Duncan K Galloway

First Shape Found That Can’t Pass Through Itself | Quanta Magazine After more than three centuries, a geometry problem that originated with a royal bet has been solved.

This is a lovely article, showing that the spirit of enquiry and the thirst for new knowledge persist in a world where stupidity is so popular.

www.quantamagazine.org/first-shape-...

Australia fiddles with fossil gas while the country swelters in record heat. It doesn’t make sense | Bill Hare Australians have an obvious interest in action against global warming. Focusing on gas instead of renewables for the energy transition risks sabotaging our future

Financial institutions fund ongoing production of fossil fuels. But it's govs backed by their relationships w the fossil fuel industry that permit & enable it. & worse, trap other countries into ff lock-in & dependency when they could otherwise develop renewable energy options
@billhare.bsky.social👇

‘Absurdist leaps of logic’: Robodebt misused in FOI reforms I am furious. Angry, certainly, about the federal government’s proposed freedom of information laws, which mock the very idea of transparency, but seething especially about the justification for them,...

The dishonesty around the use of Robodebt in prosecuting the government’s Freedom of Information secrecy drive is galling in the extreme. I set out some facts that deflate the specious claims being used as cover. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/comment/topi...

Labor needs to bow to Liberals or Greens or its environment law revamp is dead Albanese government will need to make major concessions to pass promised federal nature laws as Liberals attack ‘nature positive 2.0’

Bow to? How about *work with* the Greens and respect the carefully considered advice of environment and climate experts!

It's really not the hard, should @australianlabor.bsky.social want to do the right thing.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

As the Coalition shows its colours on nature, Labor faces a question: will it really protect Australia’s wildlife? | Clear Air There are some decent elements in what Labor is proposing, but the overhaul could end up as tinkering rather than transformation

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Will the new environment bill, you know...actually protect the environment? @adammorton.bsky.social looks at the evidence, but I suspect you know the answer....

Hear, hear

There's a lot of pressure for authors not to say this but I'm going to say it. Please do not buy my books from Amazon. Buy my books from independent bookshops (as a first choice). Buy my books from Bookshop.Org. Buy my books from Blackwell's. Buy my books from Waterstones. Borrow my books from the library. Do not give Satan money for my books.

Thank you.

www.tom-cox.com

Should humans colonise space? We asked 5 experts Earth is the only home humans have ever known. But that might not be the case for much longer.

Should humans colonise space? We asked five experts – four of whom said no. It’s not just a question of whether humans try to live in space, but also about how we do it. Here are their detailed answers.
via @aunz.theconversation.com 🧪 🔭

3 colour illustration/visualisation of a talk about black holes. There is a drawing of a woman in a jacket holding open an interstellar like black hole that says "What will an 'activated'" black hole look like? Surrounding this drawing is a dynamic panorama of text and images relating to quotes and questions from the talk like "Black holes spend most of their time being rather harmless..." with cartoons of adorable little black holes with arms and legs being cute, and eating (with text "...until they get hungry!").

Just one week until the @mayodarkskies.bsky.social festival! I'm excited to give a public talk, but also to see @paraphrasestudio.bsky.social again. Rae achieves the impossible by making insane visualisations of talks in real time! 🔭🧪Here's the one she made during my #blackhole talk back in 2022:

Largest study of its kind shows AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time – regardless of language or territory An intensive international study was coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC

Yet again, we can't afford to let LLMs become a source of epistemic grounding for society.

New Australia Institute analysis shows the University of Newcastle had net assets over $1.8 billion at the end of 2024, contrary to claims that the university is in a finanical crisis.

#auspol

Monty Python understood p-hacking

‘All systems flashing red’: World off track for all climate targets Despite record clean energy investment, coal, deforestation and fossil fuel finance are still rising, warns new report.

"The State of Climate Action 2025 report, produced by Systems Change Lab, finds that none of the 45 key indicators for limiting global warming to 1.5°C, in line with 2015’s Paris Agreement, are on track for 2030"

www.euronews.com/green/2025/1...

Happy World Wombat Day! Sound on to listen to the very soothing munching noises of this chonky wombat...

Cover of the report - it's in a blue/purple color scheme and shows an abstract illustration of a molecule and the title of the report "Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science Consensus Study Report"

Out now - National Academies consensus report on Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science 🧪

It was a privilege to serve as one of the 15 committee members from a wide range of scientific disciplines who put this report together. Quick 🧵1/

www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/und...

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre palawa kani language program map of First Nations place names across the island, with a side bar showing instructions about how the public may use the place names.

Love to see that the Tasmanian Aboriginal palawa kani place names map has had a whole makeover. Great user info, a better layout, it's beautiful.

tacinc.com.au/map/map

(Of course, I discovered the update because an article in press has the old URL in a footnote & it's too late to change it...)

Hunters or collectors? New evidence challenges claim Australia’s First Peoples sent large animals extinct

Australia doesn’t have any ‘kill sites’. In fact, there’s no hard evidence people hunted the megafauna.

The ALP didn't bother negotiating with the Libs when it changed IR laws, but now apparently it needs LNP support for environmental protection changes.

When govts want to do something, they do it.
When they don't, they use bipartisanship as the excuse.

No one here should fall for it

What's the deal with university governance reform? Why is a new Victorian inquiry important?
Come to Friday's briefing for university staff in Victoria and find out what all this means for you and your uni: nteu.info/reformbriefing
#HigherEducation #AcademicSky #auspol

Pro-cycling crashes can be bad, but evidence suggests slower bikes aren’t the answer

The elite cycling world is debating whether limiting bike speeds will cut crashes. Evidence shows rider tactics and course design create more risk than speed alone.

Photo of a row of telescope dishes at the Very Large Array, crossing the photo in a horizontal line, under a clear blue sky.

Calling all early career scientists! The NSF NRAO invites applications for the 2026 Jansky Fellowship Program.

🚨 Application Deadline is October 22, 2025 at 11:59 pm EDT 🚨

Details and apply: https://science.nrao.edu/opportunities/postdoctoral-programs/jansky

Polluting and costly: growing gap between PHEV claims and reality The gap between real world and official PHEV emissions is widening WLTP emissions Real-world emissions PHEV models emissions gCO2/km 2021 50 35 0 38 3.5 times 134 2022 33 4 times 137 2023 28 5 times 100 120 139 140 In the real world, PHEVs have similar emissions than conventional hybrids and combustion vehicles WLTP emissions Real-world emissions 150 139 135 166 100 PHEV ICE and HEV PHEV ICE and HEV +500€ 0 20 40 60 80 PHEVs operating cost are 500€ larger than what carmakers data suggest Source: T&E analysis of 2021-22-23 OBFCM data collected by the European Environment Agency, EEA car registrations 2021-23, EAFO, Weekly Oil Bulletin T&E

Plug-in hybrid cars are essentially a massive fossil fuel demand protection scam enacted on well-meaning consumers trying to do the right thing

The gap between reported and real emissions is just utterly bonkers - new @transenvuk.bsky.social study here

www.transportenvironment.org/articles/smo...

@australianlabor.bsky.social Enviro Minister Murray Watt giving off humungous 'we are all looking for the guy who did this' energy

A hand holds a paperback book: “If You Want to Win, You’ve Got to Fight” by Carter Lavin, with a Paris street out of focus in the background.

“Changing transportation is more a power struggle than logic problem. While advocates may be right, we often lose because we're not politically strong enough to get decision-makers to back our solutions. Time and again, experiences have affirmed that being right is one thing and winning is another.”

Dr Rukhmabai Raut, Physician Rukhmabai Raut was the second woman to become a practising physician in India.

Rukhmabai Raut was the second woman to become a practising physician in India. She studied at the Royal Free Hospital & London School of Medicine for Women, before returning to India to become the Chief Medical Officer at the Women's Hospital in Surat.
adalovelaceday.subst...

Op de Hoge Veluwe krijgen wolf én prooi een halsband met zender om De Wageningen Universiteit wil precies weten hoe wolven, reeën, wilde zwijnen en edelherten zich door het bos bewegen.

Op de Hoge Veluwe krijgen wolf én prooi een halsband met zender om

University tuition fees in England to rise with inflation every year from 2026 Bridget Phillipson confirmed the plans for the next two years, with fees to increase automatically after that.

Higher Education: our sector is at breaking point. We can’t go on like this.

Government: let’s index tuition fees to keep things exactly as they are for the foreseeable future.

Spotted the problem?

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

I find it quaint to describe these as ‘errors’ as if the proper functioning of the mechanism would ensure the generation of accurate summaries rather than plausible-sounding strings of text that are unconstrained by any genuine understanding of the semantics. #AISlop #slopification

A view of the VISTA telescope and its 4MOST instrument. The structure is grey, with several cables visible around it. The telescope is viewed from above and is located inside a building with metallic walls.

1/ The 4MOST instrument installed on our VISTA telescope in Chile completed its first test observations.

@4most-eu.bsky.social will help us unravel our galactic history, explore dark matter, and more.
www.eso.org/public/annou...

🔭 🧪
#instrumentation
📷 AIP/A. Saviauk

Record-breaking CO₂ rise shows the Amazon is faltering — yet the satellite that spotted this may soon be shut down The US is set to shut down a crucial satellite that monitors how much carbon is in the atmosphere.

The US is set to shut down a crucial satellite that monitors how much carbon is in the atmosphere.