Star Trek: The Next Generation, possibly the best television show ever, is not about spaceships shooting lasers at each other, it is about a man who represents the best of us trying to teach his robot son to be human while debating whether humans even deserve to exist with his best frenemy, God.

My long term strategy of not changing any of the clocks back finally is paying off.

This seems to be a wholely new form of the Drayson partitions. In this letter, the government and UKRI are saying that they are actively tensioning CERN costs against PPAN grants. This is completely different to what the Drayson partitions have been in the past.

Good piece by @malcfairbairn.bsky.social: "The STFC turmoil bodes ill for UK plc as well as UK physics" www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/stfc...

Why is "if you see nothing else this year, watch this" only four stars? How do you get five?

School bans Twilight & Terry Pratchett books. Their rationale / excuse (hidden at end of article)? "the school admits that the categorisations of the books were written using AI, writing: “Although the categorisation was generated using AI, I consider this classification to be broadly accurate.”"

Deus ex machina...

We're hosting a virtual town hall on 24 Mar, 3-4pm, where our CEO, Professor Sir Ian Chapman, will outline UKRI's upcoming five-year strategy & new mission. He'll be joined by an executive panel and a Q&A will follow. Registration closes 23 Mar, 5pm. Register here⬇️

I salute the pedantry of the child’s new toy.

The Science, Innovation & Tech committee have written the most amazing letter to DSIT/UKRI/STFC: "What is clear is that, despite your assertions to the contrary... widespread cuts have been proposed before adequate consultation with those affected was undertaken. This is wholly unacceptable" 💪🔭⚛️🧪

We have taken to singing this version of the song to the boy wonder www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOEk...

Does this also mean Goodwin has also lost his 'independent commentator' status? Even if he always has this partisan position, it's now official...

This was fun for a Sunday morning. I was okay up to and including 1300, 1200 had me stymied apart from the odd word though.

These cuts to physics research will be a disaster for UK scientists – and for our standing in the world www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

School really made Benelux out to be far more important than it has turned out to be in my life.

While 100% in support of vaccination (it saves lives) the text here is a bit "you wouldn't steal a car"

This is like men's razor blades all over again. Do we get six cheese macaroni next week?

Isn't it five? MacDonald, Atlee, Wilson, Blair, Starmer

So, if Miliband becomes PM do we get our free owl?

Academics on staff profile photo day

Signed. Thanks to all those who organised this.

it's unbelievable to me that someone could actually be a trillionaire. i think most of us have trouble internalizing how much money that truly is. let me put it in simple terms for you: a trillion dollars is three million dollars

Asking for a friend: it's okay to teach your baby how to sing the modern major general song from about four weeks, right?

Profoundly sad to read news of Roger Barlow's passing. A great physicist, educator and communicator, who lived by his principles and would share his wisdom with anyone who asked. The world is now a poorer place.

A rather grim read from the head of UKRI. Basically, the facilities run by STFC that support research across the UKRI's remit have become too expensive. Rather than cut those costs or spread the pain across research areas, the astro and particle physics unlucky enough to be in STFC gets slashed

Conclusion from the last two weeks: that statutory paternity leave is two weeks is a ridiculous position for our society.

Cat wandered in front of the camera during the #aurora long exposure

Almost certainly the best thing I was ever told about owls was when I met an owl handler at an owl sanctuary and he told me that the wild owls who lived near the sanctuary worried about the tame show owls there and sometimes stopped by to leave them shrews and mice as presents.

Brief life update: My son was born last week. A very proud father here, incredibly grateful to the entire team at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh. Emily and the boy wonder/Dauphin/etc continue to do very well.

I like the implication in these pictures that on the other 364 days of the year, the zoo has only the vaguest sense of how many lions it should have

Life Achievement: Driving Test passed

10% of profits from this special edition will be donated to Mermaids, a charity that works to support trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse young people in the UK. I'm very happy and excited about this one!

Well, the FIFA Peace Prize committee must be feeling very silly today.

Goodbye 2025! Welcome to 2026!

Early Christmas present from LHCb: the update of our B->K*mumu analysis using the full dataset recorded by the first iteration of our machine! Excitingly, we see significant deviations from Standard Model predictions - roughly '4 sigma' if you look at everything together. arxiv.org/abs/2512.18053

I have achieved peak Will: coffee + The Economist while I wait for 10am to buy some (alcohol-free) mulled wine thanks to Scotland's alcohol trading laws.

Happy Christmas everyone!

Really sad to read this - Robin is one of the kindest and funniest comedians out there. I hope my principles survive the way his have when they get tested.

I have broken the glass on the Xmas jumper!

Exeter City fans have a chant where they just sing the word “cider” to the tune of Amazing Grace. It might very well be the apex of English culture youtu.be/_fFocA4UsN0?...

Just noting that the wording of this includes people who speak Gaelic.

The wreath is up!

RIP the greatest British playwright of our time on.ft.com/4anfEQJ

This is true. It is the best email I got this year.

I'd like to see the response to this if the question added "if that that means universities have less money to spend on UK students".

Cricket: Absolutely awful. Great bowling got us out of a hole but you cannot rely on lightning striking twice. Aussies can work out how to play between innings in a way our lot seemingly can't. Lack of warm up matches an issue but also need to be able to think on the fly.

They're also responsible for one of the best emails I've ever received, when the college office sent out a plea for sightings of Professor Biscuit while conveniently forgetting to mention that he was a cat...(I won't comment on how often a similar email might have gone out about human Professors...)

If there's one cricket side in the world who can take the rough with the smooth, it's one captained by Steve Smith. But I guess sometimes you can't sand over the cracks.

Me waking up and digesting what a “Aus 0-1 (0.2 overs) Weatherald lbw b Archer 0” alert on my phone meant given the time it was sent