Angela Cassidy

Text: Margaret Thatcher’s right-to-buy scheme has cost UK taxpayers almost £200bn, according to a report into the policy’s contribution to Britain’s housing crisis. In its report into the sale of millions of council homes to their tenants at steep discounts since 1980, the Common Wealth thinktank said the policy had fuelled vast shortages in social housing and turbocharged inequality. Describing it as one of the “largest giveaways in UK history”, it said the sale of 1.9m council homes in England had contributed to a situation where one in six private tenants in England now rents a former local authority home.

The cost of Right to Buy ...
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

I saw that it was a free service for companies and parents and so of course its not going to be okay.

I am not enjoying the future one bit

A photo taken through the window of a train. The name of the station "Newton for Hyde" can be seen on a sign. Inside the train a piece of paper is held up to the window with a sketch of a bewigged gentleman holding up a sign saying "Leibnitz for Jekyll"

Nerdy joke warning. 😁 I've been planning this since I first saw the Newton for Hyde sign.

2 things: (1) I’m having a baby (!) & (2) you can apply for my mat cover at the Health Foundation! I love working here, it’s a fab job at a fascinating time for UK health policy, fab team, great organisation. Happy to answer any qs! Espec from academics/ #histmed ! lde.tbe.taleo.net/lde01/ats/ca...

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

I was out on #Dartmoor for dawn this morning, arriving at 3.30am and leaving towards 6am. Persistent, thin rain and low cloud, so low visibility. Visited the ruins of an old gunpowder factory. Thanks to @onlyindevon.co.uk for accompanying me, and being a great guide…

Interesting phrasing. I wonder if there's a more succinct way of saying "backlash against antiracism"

2/ The article argues that reintroducing endangered species is less a triumphant and reassuring “homecoming” than a slow, uncertain “homemaking” where animals and humans together forge new wild lives and animal cultures 🐴 Metaphors matter in #wildlifeconservation but they can be misleading.

#envhum

Reintroduction of Przewalski's horses in the Gobi Desert, Mongolia, 1990s. Transported by aircraft, arriving in crates. Photo by ITG, Ruth Baumgartner.

1/ Happy to share that my article “Beyond Homecoming: The Reintroduction of Seven Przewalski’s Mares in the Gobi Desert” has been published in Environmental Humanities.

It is the story of seven mares flown from Australian zoos to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in the 1990s
doi.org/10.1215/2201... #envhist

While @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social is a bit ambivalent about Tidal, I've not had shuffle problem. Being able to listen to entire albums, with proper sound quality, knowing artists are respected, get some revenue and actually *exist*, is SO great.

Teaching a course this fall on contagion in history (pandemics, epidemics, understanding how people understood how disease spread, etc) this fall. Super excited about this one.

Any recommendations for accessible, engaging, and/or fun sources for first semester freshmen?

#histmed #skystorians

Portrait of Richard Owen posing next to a reptile skull. Maull & Polyblank, Professor Richard Owen, 1855. Gernsheim Collection, 2024:0003:0001. Harry Ransom Center University of Texas at Austin

Portrait of Michael Faraday leaning against a table while holding a magnet. Maull & Polyblank, Professor Michael Faraday, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., 1854–1855, published October 1857. Gernsheim Collection, 2024.0003.0001.0007. Harry Ransom Center University of Texas at Austin

Exciting news for fans of Victorian science! @ransomcenter.bsky.social recently digitized a photo album featuring members of Maull & Polyblank's Literary & Scientific Portrait Club, including Richard Owen & Michael Faraday (seen here).

ransom.center/maull-polybl...

#histSTM #histsci #photosky 🗃️📜📷

Donkeys snack on grass in the museum garden.

A sheep looks very calm and wise in a pen in the garden. A 'no feeding' sign sits just above their eye-level.

Two little pigs in the garden.

Lots of people, families, and kids in the museum garden.

farm animals at The MERL
this is not a drill

Pandemic | Library | Royal College of Nursing Pandemic Nursing 100 years of infection online exhibition

Two free #UK #HistNursing online exhibitions

1) Pandemic

www.rcn.org.uk/library-exhi...

Make sure to read @monicavasile.bsky.social's wonderful new article in Environmental Humanities - arguing we should think of reintroduction projects not as a form of 'homecoming', but as 'homemaking'. #MovingAnimals read.dukeupress.edu/environmenta...

Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign Several researchers who have been critical of Colossal Biosciences’ plans to revive extinct animals say they have been targeted by online articles trying to discredit them

Thanks @newscientist.com for shining a light on the smear campaign against @toriherridge.bsky.social, @devoevomed.bsky.social, @flintdibble.bsky.social & myself just for fulfilling our critic & conscience role to provide expert commentary about de-extinction www.newscientist.com/article/2490...

In 1908, means-tested, non-contributory Old Age Pensions were introduced in Britain, payable from the age of 70. Here, incredibly, are photographs of two of the first citizens to claim them (plus a dog).

History and photograph people, I need your help: does ‘British Official Photograph’ stamped on the back of a photograph (of a wind turbine) and a serial number suggest a particular provenance? It’s a surprise to me and the archivist to see it there, and it raises some potential copyright questions.

While @firstdogonthemoon.bsky.social is a bit ambivalent about Tidal, I've not had shuffle problem. Being able to listen to entire albums, with proper sound quality, knowing artists are respected, get some revenue and actually *exist*, is SO great.

Critics of de-extinction research hit by mystery smear campaign Several researchers who have been critical of Colossal Biosciences’ plans to revive extinct animals say they have been targeted by online articles trying to discredit them

Academics who have questioned the validity of efforts to “de-extinct” animals like the woolly mammoth and the dire wolf have complained of an apparent campaign to discredit them.

The front end of a recently dead mole. Pink snout, enormous spade hands, held in my hand.

Sad (but fascinating) dead mole. No wounds visible. Isn’t he amazing? Those incredible, worm-squeezing spade-hands! Beautiful fur, on his beanbag body, whose nap smoothed either way, enables swift reversing, or roly-polys in tight tunnels. His little bristly snout & tail! Gave him a good re burial.

Wellcome-funded 'Between Deception and Dissent' project is recruiting a postdoc working at the interface of medical STS and socio-legal studies, supervised by Martyn Pickersgill @ Edinburgh #STS www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNY639/r...

One week left to apply for this tenured #envhist job!

This is fascinating.
But don't bother reading the comments. The biology is abyssal; the comments abysmal.

Research Fellow at The University of Edinburgh Recruiting now: Research Fellow on jobs.ac.uk. Click for details and explore more academic job opportunities on the top job board

Great 3-year STS post-doc at Edinburgh, closes 18 August
#sts

Our book is out! The surprising history of masks worn by plague doctors, factory workers, trench soldier, hospital nurses, and the rest of us.

yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

@yalepress.bsky.social
@yalebooks.bsky.socuial