P. Kanngiesser/P. K. Hoffmann

I had thought there was enough residual dignity, and enough emphasis on maintaining the reputation of one's institution, left in the office of Vice Chancellor for a UK university that VCs would not stoop to such behaviour. How naïve that was.

A map of the world showing how levels of worry in most countries are greater than 70%. Source: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, International Public Opinion on Climate Change, 2023.

Two of the most common climate misconceptions I see, even among knowledgeable folks, are that (1) most people aren't worried about climate change, and (2) if they were, they'd act.

Not true! Data show (1) most people are worried, but (2) they won’t act if they don’t know what to do-and most don’t.

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

I see pieces like this a lot, often w/ a spin of lamenting cultural degeneration, but reading is a LABOR issue, it’s declined because so many people are working overtime or two jobs & employers expect after hours work. France has Earth’s highest reading rate b/c long lunch breaks & labor protections

A brown praying mantis clings to the body of a black Panasonic camera, its front legs raised near the control dial.

Everybody thinks they're a photography expert now. I put my camera down for a minute and this mantis has to go and change my settings on me.

At @casabentbill.bsky.social #CostaRica

#invertebrates #mantids #insects

Map of my no-fly itinerary from Italy to Bougainville, PNG

I've set off to Bougainville,PNG, for another #NoFly journey. I want to complete my research there. Travelling the ~25,000km distance from Italy by🚢,🚅,&🚌,I'll emit ~10 times less than✈️ (computations to come).Here the long read on my motivations: gianlu777.substack.c... 1/🧵

Updates from Argentina

Since our last post, where we talked about the importance of the legislative elections on October, and the government's struggle to keep the dollar exchange rate fixed before the election by spending dollars from the reserves and loans. Since then, three events have...

1/17

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

RIP #JaneGoodall - one of the modern pioneers of profound interconnections between people, animals and ecosystems. Her life was lived through science, compassion and tireless advocacy for the multiple values of nature - leaving a legacy that will endure for people and planet.

"If we lose hope, we're doomed."

We must continue Dr. Jane Goodall's mission and all fight for the future of the planet.

Where now for Britain’s Universities? UK higher education now faces a very bleak future, retreating in the face of little public sympathy and limited political interest.

New from me: a *free* short version of my Political Quarterly piece on universities... The issue is settled now: the massified and accessible Higher Education system we have spent tens of billions building since the 1970s is coming to an end. (1/2)
politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/where-n...

There is a ton of research that students ratings on aggregate do not reflect learning outcomes, but whatever biases the population has. But in the "run universities like a business" model, student ratings are customer satisfaction surveys, so reflecting learning outcomes is irrelevant.

Just fuck off with this. How about start the conversation by highlighting how much immigrants contribute to the UK - not least by propping up the NHS and social care system!

Also - forced volunteering is not volunteering, it's unpaid labour.

Student visas crackdown and new levies to cause ‘£1.8bn loss’ to UK economy The Government has proposed a 6 per cent tax on international student tuition fees and a reduction in graduate visas

I am genuinely baffled and distressed as to why the UK government is intent on destroying UK's genuinely world-leading universities, who bring £265 billion into the economy and support more than 250,000 jobs.

This tax will kill us.

www.standard.co.uk/news/politic...

Over the last 24 hours Reform, with just a single policy announcement, have put fear where previously there was none into the hearts of millions of UK residents.

No 10 and the Chancellor have said nothing about the ethics of this.

I have no words left for them.

My university is working hard to improve its history of poisonous industrial relations by announcing that it‘s deducting 50% of pay from staff carrying out action short of a strike. Withholding pay for refusing to work beyond contractual obligations sounds unlawful to me, but what do I know?

It was obvious when EU citizens had the terms of their settlement here retrospectively revoked that a precedent was being set and that, in time, the argument would move on to other categories of migrant, always tending towards a purity test of who is ‘indigenous’. Unless resisted.

The net result is the worst of both worlds. Universities invoke the rhetoric of business discipline, but they lack the governance structures that give that discipline bite. They operate without the checks that private ownership provides, yet subject staff and students to the cost-cutting and efficiency drives that profit-maximising firms pursue. The result is waste at the top and insecurity at the bottom.

this is a very sharp piece on why it makes no sense to run universities as if they are businesses. They're not businesses.

www.afr.com/work-and-car...

This reads like one of those clever UG essays, that ploughs ahead with a bold argument despite each point hitting an evidentiary dead-end. 1/2

For an institution supposedly invested in the work of critical thinking, there seems to be so little application of it where it matters.

If you're going to give students free access to a machine that fabricates knowledge-shaped objects, aren't you naturally suggesting that knowledge doesn't matter?

YouTube video by Library of Congress Horror in Hostile Worlds: Agustina Bazterrica and Stephen Graham Jones

hey, cool: Agustina Bazterrica and me in DC at the National Book Festival. Not sure if the audience'll be in this, but there's better than a thousand people out there:

Censorship Is the Authoritarian’s Dream The right to free expression must include the right to say horrible and evil things.

"More professors in the United States have been fired for controversial views in the past week than any other week in all of American history."
www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Public health shouldn’t be centred around individual behaviour change. It should be focused on changing the wider commercial, social, environmental & ultimately political determinants of health. Behaviour change will naturally come when healthy behaviours are facilitated by those structural changes.

"Pain is a signal that death comes closer. . .and fear is anticipation of pain. . .the whole atmosphere was manipulation of death, and that really struck me.”-- Maksym Butkevych

A remarkable conversation between two of the most penetrating thinkers of our times.

Want to see an example of good, reasoned policy making by a scientific institution? Check out the new ERC rules on B1/B2 contents, eligibility windows, and panel processes. And if you're thinking of applying (you should!) then take a closer look at what you're aiming for here!
#UKHE
#HigherEducation

“I can’t promise you, dear Reader, much entertainment in the next few chapters. If you get bored with all the noisome stuff about to transpire here, console yourself and have pity on me, for I’m the one who had to write it.”

Heinrich Heine

The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced. I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job.

Some personal news:

I've been fired from the Washington Post in the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting.

Thread incoming.

substack.com/@karenattiah...

I don't think Peter Mandelson is PM's biggest problem. The biggest problem is not standing up to the literal violent racism on our streets, supercharged by the richest man in the world, and threatening the very fabric of our society. If he and so many commentators can't see this, we're truly lost.

Photo of a missing slice of cheesecake that looks like a cheesecake hull floating in a deep blue ocean. The "ocean" is actually the blueberry topping on the large cheesecake that we don't see completely.

All I saw was cheesecake boat and ocean for at least 5 minutes