. The quality of data and analysis wasn’t acceptable, and so I had to put it to bed after months of wrangling and hand-wringing. Tough decision and personally painful

Think it’s fair to say that Sheffield City Council have utterly broken the traffic system in the city now. Every trip is a disaster forced onto the same handful of roads through the city