I feel so bad for the proper children’s TV producers who now have to compete with the utter dross that is available for children on YouTube.

Today, ecologist Matias Hernandez and I found THIS! A gigantic desert hyacinth (Cistanche phelypaea) like a sunbeam in the sand. To see a specimen like this in full bloom is magic💫

“The U.S. government just banned five people from entering the country because it doesn’t like their speech. This ban, according to the State Department, is necessary to protect free speech. If that sounds insane to you, congratulations on your reading comprehension.” Via @mmasnick.bsky.social

More graffiti in Florence Italy. This was on the outside wall of the Leonardo DaVinci Art school.

This photosynthetic magic trick allows for the big finale: some sacoglossan sea slugs can detach their own heads from their body (which contains the gut!) & live on photosynthesis for a few weeks while the body regrows from the head! The body, unfortunately, cannot grow a new head.

I mean, it's also frickin' adorable. Two eyespots & two sensory stalks called 'rhinophores' resemble a sheep's face. But those 'tentacles' sticking up ('cerata') are lined with specialized cells capable of harnessing ingested algae chloroplasts, a process called "kleptoplasty" ('klepto-'=to steal)

I can't get over those cartoon eyes. Those delicate, translucent 'leaves' (cerata, as I've learned). Those supernatural, otherworldly vibes. That Pixar-cum-Ghibli creature appearance... And eyes drawn by Gary Larson. I can't.

It’s only going to get worse…

US judge blocks Trump administration from deporting UK anti-disinformation campaigner

We laugh at Liz Truss, but she has become a monster.

They’re calling it the least suspicious Trump post of all time

Biting into a cookie, expecting chocolate chip and getting raisin instead.

Oh, hey, that's my article.

Being nice and normal is an act of rebellion against the government now. They can't stand it. They're the angry guy from the meme

Butchers. #SlavaUkraini #NAFO #WeStandWithUkraine

I have really good news: if you do something you are afraid of, that is courage.

I think the craziest thing about Epstein is that he didn’t live long enough to get pardoned

i just did it all scared

Things clearly looking up for Labour... Starmer may want to bring his planned May 'reset' forward. It's been weeks and weeks since the last one!

I don't think most Americans have any idea how dangerous it is for a president to declare an entire ethnic group to be "garbage." This is how the worst atrocities in human history have begun.

Kluddniklas

Denmark lost more troops per capita in the post 9/11 war on Afghanistan. Saying they “are not a good ally” because they won’t surrender their territories to the US is lunacy. We are betraying our allies to satisfy the whims of a would-be Emperor for whom the US is not enough.

A gorgeously-written book about wolves & caribou & cold and warming & indigeneity & how to ask questions & when not to & how to see loss & how to witness the beautiful. I knew Neil just a bit years ago, & know his brilliant prose, too hidden, I thought, in Nat Geo. Here is the work unfiltered.

White House administration unveils designs for the world's first all-marble battleship.

Fact | You can't write something predicated in the utterly ludicrous assumption that white men are being excluded from publishing unless you are racist.

Two people died in 2025 whose work broadened the ways I could perceive the world - Jane Goodall and Martin Parr

Such patronising guff - “all the rural people want is to lick off a little of the muddy fox blood from the master of the hunt’s riding boots before offering their youngest daughter to a Freemason dressed as a sex beagle”

This place never fails to amaze - The Temple of Jupiter in Dougga, Tunisia, built ~166 AD! How is this still standing, after so many years!? 🙋‍♂️ Me for scale! #RomanSiteSaturday #archaeology #photooftheday 🏺

The Telegraph having a perfectly normal one this Boxing Day I see I’m pretty sure most people can manage a walk in the country without ripping foxes limb from limb by ‘accident’

It’s classic baiting. If you respond critically, you’ll be painted as anti-Christian. If you don’t respond, the Overton window will have been shifted that much further to the right.

When a leader becomes so weak & unstable, lies need to be amplified even more. Without them his cult of personality weakens. This might be insane but it needs to be understood historically. Fascism is more than ever the main ideological precedent for Trump's lies.

Britain’s biggest trade union body has called on the Labour government to consider rejoining an EU customs union, reopening a core Brexit fault line as the party grapples with weak growth and rising pressure from its traditional base.

For #FossilFriday here is some #UrbanGeology. Visiting York Minster but my eyes were drawn to C18 memorials with very dark limestone and lovely #fossil #corals.

Along a nine-mile stretch of river between two waterfalls in the Australian rainforest lives a tiny fish that’s been there for millions of years, hiding between rocks along the riverbank by day and emerging at night to feed. https://cnn.it/45tLMPp

Deep-Sea-cember: The telescope fish is the Grinch of the abyss #deepseadecember #deepseacember #deepsea #telescopefish #teeth #art

'Record numbers of foreign-born doctors are quitting the NHS and the post-Brexit surge in those coming to work in it has stalled. At the same time, the number of nurses and midwives joining the NHS has fallen sharply over the past year.' 1/2

99% of what you need to understand about the relentless murder of our living planet, in one word: CAPITALISM

I'm sure partaking in extreme sports must make a person feel uniquely alive and pumped full of adrenaline but what it also sometimes quite good is going on a long walk and stumbling across the remains of a medieval dovecote.

Knaresborough in North Yorkshire looking fine in last night's low winter sun

A whole world in less than a foot of branch: mealy pixie cup lichens, mosses, and polypody fern. *This* is rainforest.

Lovely and peaceful.

We now have about 10 apartment high-rises on fire across Kyiv City due to the ongoing Russian airstrike, as per Mayor and governor. Meanwhile, eyewitness videos keep coming up of Russian drones actually hitting those apartment blocks. Oh, and a THIRD of the city lost heating amid winter.

In our big extended family we’re all various shades of left & despite being opinionated & mouthy we don’t have big disagreements at family events. Until yesterday when we started discussing AI. Good natured but huge gulf between “it’s great, it’s inevitable, it’s the future” & “it’s immoral, don’t.”

Russia is attacking Kyiv’s power plants with drones and missiles. There are also multiple hits on residential buildings.

An Essex man who offered himself as a spy to assist the Russian Intelligence Service has been jailed for seven years www.counterterrorism.police.uk/an-essex-man...