I wish we could ignore Bill Gates on the climate crisis. But he’s a billionaire, so we can’t | George Monbiot

A magnificent piece of work. Comprehesive, revelatory & shocking. Journalism this good is always rare & precious but never moreso than at times like this. Latter day Lord Haw Haws being plumped, preened & delivered to your doorstep in plain sight by a Nazi-saluting goon news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Our Vice Chancellor reassures us that planned redundancies won't decimate the university. Since the leadership is cutting 4% rather than 10% of staff he's technically correct, so that's fine 🤷‍♂️.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

“This is an extremely serious and troubling case that raises wider concerns about the academic freedom of staff and students at universities across the UK.” www.theguardian.com/education/20...

One of my favourite images of a Grey Seal this year. The ocean water is crashing in the background against a small rocky outcropping far out in the bay. Bay of Fundy, #NewBrunswick, Canada September 2025 📸 #mammals #marinelife #seal #nature #wildlife #photography #Nikon #Z9 #Nikkor800pf

Japan's "Mundane Halloween" costume contest is back! Each year website DailyPortalZ holds a contest where people dress up as something super duper ordinary. Here's a thread of some of my favorites from the 2025 contest! #MundaneHalloween

“Individuals on the ground sent a message that reached us Monday morning that 1,200 were dead,” Nathaniel Raymond, the lab’s executive director, said. “By that evening, they said 10,000. By Tuesday, we couldn’t reach them anymore. We assume our ground contacts are dead.”

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

Genuinely laughing to keep from crying at this instant classic from @mcsweeneys.net www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-...

Judy DeLoache passed away yesterday. She was a brilliant scientist and giant in the field of developmental psychology. She will be missed dearly.

I went shelf diving for the stories, research and folklore that formed the landscape (seascape) from which I built THE SALT ORACLE. Random? Yes. Interesting? I hope so. A book recommendation post with a difference 🌊📚🐋 www.patreon.com/posts/139996...

The German company that makes the mechanical ladder used in the Louvre heist has used the image to advertise, with the text 'When you need to move fast' 10/10 response, no notes

I'm dismayed that many proposals for CO₂ removal involve digging a hole and burying organic matter. But I guess that's how we've always treated waste.

This time of year in central EU, I am reminded that the root meaning of "sky" is cloud. The color of the sky is gray, the heavens unseen are blue, and space is a radioactive void. In March, the Sun may appear once more. Until then, we eat potatoes and dream.

🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology: “A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.” Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍 🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @themanybirds.bsky.social

NEWS: "Wage growth slows slightly over summer" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... UK UNIVERSITY WORKERS: "What is this mythical wage growth of which they speak?"

as a cognitive scientist, I can confirm we don't know how humans think

"Universities have collectively announced more than 12,000 job cuts in the last year, new analysis from the University and College Union (UCU) suggests." Make no mistake. Our university sector is in trouble.

Photos from today's walk at the Seattle Japanese Garden (thread). I was quite taken with these red leaves, dangling by a bit of spiderweb in a way that made them look like they were falling. #photography #PNW #autumn #FallColors #nature #red #31DaysOfHalloween #SeattleJapaneseGarden

I had thought there was enough residual dignity, and enough emphasis on maintaining the reputation of one's institution, left in the office of Vice Chancellor for a UK university that VCs would not stoop to such behaviour. How naïve that was.

Two of the most common climate misconceptions I see, even among knowledgeable folks, are that (1) most people aren't worried about climate change, and (2) if they were, they'd act. Not true! Data show (1) most people are worried, but (2) they won’t act if they don’t know what to do-and most don’t.

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy: www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

Everybody thinks they're a photography expert now. I put my camera down for a minute and this mantis has to go and change my settings on me. At @casabentbill.bsky.social #CostaRica #invertebrates #mantids #insects

I've set off to Bougainville,PNG, for another #NoFly journey. I want to complete my research there. Travelling the ~25,000km distance from Italy by🚢,🚅,&🚌,I'll emit ~10 times less than✈️ (computations to come).Here the long read on my motivations: gianlu777.substack.c...#NoFly1/🧵

Updates from Argentina Since our last post, where we talked about the importance of the legislative elections on October, and the government's struggle to keep the dollar exchange rate fixed before the election by spending dollars from the reserves and loans. Since then, three events have... 1/17

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

RIP #JaneGoodall - one of the modern pioneers of profound interconnections between people, animals and ecosystems. Her life was lived through science, compassion and tireless advocacy for the multiple values of nature - leaving a legacy that will endure for people and planet.

"If we lose hope, we're doomed." We must continue Dr. Jane Goodall's mission and all fight for the future of the planet.

New from me: a *free* short version of my Political Quarterly piece on universities... The issue is settled now: the massified and accessible Higher Education system we have spent tens of billions building since the 1970s is coming to an end. (1/2) politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/where-n...

There is a ton of research that students ratings on aggregate do not reflect learning outcomes, but whatever biases the population has. But in the "run universities like a business" model, student ratings are customer satisfaction surveys, so reflecting learning outcomes is irrelevant.

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system! Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

I am genuinely baffled and distressed as to why the UK government is intent on destroying UK's genuinely world-leading universities, who bring £265 billion into the economy and support more than 250,000 jobs. This tax will kill us. www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

Over the last 24 hours Reform, with just a single policy announcement, have put fear where previously there was none into the hearts of millions of UK residents. No 10 and the Chancellor have said nothing about the ethics of this. I have no words left for them.

My university is working hard to improve its history of poisonous industrial relations by announcing that it‘s deducting 50% of pay from staff carrying out action short of a strike. Withholding pay for refusing to work beyond contractual obligations sounds unlawful to me, but what do I know?

It was obvious when EU citizens had the terms of their settlement here retrospectively revoked that a precedent was being set and that, in time, the argument would move on to other categories of migrant, always tending towards a purity test of who is ‘indigenous’. Unless resisted.

this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses. www.afr.com/work-and-car...

This reads like one of those clever UG essays, that ploughs ahead with a bold argument despite each point hitting an evidentiary dead-end. 1/2

For an institution supposedly invested in the work of critical thinking, there seems to be so little application of it where it matters. If you're going to give students free access to a machine that fabricates knowledge-shaped objects, aren't you naturally suggesting that knowledge doesn't matter?

hey, cool: Agustina Bazterrica and me in DC at the National Book Festival. Not sure if the audience'll be in this, but there's better than a thousand people out there:

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history." www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Public health shouldn’t be centred around individual behaviour change. It should be focused on changing the wider commercial, social, environmental & ultimately political determinants of health. Behaviour change will naturally come when healthy behaviours are facilitated by those structural changes.

"Pain is a signal that death comes closer. . .and fear is anticipation of pain. . .the whole atmosphere was manipulation of death, and that really struck me.”-- Maksym Butkevych A remarkable conversation between two of the most penetrating thinkers of our times.

Want to see an example of good, reasoned policy making by a scientific institution? Check out the new ERC rules on B1/B2 contents, eligibility windows, and panel processes. And if you're thinking of applying (you should!) then take a closer look at what you're aiming for here! #UKHE #HigherEducation

“I can’t promise you, dear Reader, much entertainment in the next few chapters. If you get bored with all the noisome stuff about to transpire here, console yourself and have pity on me, for I’m the one who had to write it.” Heinrich Heine

Some personal news: I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting. Thread incoming. substack.com/@karenattiah...

All I saw was cheesecake boat and ocean for at least 5 minutes