Time for another science carol! 🎄 Some researchers stuck a duck to a rock, so we sang a song about it. As you do!

'Tis the season for some festive science songs. If you've ever wanted to hear someone sing about a dimunitive tyranosaur then now is your chance

In a gear change from my last few stories...by acting as a "mechanical fuse" this simple little slipknot, added to surgical thread, can radically improve how surgeons perform sutures & lead to better outcomes A lovely intersection of mechanics, geometry and medicine 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Did you know there's lightning on Mars? There is! At least very small versions of it. AND YOU CAN HEAR IT. For more, check out my latest podcast for @nature.com

A very cool story by my colleague @lizziegibney.bsky.social about how some quirky physics of knots could help make surgery better!

About that exclusive, "closed-to-press" MAHA summit last week with RFK and JD Vance: I got in. Here's what I saw. 🧵 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Do you wanna see a robot pick up a weird squishy bug? I may have just the video for you... youtu.be/FHW6eKvtcBw

Anyway, we need some joy, so here's the Egyptian foreign minister being given a Lego Pyramid by the Danish foreign minister.

A halloween cartoon for @newscientist.com

Is Nanotyrannus a baby T. rex, or is it its own species? @shamini.bsky.social has been finding out!

Bowhead whales live a really long time! We may now know why. My latest for @nature.com

Nature is hiring a new Multimedia Editor, so if you want to work with me then this is a great opportunity. Who could say no to that? It's for verticals, so if you know your Toks from your Tiks, your ring lights from your Reels, and your shoots from your Shorts, then this might be the job for you!

Highly recommend, we're fun! Also a great chance to cover cool science.

Want some GOOD news, for once? This article will leave you feeling happy end positive about the future

I am honoured.

It's a very good moustache. You'll have to watch to see it.

No mice were devoured in the writing of this headline (or in this research for that matter).

Proof that climate change is real and horrible: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Fewer grad students means less science, but many STEM PhD programs in the US are cutting back on admissions this year due to federal funding uncertainties. Words by me for @nature.com: www.nature.com/articles/d41... @emsque.bsky.social @ucsdcooperlab.bsky.social @julieposselt.bsky.social 🧪

Astonishing when you see it like this.

Great new film from @nature.com youtu.be/BGT7kuaruZY?... @shamini.bsky.social and @nickpetrichowe.bsky.social knocked this one out of the park

Super close race in the technology Lovies category this year. Go and and give @nickpetrichowe.bsky.social a vote, and watch his excellent film on the AI surveillance pipeline while you're there vote.lovieawards.com/PublicVoting...

Here's a T. Rex bored to death trying to bite their own tail. My partner asked me to animate it in stop motion, after she watched a video about the very important topic of "could T. Rex chew its own tail like a dog". The puppet is still a work in progress 🦖

You've probably heard how a high percentage of #Nobel laureates are immigrants. The US in particular has benefited from the influx of bright minds. @jennaahart.bsky.social ran the data for this century's Nobel prizewinners — and shows more than 30% immigrated. 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

BREAKING: The Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis "for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit" Stay tuned for more.

I may have found my defining quote. Pair this with my pinned post and you will see what I mean!

Really cool story - bird species from across the world make the same sound to warn against cuckoos, and they can even understand each other. Feeds into ideas Darwin had about the origin of language! www.newscientist.com/article/2498...

my gosh. truly an end of an era.

On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read

I've been a bit rubbish at the ol' social media recently, as I've been making lots of cool things. A short thread.

This is just incredible. Someone made not just a computer, but an *entire working LLM* out of (438 million) minecraft blocks www.tomshardware.com/tech-industr...

I'm on @nature.com's podcast talking to @nickpetrichowe.bsky.social about the role that journalists can play in combating research misconduct. Honored to appear alongside @jamesheathers.bsky.social, @abalkina.bsky.social, @richvn.bsky.social and many others: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I'm a deeply flawed individual, but I bring joy to the world.

Fusion energy has got a boost from some chemistry inspired by the controversial case of cold fusion! By using electrochemistry to trap deuterium in palladium, researchers boosted fusion rates by 15%. Hear about it here @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Light-powered flying saucers, Victorian toys, and @danjfox.bsky.social animations. This video has it all! And they could help understand a weird part of the atmosphere known as the mesosphere, that's too thin for balloons and too heavy for satellites.

Me: I don't think I have much of an accent anymore. The internet:

So fun to be featured on this week’s @naturepodcast.bsky.social talking about the tree microbiome and could not be more thrilled to be following a story on rubber ducks.

If you're gonna test our your new sticky hydrogel then sticking a rubber duck to a rock must be in the top 10 best ways to do it.

I covered this on the podcast, but it really warrants seeing!

Researchers are trialling all sorts of inventive ways to root out errors. Scientists are human. So, sometimes mistakes slip through the cracks. To make science as robust as possible, though, they've created all sorts of methods to seal those cracks. I explore these in a new @nature.com podcast.

A fossil floppy flipper that made a mega-predator into a stealthy submarine. We've got a video for that @nature.com youtube.com/shorts/XAXEO...

Tired? Well that sleepy feeling may be driven by 'leaky' mitochondria, according to a new study. I spoke to Gero Miesenboeck from @ox.ac.uk for @nature.com all about the new study. It's here on the Nature Podcast at 12:11:

Researchers have hidden messages in their papers in an attempt to trick AI peer reviewers! @lizziegibney.bsky.social told me all about it for a quick video for @nature.com youtube.com/shorts/WvamK...

My email is just one person after another emailing to tell colleagues that they are leaving NASA. I’m so sad and angry it’s honestly hard to function.

Wild.

“If you cut out these diversity measures, you're going to make science full of people that are very elite…Full of people who have grown up with a large amount of privilege, who were able to work in a lab in high school because their dad was a prof at Cornell.” 🧪 www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/u...

And people say there's no good advice on LinkedIn

Do we grow new brain cells in adulthood? Yes, according to evidence that provides a "missing link" in one of neuroscience's biggest controversies. www.newscientist.com/article/2486...

Coming soon to a dystopia near you: celebrated works of fiction stripped of all style and panache.

Great new @nature.com documentary from @nickpetrichowe.bsky.social and @shamini.bsky.social (with some animations by me). How much machine-vision research is actually surveillance research? Quite a bit. youtu.be/g9JtlX4mlSc