Focusing on bats and newts is a cynical attempt to reframe nature as nothing more than a triviality

But nature is our life support system

Conservation isn't just about helping other species - it's also about maintaining the conditions that allow us to thrive

Friend sent me this.
🤣🤣🤣🤣

Single-panel cartoon drawn by Gary Larson. Standing in the street is a bearded man with glasses, white coat and a clipboard. He is wearing a helmet with flashing coloured buttons and multiple different types of antennae. In the street there are also several dogs, including one rearing up at a fence and another chasing a car. Speech bubbles show the dogs are saying "Hey! Hey! Hey!", "Heyyyyyyy", and "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!". Caption underneath: Donning his new canine decoder, Professor Schwartzman becomes the first human being on Earth to hear what barking dogs are actually saying.

Happy Birthday Gary Larson, 75 years old today. A perfect excuse to celebrate his tireless efforts documenting major breakthroughs in science, including this pivotal moment for language research:

Every day this Summer has been a record of how Nigel Farage already runs the country.

An endless cycle of hate & racism. One day boat arrivals, the next releasing ethnicity data for crimes, so we can know whether to riot if they’re brown or shrug if they’re white.

Back to the 70s🤦‍♀️ #r4today

Now that RFK Jr has tried to bully a scientific journal into retracting a huge study showing —AGAIN — that vaccines aren’t linked to autism…

Is the media ready to stop calling him a “vaccine skeptic” and say what he really is?

An anti-science conspiracist who profits by LYING to people.

👀

CANADA HISTORIC HEAT WAVE

38.1 Maple Plain and 36.7 Badger
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND & NEWFOUNDLAND ISLAND ALL TIME RECORDS

MORE ATR RECORDS
38 Kouchibouguac,37.2 St Stephen 36.5 Kejimkujik,36.1 Gaspe 34.9 Twillingate

MONTHLY
34.6 Gander,34.3 Deer Lake,33.5 La Scie,30.4 Bonavista

Trump Orders Presidential Motorcade To Take Detour Through Homeless Encampment

Trump Orders Presidential Motorcade To Take Detour Through Homeless Encampment

I just got the notice that all the FlyBase people at Harvard, including me, will be laid off on October 12. I'm devastated.

Remembering Refaat, Reem, Hind, the countless tens of thousands over 76 years of occupation, starvation, genocide, displacement, false imprisonment. All the while ghouls peddle lies, propaganda, control media, funding, policy, terrorize those who protested before but now there’s a groundswell.

YouTube video by Just Have a Think NEW RESEARCH - Our planet is warming TWICE as fast as we thought!

youtu.be/o-pZNRN4XAE?...
One of the best YouTube Channels out there.

Palestine Action ban protest: half of those arrested were 60 or over, data shows Total of 532 arrests at London protest on Saturday, most for displaying placards or signs in support of proscribed group

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

UK labels 532 peaceful protestors ‘terrorists’ and arrests them. Meanwhile, Trump labels immigrants as terrorists to set the Army on them.

If you walk like a fascist and talk like a fascist…

newrepublic.com/article/1987...

Trump Wants U.C.L.A. to Pay $1 Billion to Restore Its Research Funding

I'm admittedly not Terry Tao, but I don't think the math on "pay $1 billion to get $584 million back" quite works out.
www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/u...

E.P.A. to Stop Updating Popular Database After Lead Scientist Criticized Trump

The EPA will stop updating a popular database that helps companies calculate their greenhouse gas emissions after the lead scientist criticized Trump, because he’s a fucking child. The scientist has left the EPA and will continue the work at Stanford University.

I'm sorry. Does this asshole think that I get to pocket NIH grant dollars in my personal account?

I once had a refund from a canceled purchase that had a seven dollar discrepancy (resulting from changing exchange rates). I had to pay that shit back to the grant out of my pocket

It's a declaration of war on NIH, NSF, NASA, CDC, etc. How the heck can a political appointee assess "overlap" or "duplication" of a grant? Every grant has to be in the nations interest? That's weasle wording to allow any grant to be cancelled. "Some of the best grants aren't funded?" 4 effing %!

Improving Oversight of Federal Grantmaking By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to improve the process of Federal

Another title for this new Trump Administration executive order could be "Creating Opportunities for Political Interference in Federal Science Grantmaking"

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

New Death With Indignity Law Lets Terminally Ill Be Crushed By Falling Vending Machines theonion.com/new-dea...

Your scepticism about the LiO mechanism is well warranted. Some sort of Li ion clearance half life PK explanation seems more likely.

Some of the Abeta clearance recognition proteins (e.g. CD36–TLR4–TLR6, ApoE/Clusterin and microglial TREM2) recognise multiple A beta ‘epitopes’ in close proximity due to A beta polymerisation.

Perhaps Lithium ions selectively enhance their binding via avidity effects to enhance clearance?

(PDF) Lithium ions display weak interaction with amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptides and have minor effects on their aggregation PDF | Alzheimer's disease (AD) is an incurable disease and the main cause of age-related dementia worldwide, despite decades of research. Treatment of... | Find, read and cite all the research you nee...

Someone has already looked at this… www.researchgate.net/publication/...

Could it instead be an influence of Lithium ion binding on Abeta clearance?

Agree - very hard to understand LiO argument in biochemical terms. I wonder if the balance of metal ions influences the kinetics of amyloid folding pathways? This would put loss of Lithium ions upstream of Abeta production and the subsequent biology downstream of Abeta accumulation.

Could the dynamics of the binding be a confounding factor? How long would patients need to be treated while elderly. How does this relate to Lithium ions biochemistry. Why don’t Lithium Ions rapidly equilibrate between serum and neuronal cytoplasm? How can Abeta binding prevent local accumulation?

The science in crisis narrative is one more unintended outcome of Rule by Centrists since their neoliberal focus on metrics incentivised counter-productive practise.

The Centrists’ myth of a meritocracy (allowing rule by billionaires) opened the door to fascism across society, not just in science.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

The anti-science Trumpers may be planning to destroy two working satellites that provide vital measurements about carbon dioxide & climate (and data that forecasts crop yield, drought conditions, & more). They cost $750 million to make but only $15 million/yr to operate.
www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

Scientists slam Trump administration climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation Experts say the report being used to justify the mass rollback of climate regulations has many claims based on long-debunked research

🚨 Scientists slam Trump admin climate report as a ‘farce’ full of misinformation.

“This is an agenda to promote fossil fuels, not to protect public health and welfare or the environment,” said Rachel Cleetus, director at @ucs.org

via @theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

#R4Today - discussing the need for 'deterrents' to reduce immigration, without mentioning that scientists warn we could see up to 1.2 𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗼𝗻 climate refugees fleeing extreme heat & failing crops by 2050 without emergency action....

... the countries that build public transit well, quickly, & cheaply all have something in common: most of the work is done by the government itself, using in-house expertise, rather than farming various parts out to private companies under the bullshit theory that private always = more efficient.

Interior Order Chokes Off Permits for Solar and Wind on Federal Lands The department creates a seemingly impossible new permitting criteria for renewable energy.

HUGE: The Trump administration will no longer permit any solar or wind projects on federal lands unless they produce more energy-per-acre than coal, gas or nuclear power plants.

Solar and wind literally produce less energy per acre, so simply this may just kill off any project on federal lands.

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

Right on cue. Barclays Bank managers follow HSBC by ‘being a dick’. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘Self-termination is most likely’: the history and future of societal collapse An epic analysis of 5,000 years of civilisation argues that a global collapse is coming unless inequality is vanquished

Collapse most likely, but ‘don’t be a dick’ is a good prescription. www.theguardian.com/environment/...