Definitely worth 7 minutes of your time...

A depressingly accurate update on what we still misleadingly call Social Media.

It's Earth Day! There's a Post-16 STEM Chat happening right now on the I'm a Scientist platform. Currently students from Milton Keynes College are chatting with Martin, Peter, Alison and Caroline. As usual there are questions about the scientists roles and how they got to where they are.

With all the other distractions, don’t let this good news pass you by today. “Children aged 17 or younger will face a lifelong ban on buying cigarettes, as the Tobacco and Vapes Bill clears Parliament.” www.bbc.co.uk/news/a... 1/2

This is exactly the kind of policy that should be left to headteachers, who know what will work best for their own school (and almost all have strict curbs on phones anyway). But the government wants the headline.

Your slow news story for the day: Death rates for cervical cancer in the United Kingdom have fallen by 80% since 1950 from 8.6 deaths per 100,000 women to 1.7 ourworldindata.org/data-insight... @ourworldindata.org

Your chance to help shape DORA's work to improve research assessment practices!

"Move wells cathedral to Keynsham so Keynsham gets city status" https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/764430

Very interesting thread in response to my questions about North Sea oil and gas

Gold isn't one of the chemical elements discovered here at the Ri...but our Science in Schools presenter Ted went straight for it during his Britain's Got Talent audition! ⭐

We are starkly underestimating the impact of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This is a much graver situation than people realise iandunt.substack.com/p/the-mad-em...

ICYMI last night, a brief blog post from me on the experimental conditions required to reach a stable scientific career - navigating the 'valley of death' between a postdoc and a well-functioning group leader with a team. #AcademicSky occamstypewriter.org/mindthegap/2...

lmao the eurovision mascot is so ugly I literally screamed at this reveal

During #BritishScienceWeek we’re celebrating the 18,000 volunteers who helped the Franklin analyse millions of 3D images - accelerating data analysis, helping finetune models and revealing new biological insights. Read more: www.rfi.ac.uk/collaborate/...

Windsor Great Park. 5m visitors. Seriously? Somerset House? I think this list just includes places that people walk through to get somewhere else. Surely Waterloo and Paddington ought to count too!

Eid Mubarak to everyone and especially to those 'fast and furious' friends.

British schoolgirl blocked from returning to U.K. because of Labour’s new rules on British dual nationals getting on board flights to london. This girl is sitting GCSE’s and has already two weeks of class www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Removing hereditary peers is a welcome step for our democracy. But truly modernising the House of Lords should also mean ending the automatic voting rights of the 26 Church of England bishops – a privilege dating back to the 14th century. humanists.uk/action/get-b...

Make no mistake that any weakening of FOI is an attack on all of our civil liberties, and would be a clear example of democratic backsliding. It is clear that the government is now seriously considering an attack on your right to know. www.ft.com/content/2c34...

Finally 2026 delivers.

To celebrate British Science Week, NC3Rs staff took part in eight @imascientist.org.uk online chats last week, meeting around 150 school students. It is always great to see how curious young people are about the ways that scientists are replacing, reducing and refining the use of animals!

For those hundreds of scientists and teachers who planned joining us for drinks to celebrate a successful British Science Week: we’re in the Old Green Tree

Registration and abstract submission for this year's National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham is open! ⭐️ There are several AGN sessions, including one I am leading: From horizon to galaxy and beyond: the role of jets, winds and outflows in AGN 💨 Link: forms.cloud.microsoft/Pages/Respon...

I'll be in Bath this Saturday chatting small boats, the Home Office and my book. Tickets here. Join us! share.google/4PCe1GMJFzOL...

If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!

Summer is here. Just seen the first wasp of the year.

People who are not tax resident in the UK should not be allowed to donate to UK political parties. Companies should not be allowed to donate to UK political parties. No one should be allowed to use crypto to donate to UK political parties.

It's the ResearchFish Deadline on March 12th. Sign up and take part next Tues to boost your PE section. imamathematician.uk/signup/c/clf/ We've 125 chats that would benefit from you. No need to be a mathematician. Just that you use maths. And everyone uses maths. h/t @jobrodie.bsky.social

Want a definition of fighting elitism: a working class plumber beating an ivory tower academic who has his own TV show on a channel owned by a billionaire

We get notifications of booked chats in our Basecamp campfire. It helps us all see the rhythm of the organisation. Lots of bookings make a good day. What also makes a good day is seeing when the booking comes from a college that has been with us since Day One in June 2008.

I was telling my favourite @imascientist.org.uk story again this afternoon and it prompted me to look up the TES article written about it: www.tes.com/magazine/arc...

If you would like to help put pressure on the @royalsociety.org to finally take meaningful action on this issue, you can politely decline their requests for your labour (eg invitations to review or to sit on their editorial boards or grant panels), and refer to the arguments in this blogpost.

My Poet friend has been touch with the final version thanks to a mutual Swindon connection.

Had a lovely experience in the train home last night. Tony, a Swindon Community poet was writing a ‘Polaroid Poem’ describing what and who was around. It was the start of a wide-ranging conversation about film, politics and the fallacy of rose tinted glasses.

Live Lessons and Resources for Science Week 2026 (Primary). There are several providers running Live Lessons that your Primary-age pupils can log into, plus other practical ideas for your class to carry out. www.sciencefix.co.uk/2026/02/live... #uked #eduskyprimary #scienceweek

Primary teachers, please fill in my survey to help me get an understanding of how you are all using Generative AI to teach science (or not). Details here www.sciencefix.co.uk/2026/02/how-... Please share with your colleagues in school #uked #ukteaching #eduskyprimary

That‘s the spirit.

This feels like massive hyperbole. Was it deeply stupid and a huge failure of judgment to appoint Mandelson to, well, anything? Yes, thrice yes. Was it up there with the expenses scandal, or partygate, or Windrush, Owen Paterson, or Tulip Siddique's still murky source of money? I don't think so.

"I've let myself down, my party down and my trousers down" Genius.

Absolutely incredible story

More of this kind of thing!

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

Even more pleased that we have tickets to see them this summer: open.substack.com/pub/tomwatso... Nice to see @tomwatsonofficial.bsky.social writing about music.

The world has lost one of its most courageous and passionate advocates for people + science. Back in the days of Twitter, I saw her regularly send encouragement to people she’d never met. That was who she was: a model of joy, perseverance, courage, and kindness. Kirsty, you will be so missed. 💔

Age gating VPNs is a truly horrible idea. Teenagers deserve some kind of private access to the internet – which might mean LGB resources, or access to contraception or abortion advice, or resources to help with parental abuse. Shutting them off puts them in greater danger. This is just bad policy.

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

Today, we remember all the victims murdered during the Holocaust, and we stand with those who survived. We also mark the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. This dark memory must be passed to future generations. Never again.

St Paul and the Broken Bones were on fire tonight.

Some much needed good news. And a reminder that our media (BBC) should stop reporting respiratory illnesses so breathlessly.