An emblematic photograph immortalizes this moment of labor empowerment: a group of workers of the factory council are seated at the desk of Giovanni Agnelli, owner of Fiat. In the countryside, peasants had taken control of agricultural land and begun managing it with democratic assemblies.

New tariff threats show how pointless it is to grovel: You just get kicked in the face. freedomnews.org.uk/2026/01/20/o...

"This is such a strange decision with no clear rationale. None of it really makes sense.”

I need at least 3 more folk to sign up for my Edinburgh Adult Education Programme archaeology classes at Craigentinny, or the course will be cancelled. If you know anyone who might be interested, please let them know. Thank you! adulteducationedinburgh.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spyd...

Windsor Castle! www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ-9...

MSG stands for ‘Military Secrets Gathering’ obvs

We're one year in. The speed, scope and severity of what's happening to American science is beyond anything we've seen before. The reliability of the Federal science and technology enterprise and the people within it, has been shattered. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thank you, Liam Eunsom of MIDLOTHIAN VIEW for covering the drone survey at the beginning of the CALTON HILL ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT. The Trust are working with HEADLAND ARCHAEOLOGY who are using photogrammetry to map the hill. 1/ www.midlothianview.com/news/search-...

UK governments of all stripes have looked at cutting planning rules & 'red tape' to produce growth Previous evidence-based reviews have contradicted this view This UK govt is first one to take forward cutting of protections without bothering with evidence www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/evidenc...

There has always been a history in England of resistance to Enclosure.

Nice write-up of work pushing back the dates of human settlement of (the landmass that would become) Britain after the last Ice Age.

"How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-...

🚨EU-Mercosur trade deal signed after 25+ years of secretive negotiations We are steadfast in our opposition to the current EU-Mercosur deal as it will transfer enormous powers to transnational corporations and undermine peoples’ rights to: 🧑‍🌾work 🥕food 🌱ecologically sound environment 🌏safe climate

The past 3 years were the hottest on record, representing a “warming spike” that scientists don’t yet fully understand.

While the police forces & British courts pursue prosecutions relating to Palestine Action, an actual proscribed terror group is operating freely in N. Ireland and the police are covering up and downplaying white supremacist terror, violence and mass forced displacement of racial & ethnic minorities.

🚨 Emergency protest: TOMORROW! 🚨 Join CND, @dronewarsuk.bsky.social, and Oxfordshire Peace Campaign for this emergency protest outside RAF Fairford. ⏰1pm-2:30pm Details: https://cnduk.org/events/hands-off-venezuela-no-to-war-emergency-protest-at-fairford-us-base/

LLMs are spam generators. That is all. They're designed to generate plausibly human-like text well enough to pass a generic Turing Test. That's why people believe they're "intelligent". But really, all they are is spam generators. We have hit the spamularity.

Also:

There must be a handbook that senior management work from on this, because it’s exactly the same as the UEA experience & now colleagues at Essex. Solidarity with everyone going through this absolute avoidable horror

Another resounding success for the AI Theftbot snake oil sellers. "Craig Guildford told the home affairs select committee on Monday that the inclusion of a fictitious match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and West Ham in police intelligence “arose as a result of a use of Microsoft Copilot”."

EXCLUSIVE: How Trump's oil grab in Venezuela was shaped by Silicon Valley tech billionaire fantasies about installing corporate-dominated "Network States" and "Freedom Cities". The catch? The oil might as well be worthless bylinetimes.com/2026/01/07/i...

I need at least 4 more folk to sign up to my Edinburgh Adult Education Programme archaeology class in Craigentinny, or the class will be cancelled. Thank you! adulteducationedinburgh.spydus.co.uk/cgi-bin/spyd...

🏺🧪 Reminder - it's never good #SciComm practice to make inaccurate/misleading gen-AI imagery. Case in point- recent posts here of #Neanderthals with complex engravings, & metallic-looking objects. (they also apparently have 6 fingers, but I guess who tf cares when it's just vibes for the public 🙄)

Protesters are increasingly detained, charged, and in some cases sentenced to multi-year prison terms for non-violent actions such as attending planning meetings.

This thread responds to Prof. Christian Dunn’s Telegraph piece on #climate communication. I argue it misdiagnoses public disengagement, underplays escalating scientific risk, & reproduces a media narrative that has actively shaped, not merely reflected, public resistance to climate action 🧵

A thought from @drandrewthaler.bsky.social that's going to fester: How long until we start to see range extension papers- "This species is thought to live over there, but we saw it over here and therefore it needs protection here"- based on fake images? www.southernfriedscience.com/thats-not-a-...

Future historians are going to have make up all sorts of complicated and structural reasons to explain the collapse of NATO and the Arctic War of 2026 because the truth is just way too stupid to believe.

Hot!

Fake AI-generated videos shared by Musk about Venezuela received millions of views. Elon Musk re-posted an AI-generated footage of Venezuelans crying on their knees, thanking Trump and the US for freeing them from Nicolas Maduro. And Musk opposes laws that penalise fake and abusive videos.

Two-thirds of UK voters wrongly think immigration is rising, poll finds. Net migration to the UK fell by more than two-thirds to a post-pandemic low in the year ending June 2025, but 67% of the people polled thought it had increased www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty... The Dean “also clarified that faculty may assign textbooks with chapters that cover transgender identity, so long as they do not talk about the material or include it on assignments or exam questions.” And they call this an education?

Via @theguardian.com

This is from 2014. They were already doing this in 2014.

ᔭᓐᑭ ᐊᖏᕐᕋᕆᑦ Janki angirrarit Yankee gå hjem

I don’t think we should have ceded control quite so quickly and without so much as a fight.

Rebel Rebel! www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM3f...

theconversation.com/canada-has-t... All sounds familiar Public or media discussions often arise when delays in construction result from archaeological assessments or Indigenous opposition. Yet, the vast majority of developments proceed without issue. Canada has the same issues as we had/have

Biases are everywhere. We really need to work hard to avoid them – not only our political biases, but also our biases toward a particular favoured theory. www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....

UKBMS data feeds into UK government statistics to measure biodiversity. Each year, @jncc publish Biodiversity Indicators - giving a snapshot of how our biodiveristy is faring buff.ly/Cw71ZAY You can view the latest Biodiversity Indicators here - buff.ly/cyuIo2G

On Tuesday, the Israeli military invaded Birzeit University, attacking students with live ammunition. Israel's scholasticide is a core part of its attempt to obliterate the collective life of the Palestinian people. We have written to Yvette Cooper urging the British government to take action.

BBC News yesterday: "Despite the ceasefire Israel's bombardment of Gaza continues, with almost daily strikes" At what point do mainstream journalists start reporting that actually there isn't a ceasefire, instead of uttering absurdities like this.

The US has quit key climate bodies and 60+ other multilateral initiatives, as it advances its anti-science agenda. Global issues demand cooperation. The UK must build a reputation for cooperation and leadership, in spite of the U.S. www.politico.eu/article/refo... 🧪

Moves like this - targeting particular public schools - from Trinity Hall reflect as much the enduring desire to gatekeep by those who think they are elite wanting to replicate in their own image, as their cynical pragmatism to know they can get away with it rn. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Nature research paper: Early hominins from Morocco basal to the Homo sapiens lineage go.nature.com/49cjLyk

A sweeping UN human rights report concludes that Israel is violating international law prohibiting racial segregation and apartheid, warning that the discriminatory practices have accelerated dramatically since late 2022 amid growing violence, repression and impunity. news.un.org/en/story/202...

#Onthisday 1697 on a road between Edinburgh and Leith, 20-year-old student Thomas Aikenhead climbed the ladder to the gallows, a noose was placed around his neck, and he was hanged. He was the last person in Britain to be executed for 'blasphemy'. 🧵 heritage.humanists.uk/thomas-aiken...

"While the threat of large-scale deforestation is well known, new findings reveal a surprising culprit – the clearance of small areas of forest accounts for more than half of net carbon losses across the Tropics." www.esa.int/Applications...