Roberta McMorran-Lait

Sign the Petition Save Geography at the University of Leicester

The GGE department at Leicester is under serious threat. University leadership looking to axe massive amounts of staff. Jobs, postgraduate supervision, degree programs, student experience, and people's futures are at risk!

Please sign and circulate if you can 🙏

c.org/SfCJhxQwRc

Happy to share that I passed my upgrade and I'm now an official PhD candidate! I had a stimulating, thoughtful conversation with my assessing panel and am excited to get started on my research 🔎🌍📈 Been celebrating by hiding in caves, exploring old castles, and having Bloody Mary's on the beach 🍹

Ed Miliband says Tories are ‘anti-science’ for abandoning net zero consensus Energy and net zero secretary lays out stark picture of how climate crisis and nature depletion is affecting UK

Great to see a more combative tone from @teamlabouruk.bsky.social on delivering net zero. The conservatives should be ashamed www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Important read! Good to see some pushback against a emerging poisonous narrative about SEND transport costs.

Department for Education confirms launch of natural history GCSE Campaigners have been calling for the qualification for years but plan stalled despite a curriculum being drawn up

Brilliant news! At last, confirmation that the Govt *will* go ahead with the #NaturalHistoryGCSE 🎉 We have to get to know our fellow travellers on this planet again. Young people who know & love nature are far more likely to protect & restore it - as well as enjoying better physical & mental health

Had a fabulous time on my DTP field trip with @centa.bsky.social! We learned from @severntrentwater.bsky.social about innovative technologies for mitigating N2O emissions from wastewater treatment plants 🧪🏭💨, culminating in a fun info-video and POSTNote. Also managed some gorgeous sunset walks ☀️🌿

📣Now Free Access: Non-stressful temperature changes affect transgenerational phenotypic plasticity across the life cycle of Arabidopsis thaliana plants
Get the Paper:

International Women's Day 2025: our favourite Kew stories Read and watch our top science and garden stories from the trailblazing women of Kew over the past year.

This #InternationalWomensDay we're celebrating the many recent stories of trailblazing women — researchers, curators, educators, and horticulturists — that are each advancing our shared understanding of plants and fungi! 🌱👩‍🔬🍄

www.kew.org/read-and-wat...

When politicians tell us to focus on growth we need to ask: ‘Why, and for whom?’ Isolate growth from public good and you are simply planning for breakdown. My research shows that a resilient society should be rooted in wellbeing, not wealth, says former archbishop of Canterbury Ro...

Refreshing to see someone at the House of Lords question the cult of economic growth! Growth at all costs without considering public good is absurd. This outdated mentality is how we end up with projects like expanding Heathrow during a climate emergency 🙃 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Stonehenge-like circle unearthed in Denmark may have links to UK Archaeologists suggest ‘woodhenge’ was built between 2600 and 1600BC on similar axis to English stone circle An “extraordinary” timber circle believed to be thousands of years old and connected to Stonehenge in England has been discovered in the ground…

Stonehenge-like circle unearthed in Denmark may have links to UK

Indigenous tribes engineered British Columbia’s modern hazelnut forests more than 7000 years ago Genetic analysis of hazelnut trees could help First Nations secure land rights in Canadian courts

Niche nerd alert, but this is huge! Genetic analysis validates the permaculture/forest gardening practices of precolonial North America as serious agriculture on a similar time scale with domestication of corn, rice, potatoes, and other global staple crops!

www.science.org/content/arti...

Lucy Waruingi of the African Conservation Centre is a fabulous choice as plenary at #BES2024.

I am creating a #starter pack for #environmental #sciences doctoral research students.

Reach out to be added to the starter pack! I need 7 to start.

#students #phd #academics #scientists #researchers #biology #chemistry #physics #ecology #conservationists #geographers #geospatial

You can add me as well if you want! :)

Jimi? Cleopatra? Foxy Brown? Robin Hood? Nick Wilde? Tails? Fantastic Mister? The possibilities are endless and I simply cannot choose 🤔

Starter packs BIOLOGY Ecology Macroecology https://go.bsky.app/GBn9pNZ Global ecology https://go.bsky.app/V6tN4cv Trait based ecology and evolution https://go.bsky.app/PThMXeX Invasion biology https://go.b...

hey everyone! i made a list of some useful starter packs (primarily biology/earth sciences with a few bonus things thrown in) to share with friends who have joined bsky in the last week and thought it may be useful for some people here too! 🌍🧪 #SciSky #BioSky docs.google.com/document/d/1...

May I be added please?

Spotted in the rock garden at work 🦊

Ed Balls

a pixel art of a man standing under a rainbow on a blue background Alt: a pixel art of Levar standing under a rainbow on a blue background

Okay, y’all… I have finally decided that retreat is the better part of valor. Bringing some rainbow energy over to these blue skies.
#bydhttmwdi

May I please be added?

How Farming Reshaped Our Genomes Analysis of 8000-year-old European hunter-gatherer suggests cultivation of crops and livestock dramatically reshaped our DNA

With domestication, humans directed the evolution of crops & livestock. But farming likewise reshaped our genomes too! DNA from ancient hunter-gatherers and farmers alike shows how the rise of farming changed our biology

www.science.org/content/arti...

Well said!!

Or, according to James C. Scott, the other way around.

The Onion should buy Elsevier next

Biodiversity impacts of the 2019–2020 Australian megafires - Nature Data collected from more than 2,000 taxa provide an unparalleled opportunity to quantify how extreme wildfires affect biodiversity, revealing that the largest effects on plants and animals were in are...

Impressive synthesis of biodiversity responses to the 2019–2020 megafires in Australia, now out in @natureportfolio.bsky.social. 🧪🌍https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08174-6

Origins of the Apple: The Role of Megafaunal Mutualism in the Domestication of Malus and Rosaceous Trees The apple (Malus domestica [Suckow] Borkh.) is one of the most economically and culturally significant fruits in the world today, and it is grown in all temperate zones. With over a thousand landraces...

“…the driving force of apple domestication appears to have been the trans-Eurasian crop exchange, or the movement of plants along the Silk Road” 🌾🧪

*waves in trans-Eurasian*

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles...

Hi everyone! I started my PhD in October at Leicester and RGB Kew. Focusing on the palaeoclimatic drivers of the Neolithic revolution + spatial and temporal patterns global agrobiodiversity. Physical geographer by trade and a sometimes soil-nerd by night 🌿👩‍🌾🌍