what are the best exonyms out there. which language is cooking up the weirdest ways to refer to other countries

At this point I can count on my fingers the number of UK universities that *have not* conducted a major cut and restructure in the last year or two. I do think very soon it will be every single university in the country. The snake is done eating its tail, and is moving up.

Yes, absolutely this and the post-92s need much more recognition for what they achieved.

🤔 We can still detect it using our human brains

A statement from Exeter UCU branch @ucu.org.uk - please share far and wide.

Rare Notable Exceptions

It's rare that a newspaper says this out loud.

OK this mofo is due back at the library this week so I guess I should finish it

Why did I buy all these cat toys over the years when I could have just invited a fly inside and entertained them for eternity 🤦

Please read this piece by our member Feyzi Ismail in @ajenglish.bsky.social on the years-long crisis at Goldsmiths and what it tells us about the state of higher education in this country. #NoRedundanciesEverAgain www.aljazeera.com/opinions/202...

For school administrations, one of the key benefits of framing AI as "inevitable", is that it absolves them of responsibility. They're not making an active choice to put AI in schools, it's inevitable. If students don't want this, sorry about that, it's inevitable.

Scottish soft-power strategy: give up on the football, and just pick a random world city every couple of years and send ten thousand folk in kilts to win hearts by drinking all their beer and putting things on top of other things. I don't understand _why_ it works, but the evidence is compelling.

US "forever" stamps are about to go up to $0.82. This will get a letter from San Diego to Maine, from Miami to Juneau. UK first-class stamps cost £1.80. They will get a letter from Shetland to Cornwall, or essentially from the northern California border to the Mexico border. This seems excessive. ☹️

Yep! Enemies for life

We are in the 'consolidate the estate' phase of the UK HE crisis. This means that many colleagues will be moved into this building and we will all share offices. It will be vibrant, we are told. 2/2

Silvery-brown tamarins (Oedipomidas leucopus), also called white-footed tamarins, are native to Colombia. Highly social and vocal monkeys who communicate via a variety of calls with specific meanings. Threatened by habitat loss and capture for the pet trade. Vulnerable.

Ooof, it's kinda yucky out there. And it's Review Day, so I'm working on reviews, so many reviews! Grateful to the scientists doing interesting work, the editors keeping the knowledge system going, and the people who review my work (among others). It's a cool system! (even if it's flawed)

Do you know about the Biodiversity Heritage Library @biodivlibrary.bsky.social? A great resource for nature-related collaborative work, with biodiversity literature and images made publicly available. www.biodiversitylibrary.org Drawing of a dusky titi monkey, from Description des mammifères. 🧪🌍🪶🦊

I finally figured out why AI causes such a visceral reaction in thinking humans: I am writing my book chapter on PLAY, and AI is the opposite of play. We play for the joy of the process, not for the outcome. Yes it is nice to win, to have the art/ poem, but the point of life is to play.

2026 - “Whoooo said that?”: responses of captive owls (Strigiformes) to the voices of familiar caregivers peerj.com/articles/214...

I am so tired of having to start with "yes I'm aware that there are meaningful uses for machine learning and algorithms" when the people in speaking to make no room for the meaningful rejection of AI Slop hedgehoglibrarian.com/2025/10/27/2...

As part of our ESRC-funded project on age-based imitation, we have produced a methods paper reflecting on naturalistic observations of children and adolescents in diverse contexts, detailing methods, challenges and recommendations doi.org/10.1002/icd....

I'm wondering how we can communicate this to administrators and other higher-ups in education. We've basically got our education, and pulled the ladder up.

Spare a thought for the Dundee University staff who were told yesterday that their jobs are at risk, who today have to talk to prospective students and parents at an Open Day. They are expected to paint a confident picture. It will take quite a feat of imagination. @ducuuo.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Slinky cat, comin towards you @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social

How do other animals experience time? It's been a pleasure to work with @singhal.bsky.social and @anilseth.bsky.social on a paper exploring how temporal illusions and other experimental strategies can shed light on this. It's our today! www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

An (perhaps unprecedented?) emotional health challenge for our generation: Being made aware, over and over again, that you were born into an anomalously good time period for society and that your expectations for the future should not be set based on it.

"Whose Larva Is This?" A quick guide to figure out what you're looking at when you find something that resembles a worm or a Zerg unit crawling around. #insect #bug #education #SciArt

I'm attending a digital humanities event in Montreal. There was a keynote on AI and something about the talk made me wonder if it had been written by Claude. I said as much in the Q&A. As I posed the question, the speaker shifted, looking slightly uncomfortable. What he said next shocked the room +

I learned something today

Where you'll see a rare bird. Thanks to @ryanfm.bsky.social's newsletter for teaching me about the Cabanis's ground-sparrow that lives behind the walmart

basketball’s all like gimme that pumpkin i need it and tennis is all like fuck this lemon you take it.

"Jenny owns a crematorium. John’s propane company gives her a $20 billion investment in return for 5 percent of her operation. Jenny throws $10 billion into the incinerator, then pays John $10 billion to buy propane to burn that money to ashes..."

Has the government considered how much more cool going on the internet will be for kids when it's a crime?

I’m pleased to be able to share some good news about something horrible

I do a whole slide on age restrictions in different cultures in developmental psych, and it's gonna be real weird this year.

lol

James Hutton (1726–1797), father of modern #Geology, was born #OTD, 14 June (NS/3 June OS). One of the first Western proponents of “deep time”, his memorable phrase “we find no vestige of a beginning,—no prospect of an end” has been called one of the most lyrical sentences in all #science #C18th 1/3

"The instinct to act fast, to announce rather than consult, to project certainty, starts to produce exactly the atmosphere of managed turbulence that staff experience as impulsive leadership."

Popa langurs (Trachypithecus popa) are found in only 4 subpopulations in Myanmar. Total population size is estimated at 135-176 mature individuals. The largest subpopulation resides near Mount Popa, hence their name. Threatened by hunting, and habitat loss and fragmentation. Critically Endangered.

Given how many little "big animals on wheels" we've had from all over the world, I think the prehistoric equivalent of "Truck Kid" might be "Ox Kid." (Ukraine, Crete, Maharashtra, Anatolia)

the entire point of life is to be kind and weird btw

life finds a way

This happened over 3 years. We adults let this happen. Schools encouraged this. We are denying millions of children a fulfilling, thoughtful future so we can funnel them into a place where they turn to a goddamn chatbot for comfort and friendship instead of each other.

As a high school educator, this thread reflects what I'm seeing. Higher ed folks, you have no idea what's coming down the pike. If you think it's bad now...

I don't think I have many ultimate folks on here, but if you are, and are going to Worlds in Nottingham, let me know! www.wmucc.sport

Animal training works for people too! There are even books about it (Don't Shoot the Dog, among others)

We made an open repository of close relationships measures. Our goal is to catalogue all of the published self-report measures in relationship science. You can help us expand the database by suggesting measures you tend to use in your research, or by uploading your own measures! relascale.com

This is me but for high quality boxes (Cartoon by Ellis Rosen)

I will never understand bike hatred. the big ridiculous cars driven by impatient, entitled, self centered assholes who can't just figure out managing their time well enough to leave earlier and drive a bit more carefully seem kind of a bigger issue idk