Owen Gwynne

'painful decisions' - 'have the stomach for it'
'full freedom to do what they think is right for their residents'

that's dangerous talk

A white humanoid (but not human) figure stands mounted on a rock drill - looking very much like a very heavy duty machine gun.

My first visit to the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery was through one of the side entrances and up some stairs to ...
The Epstein 'Rock Drill'
I stood, staggered, for ages.

A charity shop display. On the top shelf is a ceramic plate with "Daddy I love you" on it.

Try not to imagine the story behind this...

Someone check his accounts

Adding girth to get extra length, it's a slippery slope for sure.

An excited Oxygen atom can take about 2 min before emitting the red colour. Only possible at very low density (v. high in the atmosphere).
Green light emission takes less than a second, so can happen at higher density, lower down.
Nitrogen molecules even less time, so lower
All down to density.

Good question. Whether the boundaries will rise or fall with the change in our magnetic field is an interesting question, but not one to which I can contribute an answer.

Coloured horizontal bands representing the colours generated by aurorae. Above 180miles is red from Oxygen atoms, between 180 and 60miles is green from Oxygen, and below 60 miles is blue from Nitrogen. A yellow band around 180 miles is due to a mix of red and green, a purple/lilac band around 60 miles is a mix of green and blue

🔭 I've known in principle that the different colours of aurorae are due to different elements at different heights, but the facts have never really 'stuck' in my mind. So I made this chart to help me remember.

Not just them, but the pathetic ones who aren't worth anything to foreign powers, but just don't have the bravery to say "this is disgusting" out loud.

What's notable is the craven silence from Reform and their fellow followers on the Right.
If any other world leader had said the same, they'd be calling for retaliation...
But from them, crickets

Her biography was written by Mary Brück (née Conway), another notable Irish Astronomer.

And once you've observed it, destroy it - I think that's how it goes isn't it 😜

The French Revolutionary Calendar used the Autumn equinox as the date of the New Year.

The ones you don't know are often the ones you are most grateful to now know

Perihelion will fall during our summer months in about 13,000 years I think. I'm happy to be corrected by a proper astronomer.

A plot of the time of perihelion (around 4th January) from 1992 to 2020 - showing how it doesn't follow a regular pattern.

A potential problem with using perihelion to define the start of the year is that it jumps around so much - mainly because the Moon's position isn't tied to the Solar year, so sometimes the Earth is nearer (Full Moon), and sometimes further (New Moon)

A composite image of the Sun (with sunspots) - top half taken near perihelion, the bottom half near aphelion showing the difference in apparent size (about 3% difference between them)

Two images, one taken near perihelion, and again near aphelion showing the difference in apparent size (about 3% difference between them). A fixed optical system (Seestar 50) means the image scale is constant.

To be honest, they're debts that are deemed unrecoverable; so have next-to-no commercial value to the lenders.
Hence can be bought at £10per £100.
Yes, they constitute a shackle around the necks of the debtors, but if there was a widescale 'debt buy-out' their value (& cost) would really jump!

The field of Hubble is insanely small - it's like one soccer goalkeeper showing the other goalkeeper a postcard when they are both on their goal-lines.

Apex predators stop the 'sub-apex' predators from doing too much harm to the non predatory things in the domain.
If possums are frequent enough to be significantly predatory, appreciating the role of the Powerful Owl might be the best response.

You're on the right side Robin.
If there is anyone who personifies the sentiment that's expressed in St Francis' Prayer*, it's you.

* (obs: except the appeals to a 'Lord/Master')**

** gotta have a footnote, even in a <whatever one of these is called>

Citation from the OED entry I write to tell you that it is a judgement on the whole lot of you. Montgomerys, The Snob Queers like Roseberry & certainly Christian hypocrite Gladstone. Marquess of Queensberry, Letter 1 November in R. Ellmann, Oscar Wilde (1987) xvi. 402

Probably wasn't widespread, but certainly it seems that it was a term that was used in reference to gays.
OED has a citation from 1894 written by the Marquess of Queensberry

Apparently, despite the common belief, although Hugo Boss made the uniforms, they didn't design them.
The design was by SS-Gruppenführer Karl Diebitsch, an artist, and graphic designer Walter Heck

On the left is a Half Moon taken today, just a few hours after Perilune, when the Moon is closest the Earth (~357,500 km away) On the right is a Half Moon taken in April, just one hour after Apolune, when the Moon is furthest from the Earth (~406,300 km away)

Perilune yesterday, and Apolune last April.
Cloudy yesterday, so this is 20 hours later, but only about 800km further away than the closest approach.
13.6% larger
#astronomy

Could be her on her holidays

Also available for 99p on Google Play Books - it's where I get most of my books

It can be a problem if it spreads into pasture grasslands though.

Boringly, it is possible that some big brand tampons will have involved animal testing - which would make them ineligible for having a vegan status.
Other brands will not have been tested on animals.

OAPs aren't the same as OAPs were when we were younger.

I'm with 1066 on this.