I’m surprised Davie has resigned over that Panorama edit (seems like a bit of a nothingburger to me) but I’m glad he’s gone. On his watch the BBC simply gave up the ghost on factual documentary TV, and decided the best way to serve its audience was to patronise it. 1/2

I am seeing a lot of posts about Rosalind Franklin that themselves ignore her publication record on DNA! In fact Franklin and Gosling's paper, including the famous Photograph #51, was published, along with Wilkins's paper, back-to-back with the Watson and Crick paper in Nature in 1953.

The resignations of Tim Davie and Deborah Turness must be an opportunity for the BBC to turn a new leaf, rebuild trust and resist those like Nigel Farage who want to destroy it We must stand up for a strong, independent BBC, to stop Trump’s America becoming Farage's Britain.

Some pictures from when Sandi Toksvig and @rakshadigs.bsky.social came to visit our dig in July #Durotriges25 If you missed episode 1 of *Sandi Toksvig's Hidden Wonders*, you can still catch up at Channel 4 On Demand www.channel4.com The rest of the series continues on More4 Tues 9pm Enjoy 😊

I'm in bits, kids are crying, "but daddy who's going to do the Is The Escaped Prisoner An Immigrant all-day live feeds now?" and I don't know what to tell them.

Glad that someone has finally taken responsibility for the appalling assault on democracy that was the Jan. 6 insurrection. Slightly confused that it's the Director-General of the BBC, but what do I know?

Kind of familiar. Isn't it.

When you suddenly realise you've been saying hello to all the villagers without changing back into human form.

A very good Watson obit here, written, though obviously not published, years before he died.

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

This is a lovely, timely essay. Truth told simply.

Remembrance Sunday invites reflection. Here's a couple of mine from a few years ago.

England facing drastic measures due to extreme drought next year. Country surrounded by water has water shortages. 2024: 1trn litre of lost to leaks. Sewage dumped in rivers for 4m hours. No new reservoirs. Investment neglected, £85bn paid in dividend. Record high water bills. People fleeced.

What's through the not-quite-square window behind Stonehenge on this #StandingStoneSunday and #RemembranceSunday? Why, it's an entire concertinaed military landscape of camps and barracks! This 'novelty card' was written to Miss E. Nixon of Invercargill, New Zealand, in 1916 but never posted… 🧵

Avoid jumping to conclusions about mechanisms behind large-scale genetic shifts in the past! This paper doesn’t prove that small scale migrations of Homo sapiens led to the gradual replacement of Neanderthal DNA but suggests this explanation is as good as any other. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Does it matter?

Remember, remember the 9th of November. #OnThisDay in German #history🗃️: 1918: Kaiser dethroned, #WeimarRepublic proclaimed. 1923: Hitler's #BeerHallPutsch coup d'état in Munich fails. 1938: #Kristallnacht. Anti-Jewish Pogroms, synagogues burning. 1989: #BerlinWall falls.

Oops…“Principal components (PC) axes identified by a PCA are not necessarily the most informative biologically. Nevertheless, paleoanthropologists frequently interpret proximity in PC space as indicative of morphological and thus evolutionary affinity or relatedness” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Catching up with tv archaeology, we watched 'Hidden Wonders', or Sandi & Raksha Go Mad In Dorset. Enjoyable, interesting, engaging. And nobody singing. 😊

If you’re wondering what a “least weasel” is, they absolutely live up to the name. This is the least amount of animal you can have that can still meet the bar for “is weasel”

𝐑𝐀𝐈 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑'𝐒 𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐒𝐄𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐄 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞: 𝟭𝟬 𝗗𝗲𝗰𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 The MA Dissertation Prize will be for the best dissertation written in 2024 or 2025 on the archaeology or architectural history of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and other countries. Details at www.royalarchinst.org/grants/disse...

The Royal Archaeological Institute serves the archaeological community by providing some really great small grants for research. Check them out!: www.royalarchinst.org/grants

"Seizing Brexit opportunities to deregulate" was mostly unspecified magic fairy pixie bullshit then, and it's not going to get any more realistic in the hands of a bunch of Reform clowns who don't know how anything works, don't care to learn and disdain anyone that might.

I never met Watson. But he gave a public seminar at my undergrad. Don't remember the talk but do remember the incredibly disturbing and degrading misogynistic comments he made at the female biology majors given the honor to meet him. A real piece of shit! World class.

Olli and Taylor have a gig this Thursday as part of the EFG London Jazz Festival. Lunchtime. Free. Do come! efglondonjazzfestival.org.uk/events/gsmd-...

My company food allowance is £50 per day. Realised I can buy a couple of homeless people a sizeable meal whenever I travel and consume fewer calories at the same time. Makes me feel great and have had some great chats with real people. Do it if you can.

A new study has unexpectedly discovered that a common parasite of modern oysters actually started infecting bivalves hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs went extinct. phys.org/news/2025-11... #fossils #paleontology

If I see one more stupid Rosalind Franklin take I'm going to lose my mind. Thank god for @matthewcobb.bsky.social and @nccomfort.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu on charges of genocide.

PLEASE REPOST: a couple of bar staff urgently needed for shifts in Stratford tomorrow - it's a West Ham home game and I've had staff drop out so you can borderline name your price

Further to my previous post, slapping miscreants with fish seems to be on trend.

And who knows where I can find an image of the possible crane on a Viking Age coin from Wood Quay that is mentioned in the article. At @nmireland.bsky.social ?

This, by the way, is when I first started writing about it. The TLS, 2014. A great deal, for me, followed from this. richarddsmyth.com/2017/07/07/t...

Didn't YouGov used to be a serious polling organisation?

The new book 'Spiders & Harvestmen of Yorkshire - An Atlas', by Richard Wilson, is out now and available for purchase: www.naturebureau.co.uk/spiders-harv... Over 384 pages, the book describes the history of spider and harvestmen recording across Yorkshire and its varied landscapes, with mapping.

"Now on ITV: 'Peer Review' - hosted by Mary Beard. 15 senior academics locked in Piddleston College, Bantshire University seek to find which of them is actually Reviewer Number 2"

I don't remember if Follow Friday is a thing here - but follow Postcard from the Past - the juxtaposition of often bland imagery but intriguing snapshots of lives from just one sentence is hauntology at its purest. Or is that surrealism?

This is one of my favorites!!! It's also often mistaken for fossils because it can form these dendritic patterns in rock. It's beautiful!!

In Victoria Park, Glasgow, there's a chap who guerilla-posts unofficial notices. More of this, please.

he Poets' Version of Beckett: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail worse. No matter. Try again. Fail far worse still. Try again. Fail beyond your imagination's ability to comprehend the scale of possible failures open to you . . .' (contd p.94)

Today, a friend involved in the Esna restoration project has shared with me his latest stunning photos of the restored ceiling and columns of the Temple of Khnum in Esna, Upper #Egypt. During a multi-year restoration project, the dirt and soot that had obscured the ...🧵1/3 📷 D. v. Recklinghausen 🏺

I was only 30 something when I helmed The Enterprise.

Evening all. I'm running a study day on Sat 13 Dec at Highgate Lit & Sci about 19th/early 20th century mental health history. We'll explore various diagnoses/labels plus the administration of ‘lunacy’ law and the private and public asylums in the London area. Now booking hlsi.org.uk/courses/day-...

...and in great news - this is what £250,000 can buy you in a museum. We could get FOURTEEN of these for one £3.5 million payout to a detectorist & landowner for their lucky Tudor Heart locket find... 🤔 #Archaeology 🏺 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Come join us (for a little while at least)! Associate Lecturer job at Exeter in archaeology (especially people with human osteology, zooarch or forensic skills), until 30 April 2026: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPI165/a...

Some good science going on here.

Airedale hospital workers win breakthrough deal Strike action success closes the gap between NHS and outsourced workers By Barry White @yorkshirebylines.co.uk

Wishing Mr Zitouni a full and fast recovery and hoping the story of his heroism would bring some sense and shame to the rampant racist narratives sweeping our country. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What's that? You want another Tang Dynasty camel? Here you are, then.

Tang camel, working up to a good bellow.