John Buckeridge

I see it's time for me to make the point again that the poppy is a fundraising campaign for the Royal British Legion, a specific, mundane entity that is not exempt from scrutiny and does not own the concept of remembrance.
You can read its 2024 accounts here: storage.rblcdn.co.uk/sitefinity/d...

In honor of the upcoming #WomenInPhysics Day, let's create a thread of amazing women physicists. I'll start with one my favorites, Chien-Shiung Wu, who is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, which proved that parity is not conserved. ⚛️ 🧪 👩‍🔬 🎢

Nice! Vacuum fluctuations FTW

WTF?!

Thermal Transport in Ag8TS6 (T= Si, Ge, Sn) Argyrodites: An Integrated Experimental, Quantum-Chemical, and Computational Modelling Study Argyrodite-type Ag-based sulfides combine exceptionally low lattice thermal and high ionic conductivity, making them promising candidates for thermoelectric and solid-state energy applications. In thi...

A new preprint and two firsts:
Joana Bustamante's first first-author preprint in our group and us developing a model for thermal conductivity!

Feedback welcome!

arxiv.org/abs/2510.23133

#compchem

“Now go to sleep, Kevin—or once again I’ll have to knock three times and summon the Floating Head of Death.”

“Now go to sleep, Kevin—or once again I’ll have to knock three times and summon the Floating Head of Death.”

Dracula La Land

In case you haven't seen it yet, the 2023 film Rye Lane is on the BBC iPlayer and is a total delight
▶️📺 www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

Congrats! I've loved this thread. Great seeing places I know well, know a little, know vaguely... and lots I have no clue about

Pure celtic tiger spirit. I can picture him holding a bottle of deep river rock while saying it

As an irish person living in the UK, even with kids identifying as english and irish, definitely not very keen on being forced to be literally a card-carrying brit!

If this intends to make it legally compulsory for every adult in Derry to carry something called a "Brit Card", then I'm willing to offer some high-paid consultancy on why this plan might be flawed.

A piece in the Guardian today focuses on the Irish game of road bowling; it reminded me of this work (1941) by Gabriel Hayes showing the game in action - it used to be confined to West Cork. share.google/6u9a5XNcui7J...

Quarter of UK university physics departments at risk of closing, survey finds Four out of five making staff cuts as physicists say findings are ‘great concern’ for UK’s leadership in important areas

Worrying - Quarter of UK university physics departments at risk of closing, survey finds | Physics | The Guardian share.google/OloD34Di6p9D...

This isn't my idea it's @alicebennett.bsky.social 's as I recall, but I think it's time for this meme to join our HE binfire pantheon.

-59D chess

Remember this? In the 1990s, a popular view of nanotechnology claimed that molecular gears like this, made of diamondoid carbon, were going to be the components of molecular-scale assemblers and nanobots. But that vision hasn't come to pass. My article in Aeon explores why.
aeon.co/essays/no-su...

“Oh boy! ... It’s dog food again!”

“Oh boy! ... It’s dog food again!”

With the focus on religious communities you'd think they would. I suppose logic isn't their strong point.

Interesting and informative podcast, thanks! One question i have regards Muslim communities. It seems blue labour should be very supportive, but cosying up to bannon etc suggests not. What is their position? If they are supportive it would be a clear divide with the labour right?

Why AI chatbots lie to us A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine needed to collect and format some data from a website, and he asked the latest version of Anthropic’s generative AI system, Claude, for help. Claude cheerfully agr...

In my latest (and last!) column for Science’s Expert Voices series, I write about the reasons behind AI chatbots’ “deceptive” behaviors (and why Claude threatened a fictional CEO with blackmail).

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you’re based in Britain and are hurling-curious, the final will be on BBC 2 tomorrow afternoon: www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

It might help put the article below (or indeed, my annual fretting about the fortunes of the Cork hurling team) into context.

Framed comic of 101 dalmatians (binary version) by world of moose

Claire is very happy with this present! Always love a maths joke. Thanks to @mooseallain.bsky.social !

Bjork bouncing.

Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident

Conscientious SUV Shopper Just Wants Something That Will Kill Family In Other Car In Case Of Accident theonion.com/conscie...

Tonight’s huge climbdown is testament to the countless disabled people who have tirelessly fought these cuts. Yes, UC was a loss and there’s more to do on PIP, but let’s not underplay this: a government with a vast majority has been forced to u-turn. Because of the disabled community.

Well that's tonight's nightmare sorted

Kneecap set was great. Why is there only 12 mins of Amyl and the Sniffers on iplayer though? #Glastonbury

photo of the sun going down dramatically. it is very orange and there are rays of light extending out from light lilac grey clouds above and the sillhouettes of trees on the suburban skyline

yeah that's right fuck off

Comic. [Two houses next to each other. Piping runs from one underground, connecting it to the other.] [caption] A covertly-installed *Neighbor-Source Heat Pump* takes advantage of the fact that your neighbor keeps their house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Neighbor-Source Heat Pump

xkcd.com/3099/