Please read and consider signing this open letter to UKRI regarding their initial and future responses to Michelle Donelan: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

This is the same “protect free speech” government that blacklisted me for retweeting Parody Liz Truss, so colour me unsurprised.

It took weeks, or months, or more than a year for UKRI to respond to EDI concerns around lack of funding to Black researchers and bias in how doctoral funding is awarded. But this gets an response within hours - on a Saturday afternoon, no less - and promise of an immediate investigation. Shameful.

Woke up with a migraine on day 1 of field teaching THINGS ARE GOING GREAT 🫠

UK govt minister, in the last hour, ordering the national academic research funding body to censor the members of its expert panels, for unacceptable sympathy with Palestinians.

Out of office on for field teaching! Are you a ‘I’ll get back to you ASAP on my return” or a “Email me again when I’m back if necessary” kind of person?

Last week my kids complained that I picked them up too early (!) and they didn’t get their after school club snack, so this week I am treating myself to a leisurely coffee first 😋

It is shameful that the #MaddoxPrize shortlist includes an 'activist' who calls trans people ‘damaged’ and a ‘huge problem in a sane world' and stated that the NHS Rainbow scheme is worse than Andrew Tate. Here is our statement: prideinstem.org/2023/10/24/p...

An unconventional advice for those on TT market: Consider negotiating a set of funds to help others. I + others have negotiated $$ to host diversity-related events at conferences and for community outreach. We often think startup $ is just for our own research and lab, but I want us to think bigger.

Please read this from Caster Semenya and remember the humiliating and degrading testing she's been put through is what Republican legislatures have endorsed in their attacks against trans people--up to and including coercive medical treatments forced onto young people whose bodies defy the binary.

Literally no trains back home and no replacement buses available so had to share an Uber with a bunch of other stranded people, I hate trains 🤪

my Likert Scale ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Lovert ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️: Likert ⭐️⭐️⭐️: Whatevert ⭐️⭐️: Dislikert ⭐️: Hatert

I got on a train this morning and that was a BAD DECISION, please everyone wish me luck 😂

Hello Blue Sky!! So happy to finally be here thanks to the encouragement of @davidho.bsky.social and @katharinehayhoe.com ! I'll be posting on ocean, climate solutions, mapping, GIS, and Hawaii to start with! But for now aloha from me and my dog Riley 🌺 (she/her)!

Boosted 💪

That’s my dogs’ bed. They don’t mind sharing it with my cat, Pippi. One problem: that’s not my cat 😂

Also there's been some interesting discourse about the diversity of scientists on this episode (and all of the eps, thanks to the hard work of the production team). It's true it doesn't reflect the overall demographics of the geosciences. But it DOES reflect the massive changes that are happening.

I’ve spent 20 minutes failing to book a £38 hotel through my university travel site because I can’t find the right analysis code. But I have found codes for - moist food for dogs - molybdenum ore - reptile leather - sanguine - nuclear tools - payload delivery systems for spacecraft - yacht harbour 😂

Having a too-chronically-ill-to-be-a-grown-up day but also I have to take the kids to school and give a flipped lecture and meet with students after having yesterday off 😭

Last day to sign petition below. Note that signatures from non-UK scientists & other supporters *are* welcome. (I have signed it) 🧪#AcademicSky #histsci #philsci

When life gives you overripe bananas and a six year old who’s too poorly for school, make banana bread 😋

Gonna fire this up for the third time in three weeks because the 6 year old has a 103° fever *internal screaming*

The #DisabledInSTEM feed is at 21 users! I think I’ve heard when we hit 100 it becomes eligible to show up in the feed search? Would appreciate boosts 🧪 so we can reconnect and establish community over here. bsky.app/profile/did:...

At a wedding tonight, our table largely populated by old aquarium coworkers and a singular unfortunate +1. I just heard him say "there's only so many times I can talk about fish" to someone at the next table over

Guess whose angelic-looking six year old bought themselves a kilo of pick and mix sweets on Amazon and thought they’d get away with it 😂

✉️ Some science 🧪 buddies and I have written an open letter to the UK government, strongly opposing their “kicking woke ideology out of science” sentiments, which stand to damage the UK’s scientific standing and ability to deliver for public good. Please read and consider signing ✍🏻 t.co/H7rNzb0wGh

In today’s edition, my train to work isn’t cancelled (although my one home is) but there’s a broken down train in front of us so we’re stuck ‘for the foreseeable future’. I’m thinking positive thoughts and working on another draft 🧘

Graphical summary of the quoted article (about why cats of different sizes are so similar): 🧪

My train to work was cancelled and the next one is in an hour so instead of stressing about the hour of training I’m missing I decided to have a nice cup of tea and read a student’s draft ☺️

NSF Current and Pending Support question: anyone in the U.K. system filled this out when they’ve had a PhD student funded through a DTP? Should you include it, and if so how do you capture it?

What automatic reply did we agree on for ‘I know it’s the start of term and there are 463,891 urgent things to do but my kids are continuously off school sick so I’m busy looking after them’? 🫠

It has been less than two weeks since the last middle-of-the-day ‘your kid is sick come up pick them up from school’ phone call 😭(made more of a nightmare by working an hour’s train ride away from home)

It's great to see the work of the Equator Project picked up by Times Higher Education in their Campus resources page. Please check it out for an overview of our recommendations on equity in postgraduate recruitment. #AcademicSky 🧪⚒️ #EduSky #JEDI #Equity www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/how-m...

Absolutely loved reading this article about Dr Jess Wade, who gives me hope for the future of academia! 🌟 #WomeninSTEM #AcademicSky 🧪 amp.theguardian.com/science/2023...

Cats are the best Lego assistants, apparently

Bought myself a present 😃

A truly inspiring night of Black talent at the Evenfields Black Talent Awards in Birmingham 💫 🙌🏾 🤝🏿 Ya boy dressed up…and was even fortunate enough to win one of the individual awards! 😃

FYI for Newskies, there’s a push here to add ALT to your images (you might notice it’s a lot more common then on Twitter). Many folks won’t repost posts that don’t have ALT on them. You can turn on an ALT reminder in your settings! Adding 🧪 for all the new scienceskies since there seems to be lots

Today I’m at a Research Fellows networking event at the Royal Society, who get +1000 points for having a quiet room set up (in addition to a separate first aid room, which I always feel bad for using). Please try and make sure you have these at your events!

"Trans people are undermining the foundations of western society!" Okay, but hear me out: Good.

This is such an accurate description of chronic migraine. It’s much more than a headache: words don’t make sense, noise sounds like explosions, light feels like pain. I’m lucky to be on CGRPs now but still get migraines days each week and have awful side effects. www.thetimes.co.uk/article/d12b...

New paper alert! We use CT scanning to describe the oldest-known 3D vertebrate skull, in the Ordovician (~455 million year old) jawless fish Eriptychius! Despite resembling a box of cornflakes, this fossil fills a big morphological gap between jawed and jawless fish🧪⚒️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Ancient jawless fishes were weird & wonderful, & the cartilage in their heads hinted at the bony skulls that would later evolve in vertebrates. For CNN, I wrote about new analysis of a fossil fish head that's 455 million years old—the oldest 3D-preserved vertebrate cranium ever found #FossilFriday 🧪

Fascinating read in AGU EOS about scientific colonialism and the specific case of the fossil, Irritator challengeri 🧪 🦕 ⚒️ Again, I’m buoyed by the energy and bravery of the scientists taking on this fight, many of whom are early career and/or from the global south. eos.org/articles/ill...

I absolutely cursed this because school called to say the eldest is sick and can I go get her 🤪

It’s been one of those mornings where the kids aren’t even in school yet and I’m ready to go back to bed for the rest of the week 💀

I really miss all my casual Twitter acquaintances 😔

I obviously did not make the connection 🤪

I’m en route to PalAss23 and I have a five minute connection at Stevenage. The train I’m on is currently running four minutes late. Will the train gods smile on me for a change? Stay tuned to find out 😂