"You answer to God, not the commentariat or opinion polls" "You have to earn credibility" "If you're going to be wrong, be wrong for the right reasons" Rowan Williams told me his advice for the next Archbishop of Canterbury, set to be named within days: www.thetimes.com/uk/religion/...

The most* annoying thing about social media is the pressure it brings to avoid artistry and delicacy in headlines because someone will then performatively misunderstand them and amplify them out of context. *probably not the most

If you need me I’ll be screaming into a pillow

Join a distinguished club that includes my mum! Listen to my podcast! I just plucked up the courage to listen to an episode about the leap second and was surprised to find it wasn't shit. t.co/7qraEmRhFT

I cannot overstate how damning it is as a comment on a physician or scientist's competence/intentions that they would support RFK Jr as HHS secretary.

My colleague @whippletom.bsky.social and I have been on The Story with @jonesluke.bsky.social talking about Hiroshima, Nagasaki, morality and what it all means 80 years after the atom bomb podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

What a way to end a 50 day streak. And that's not how you spell it.

This is the tale of a little frog who could. That frog's name was Rosie the Ribeter. And she could jump over 2 metres. And the problem was, according to science, she shouldn't have. In a minor way, Rosie changed science. In a major way, she showed what science was about. 1/x

Oi @theguardian.com !! Less of the exclusive please, more of the "we follow up Times story three months on"

Did I mention I have a podcast? There aren't enough of those. Anyway, the advantage of mine is it's not much commitment. Each episode ten minutes long. A nice story, and hopefully you learn a bit about science too. The latest one is about electrocuting monks. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

There's been a surprisingly strong response to my cri de coeur about the sugar tax bastards who stole my quotidian joy. Let's start the fightback.

I came to this video to see the new head of MI6 rowing. I stayed for the moment they introduced their cox "mini", speaking to the poor chap in a baby voice. I hope he has gone on to great things too. t.co/VZuehua7Ho

OK so we've just published a whole bunch of papers on how the UK should be thinking about economic strategy. The main argument is that we should think about our deep assets and invest in those comparative advantages. Here's a synthesis paper www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/publications...

This is a tale of how the search for the death ray led to something less deadly, but equally useful. In the 1930s, the air minister offered £1,000 to the inventor, "‘who could demonstrate the killing of a sheep at a range of 100 yards" using radio waves. 🧵

May I recommend an article we wrote based on a cut chapter? foreignpolicy.com/2024/01/21/s...

Great moments in British railway history call for a speech. As railways return to public ownership, the guard greeted the passengers on the 05.36 from Woking. “Due to planned engineering works,” he said, “there will be a rail replacement bus from Surbiton.” www.thetimes.com/article/73df...

Speak to scientists in the US, and what really rankles is the intellectual vandalism. Decades-long studies axed. In disciplines viewed as ideological, such as climate change, government datasets disappear. (£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu... By @whippletom.bsky.social

Would you like to write for New Scientist? We always work with freelancers, but occasionally I put out a call like this for new writers. I'm looking for 300-700 word news stories about new discoveries. Don't pitch us press releases or the big journals, we have those covered. Pay starts at 51p/word

One of my (mild) complaints about Homes and Gardens magazine is it's a bit of a gynocracy. Almost never does it picture the male residents of the house. So reading some back issues it was refreshing to find the owner of this chic 1930s alpine retreat front and centre.

Quite possibly the biggest climate story of the year (especially when we look back on this in a few years' time) For the first time on record, China's emissions are falling due to clean energy growth, not slow power demand...

Last week, a deal to build a big chunk of the wind power the country (or, certainly miliband), wants, fell through. @rcolvile.bsky.social wrote a great piece about what it meant (link below). But what if it also meant we should look at something else, again. What about the tide? 1/n

For no particular reason, the change from a Franciscan to an Augustinian Pope has reminded me of the line in Frasier when Niles stands in for him in his show. “While Frasier is a Freudian, I am a Jungian - so there’ll be no blaming mother today”. #leoxiv

Asked GPT to (impossibly) "write a Bluesky post 100% guaranteed to go viral" Its suggestion: "just saw a guy confidently order a "croissantini" at the coffee shop and the barista nodded like that was a normal word. i live in a simulation." Then I said "Make it more viral" and things got weird... 🧵

"I literally got a job [so I could afford GTA6]"

BBC News got the reaction of one person for their story on the GTA 6 delay, and it's the most perfect collection of thoughts of all time.

most so-called "journalists" are too afraid to ask Bill Gates questions like that

Just going through the transcript of my interview with Bill Gates. First question seems pretty to the point I think. (The answer is, yes he could).

Is the interpretation of this that Orville was walled up alive with Harris, like some sort of Egyptian slave?

No real surprises at the top of the table, here. But further down the league there are some big upsets "Git" will be disappointed with its performance, and "Fanny" really should have hoped to outperform "knob".

Why is Spotify through Alexa so bad on classical music? They should pay one grad student to choose the canonical version of major works, so that when you ask for, say, "Fanfare for the common man" you don't default to the 2003 remix by DJ Radbananas* *Obvs I respect his oeuvre

No it hasn't

Have we found a 94th penis in the Bayeux Tapestry? One historian and tapestry penis expert thinks so. "The detail is suprisingly anatomically fulsome" www.thetimes.com/article/34b4...

My votive goes to “Make a cross on your abdomen When· in Rome do like a Roman”

In honour of Francis, here is Tom Lehrer's classic, Vatican Rag. Includes 3 finest couplets in song: "Do whatever steps you want if/you have cleared them with the pontiff" "The guy who's got religion'll/tell you if your sins original" "2 4 6 8/Time to transubstantiate" t.co/ltBeZMbzdF

Brought to you by the Trump regime whose henchmen keep claiming #FreeSpeech is under threat in Europe...

Appalled. Next they'll be telling me they've stopped reading out the maths rankings in order from a balcony, presenting a wooden spoon to the lowest third, and then throwing the result papers onto the students below so they can scrabble around like rats t.co/74omItAUvd

Bring back proper games journalism.

Leaving aside (sort of) the issue of whether they really are dire wolves (and I do include the quote "it's not a f***ing dire wolf, it's a white wolf"), why would we want to bring back extinct species? I speak to George Church. www.thetimes.com/uk/science/a...

Brutal

Question for classical historians: "Would Nero have enjoyed greater sympathy in retrospect if he had gone out to play golf rather than reaching for his fiddle?"

For some reason I was under contractual obligation to do this www.thetimes.com/life-style/l...

Bear Grylls will drink many things. Cow rumen juice. Parrotfish eyeball juice. Elephant dung juice. Cold goat sperm. And, of course, lashings of his own urine. But, he tells The Times (while promoting a water filtration company), there's one liquid he is wary of: tap water. t.co/qSm5VxPO8C

The two places Trump wants - Greenland and Canada - share a land border. They fought the so-called Whisky War over it for almost half a century, and it was basically adorable.

I find the economics of this baffling. Apple iPad, one of the greatest products ever made. Astonishing computing power, amazing form factor: £329. Ludicrously cheap. Case for iPad. Has a magnet. Perfectly nice. Would def shell out 40 quid for it. £249. How does this work?

How did the UK quit coal power? What lessons does it offer other countries? And what comes next? Find out by reading my story in @thetimes.com, it's free to access this weekend 🔓👇 www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

If you want to know more about the ‘German tank problem’ and its origins – alongside lots of other stories and far less algebra – you might be interested in my upcoming book Proof: The Uncertain Science of Certainty, which is out this week in UK and available to pre-order: proof.kucharski.io 24/24

An anecdote in @whippletom.bsky.social's great book 'Battle of the Beams' made me realise I was looking at a puzzle I knew well from my proof.kucharski.io research, but in a new disguise. The story begins in 1941, with a growing network of Nazi radar stations across Europe... 1/

I have spoken to the director of Pompeii about the golden age of archaeological discoveries they are having, and about how it is the latest example of the ancient city rising from the ashes of disaster www.thetimes.com/article/a517... #history #archaeology #ancientrome #romanempire

I wrote about a home robot for spying on pets/wives. Works well until they pick it up and put it in the cupboard. www.thetimes.com/article/3f0a...