Aidan Warner

Journey times up, deaths down: Welsh 20mph speed limit still divisive two years on Protests continue against default lower limit in urban areas that supporters say is working ‘exactly as intended’

On the one hand, far fewer people are being killed. On the other, some people get to work two minutes later. So it's impossible to say whether it's good or not.

Motherfucking wind farms…

Thirst for knowledge: Free Wellcome exhibition charts our watery past and future You might need a glass of water to read this review, and you think about it differently afterwards.

Thirst for knowledge: Free Wellcome exhibition charts our watery past and future

www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/thi...

What Makes Heat So Hard to Cover? For journalists, the most urgent climate disaster is also the trickiest to report on.

Extreme heat doesn’t receive the same “round-the-clock” coverage as wildfires, hurricanes, or floods. Yet, “Of all the climate disasters we face, heat is the most urgent, and its day-to-day effects are also the trickiest to talk about.” By Meg Bernhard @columjournreview.bsky.social

This will have direct effects for people in the countries it worked in, it will set back the search for solutions to antimicrobial resistance that the whole world needs, and it will damage the UK's international standing and soft power, Wellcome's @jeremy-knox.bsky.social tells Today.

Cuts to the UK aid budget have led to the closure of the Fleming Fund, which has been tackling the growing global threat of antimicrobial resistance.

We are of course very open to other ideas. Answers on a postcard to 215 Euston Road NW1.

The Times opinion: "The Wellcome Trust’s argument goes further. It would be silly to pretend we aren’t competing globally, but to the extent that we succeed it’s because we persuade people to work with us. This isn’t helped by continually boasting about how amazing we are. “At best, this irritates prospective partners, and at worst, it prevents the UK negotiating research agreements,” they said. They offered an alternative phrasing for UK science: “The global partner of choice for R&D.” You don’t need to be a wordsmith of Johnson’s calibre to realise that won’t catch on. Equally, it’s clearly time for a reset. If nothing else, for a phrase that supposedly speaks to our national identity this vainglorious boasting feels a little desperate. Most of all, it’s not terribly British."

Mean Girls: stop trying to make "global partner of choice for r&d happen"

British boasts of being a ‘science superpower’ are a bit of a cringe Not since that other phrase, ‘follow the science’, has there been so much unease that words that sound like they are backing science might be a trap for it

In which @whippletom.bsky.social agrees with our diagnosis on the shortcomings of the UK's "science superpower" sloganeering, though not our alternative suggestion www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

Mitochondrial donation: the IVF treatment giving families hope | News | Wellcome The first healthy babies born in the UK thanks to mitochondrial donation show what science can achieve when combined with advocacy and engagement to build trust.

Newly published research shows for the first time that eight healthy babies have been born in the UK following a pioneering IVF technique that reduces the risk of mitochondrial disease.

We’re proud to have supported this work from the beginning: wellcome.org/news/mitocho...

Strength in science can help the UK find its place in a changing world.

Wellcome has published a new report on how the UK can be the global partner of choice for R&D, and why investing in science supports diplomacy and security as well as economic growth.

Yes. Though we're probably at least a decade overdue a pint

And that's why this season, I'm favouring the Latin Chasuble over the Gothic (greater side-ventilation!).

Both chic and practical!

Uniqlo basks in consumers buying ‘summer all year’ clothes in hotter climate Japanese retailer says trend is global as shoppers shift to lighter layers to cope with extremes in weather

Interesting insight on people rethinking their wardrobes to cope with heat caused by climate change www.ft.com/content/980a...

'How come I can’t breathe?': Musk's data company draws a backlash in Memphis The company’s turbines — enough to power 280,000 homes — run without emission controls in an area that leads Tennessee in asthma hospitalizations.

whenever i see grok screenshots i remember how it's running on methane-gas generators in a black neighborhood in memphis www.politico.com/news/2025/05...

Great to see the Government ambition to reinvent the NHS through science and tech in the #NHS10yearplan. To realise these changes, investment and a focus on delivery now needed.

How unusual is this UK heat and is climate change to blame? Scientists are clear that global warming is making heatwaves like this hotter and more likely.

"A 45C summer in the UK is now a near-term threat and we are dangerously unprepared."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Daily Mail story: Deadly 'heat dome' to sizzle Britain: Weather phenomenon set to bring 47C temperatures to Europe will also bake the UK - triggering Glastonbury health alert By MARK DUELL Published: 07:59, 27 June 2025 | Updated: 17:33, 27 June 2025 Britain will be gripped by a 36C heatwave from today bringing a 'rise in deaths' as a blowtorch 'heat dome' developing over Europe begins to impact the UK's weather. An amber heat health alert was activated at midday today ahead of what could be the hottest June day on record and the highest temperature in nearly three years. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) alert will last until Tuesday at 6pm and covers London , the East Midlands, South East, South West and East of England.

Good to see media reporting now routinely reflecting the real risks of extreme heat

Slowly, ever so slowly, the British public is abandoning the idea that "hot weather = good", proving that the arc of history bends towards progress after all.

US Spending on Climate Damage Nears $1 Trillion Per Year The bill for impacts from rising temperatures exceeded 3% of US GDP, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence.

Some remarkable figures in here www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Superb to see so many recognised in science and public health in the King's birthday honours. Congratulations in particular to former @wellcometrust.bsky.social director of infectious disease Gordon Dougan and @lshtm.bsky.social director Liam Smeeth.

Please enjoy this table of possible future scenarios from a 1990s paper in a peer-reviewed journal on how to deal with nuclear waste storage in underground repositories in New Mexico. I found it while doing research for an article on nuclear waste storage. "WIPP" means "Waste Isolation Pilot Plant".

It's Spending Review day!

The Chancellor has announced £86bn for research over the next four years

A big number, particularly in the economic context...

...but it also amounts to a reduction in ambition.

Here's why 🎞

John-Arne Røttingen, chief executive of Wellcome, the UK's largest non-governmental funder of research, said: “The previous government planned to reach £22bn a year of R&D spending last year, then pushed it back. Today's review pushes that aim back further to 2030. This is a reduction in ambition at a time when the UK desperately needs the economic growth that investing in science brings. “The squeeze on the health research budget in particular risks limiting our ability to find new treatments and innovation in the NHS. Britain has a strength in life sciences and medicine that it should be leaning into, to benefit patients and the economy. “Meanwhile, a consequence of the disappointing decision to cut overseas aid is that the science it funds, tackling some of the world’s biggest health threats, will be halved by the end of the decade."

Spending review research commitments are "a reduction in ambition at a time when the UK desperately needs the economic growth that investing in science brings" Wellcome ceo @jarottingen.bsky.social says

The UK Accelerates Its Self-Driving Car Ambitions

Jay Walker poster

Today, the Government launches plans to fast-track driverless vehicle trials in the UK.

One of the companies involved says London presents a big challenge:

“It has seven times more jaywalkers than San Francisco.”

Except… it doesn't. 🧵

I would rather a colleague didn't respond than send an automated AI response without reading it. I cannot think of anything more contemptuous you could do as a response to a colleague who has used their work time to contact you.

The case for using "global majority" by institutions should be rejected unless + until it can be shown
- most people understand what it means (most don't)
- most people it is about would like it used (most don't)

I find it a deeply incoherent fiction + a highly regressive term in some many ways

Deadly Fungi Are Here, and They’re Spreading Unlike “The Last of Us,” virulent fungal disease isn't a work of science fiction.

What spoils our crops, kills about six times more people than malaria every year and is breathed in by each of us every single day?

It’s not a virus or bacteria, but something even more formidable: fungi 🍄

via @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Sam and Jony introduce io Building a family of AI products for everyone.

Quite apart from anything else, I never trust anyone who centres text, for God's sake. openai.com/sam-and-jony/