Paul McMillan

Sgt Pepper Beatles in NAM 2025 group photo

🔭 Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, UK astronomy version. Inspired by a comment from LOC chair David Alexander at #NAM2025 🔭

🔭 Exciting results from my colleagues 🔭

Prof Leigh Fletcher presenting results of JWST observations of Saturn

Prof Leigh Fletcher presenting results of JWST observations of Saturn

Our Prof @leighfletcher.bsky.social is giving a plenary talk at the National Astronomy Meeting presenting JWST observations of the solar system's gas giants! #NAM2025

The Thor Able rocket during NAM2025

A sighting of Leicester's @spacecentre.bsky.social Thor Able rocket during a really interesting (and last minute replacement!) talk by Dr Bleddyn Bowen on the politics of space at the UK's National Astronomy Meeting #NAM2025

(This post is not an endorsement of Botham's politics or of British beef)

Animated character "Beefy" used to sell British beef.

Interesting start to #NAM2025 at a session dedicated to Galactic dynamics, and how "Basis function expansions" are useful tools for this. Speakers keep abbreviating this as BFE, pronounced "Beefy", which is a touch distracting

Principle Skinner from The Simpsons. "Am I out of touch? No, it's the children who are wrong"

Some student feedback on my lecturing described it as "S-tier", which I assumed meant it was very bad. It turns out to be the opposite, but I remain a bit baffled. The S does not stand for the word I would expect.

'if a forklift truck can pick it up, is it even worth lifting weights in the gym?'

Number of new UK entry-level jobs has dived since ChatGPT launch – research Vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and junior jobs with no degree requirement have dropped 32%, Adzuna finds

Non-hot take: The "AI will kill us" discourse was a distraction from the real problem: it removes the young end of the skilled knowledge workforce. They are harder to train, because AI can do it for them. They can't get jobs, because AI can do it for their bosses. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Pulp’s secret Glastonbury set review – still the magnificently misshapen oddballs of British pop Returning to headline the Pyramid for the first time in 30 years, Jarvis Cocker and co are as dark, grubby and joyous as ever, instantly turning the audience to misty-eyed displays of devotion

I am very much a child of the 90s. Watching the BBC's stream of this set gave me quite literal chills www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

My lips are sealed. But we can expect incredible data! 🔭

Our final call for expressions of interest for the STFC Rutherford Fellowships, with a deadline tomorrow - do get in touch if you have any questions!

🔭 A compare and contrast that helped me understand how good the Vera Rubin images are:

The next open day for Physics degrees at the University of Leicester is Saturday 5th July 🧪🎢

I designed and 3D printed my own floaty galaxy! 🔭🧪

There's nothing wrong with a Chaplin moustache!

Brian Wilson, visionary creative spirit for the Beach Boys, dies aged 82 Musician, who suffered from mental health problems, wrote and produced the 1966 album Pet Sounds – seen by many as the greatest album of all time

Brian Wilson was a genius. God Only Knows is the most incredibly beautiful song that YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE PLAYED AT YOUR WEDDING

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

Yes. Plot everything. (Do not put all of those plots in your paper/lab report!)

A favourite exercise when I taught stats was to get students to calculate the mean and std deviation of one set each from the 'Datasaurus dozen', and then get them to plot their data! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datasau...

Is "What about selection effects?" the new "What about magnetic fields?" in seminars? Or is it just something I always ask?

🎉 #50YearsOfESA: for half a century, we've been serving Europe as its space agency and inspiring its citizens. Join us this anniversary year to reflect not only on our past achievements, but also on our future perspectives!

And if you want to read her thesis on "Mechanistic prediction of drug-induced proarrhythmic risk via simulation of afterdepolarisations in cardiac myocytes", now's your chance: ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid...

Picture of me pushing Beth's wheelchair

I'm incredibly proud of my sister, Dr Beth McMillan, who graduated on Saturday. To have completed her PhD in computational cardiovascular science despite her illness is a huge achievement. I had the honour of helping her through the ceremony itself.

Most commonly "review this paper in the next 2 days, kthx", but otherwise this is bang on.

That is fair. I don't think anyone quoted says never, just "won't be answered" by missions that would otherwise launch. The headline gives the more extreme reading of that statement.

I bow to no one in my love of ESA, but the proposed cut is equivalent to about 2/3 of ESA's total budget, and while I'd love them to fill that gap, I don't see it happening.

Leicester cosmic explosion expert among exceptional scientists elected as Royal Society Fellow | News | University of Leicester

🔭🧪 Congratulations to Prof Nial Tanvir who has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society for his work studying gamma-ray bursts, the most violent explosions we've ever seen.

le.ac.uk/news/2025/ma...

Text reads: In meeting those three challenges, let me make three observations that have recurred through the work on Made in Britain. First is the importance of good universities. Not only are they a large service exporter in their own right, but they also have a significant role in the creation of intellectual property, often for our manufacturing industries. In almost all the smartest and most lucrative parts of the economy university research seems to have played an important role. Britain happens to be very lucky in being endowed with a disproportionately large share of the world's best universities, and if you forced me to tell you of which British export industry I am most proud, I would probably nominate our university sector. If the rule is that we build the best possible economy using the resources we have at hand, the universities seem like one of the most useful, particularly as the demand for higher education is growing very rapidly around the world. It is hard to beat places that combine pure research, applied research and teaching as centres of value creation in the modern world. They represent their own mini-clusters, and have the power to spawn major industrial clusters around them too. In terms of both regional and industrial policy, their role cannot be overstated.

This, from the conclusions, hit particularly close to home.

Front Cover of "Made in Britain" by Evan Davis

I finally got around to reading "Made in Britain" which talks in general terms about the nature, strengths, and weaknesses of the UK economy as it was back in 2011. Reading some parts of it just make me sad.

For a beautiful 150 minute window this morning I did not have any marking that needed doing. First time since February.

This probably speaks poorly of my ability to get marking finished.

YouTube video by James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Webb Captures Jupiter’s Aurora

Jupiter's aurora is fizzing and popping with light faster than anyone expected. Our Prof Jonathan Nichols lead work that discovered this using JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope. www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2T8...