Singing Science

Humanism: a global history Humanism is not just a modern Western phenomenon but has roots across the globe

Humanism has always been global. 🌍✨

From philosophers like Epicurus in ancient Greece, to Cārvāka in India, Mengzi in China, the goðlauss of the Nordic sagas, and the philosophy of ubuntu in Africa — humanist ideas can be found in traditions all over the world.

Nobel prize in medicine awarded to scientists for immune system research Mary E Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell and Shimon Sakaguchi win for work on preventing immune system harming body

#NobelPrize announcement time: Immunology, and why our immune system doesn't just shred us to pieces, is the theme for this one! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Chimps 'lager a day' in ripe fruit fuels drunken monkey theory Scientists say chimps consume the equivalent of a bottle of lager a day from dining on ripe fruit.

#chimps drink #alcohol from fruits... Did they invent the pina colada?! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Dame Esther Rantzen: I am making arrangements to travel alone to Dignitas The 85-year-old Childline founder and former broadcaster, who is terminally ill with cancer, says she is 'afraid of dying badly.'

No one should have to make a journey like this alone.

Let's hope the House of Lords continues along the historic path towards giving terminally ill people the choice, dignity, and compassion they deserve at the end of their lives.

It's time to end to this cruelty.
news.stv.tv/world/dame-e...

Nintendo revealed there is an easter egg in the 'change grip/order' section of the Controller settings.

Sounds will play when you press the L/R buttons and you can even create a musical scale.

Air pollution can drive devastating forms of dementia, research suggests Airborne particles cause toxic clumps of proteins in brain that are hallmarks of Lewy body dementia, study indicates

More on the link between fine particulates from car emissions and dementia www.theguardian.com/environment/...

That's humanism! We've teamed up with our patron Stephen Fry, to explore humanist ideas about some of life’s big questions in four animated shorts.

Love this from Humanists UK! #Thatshumanism is the perfect introduction to the humanist approach to life, featuring four animations narrated by Stephen Fry, and brand new posters all about humanism for schools. Have a look for yourself! humanists.uk/thatshumanism/

Extremely rare bright orange shark with white eyes discovered in the Caribbean The shark also showed traits of albinism, including a pair of striking white eyes

Wow, an orange #shark! #Albino beings. www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

This post about mosquitoes should generate a lot of .... buzz...

Rishi with his funny face in a tiger cut out photo

Happy International #Tiger Day!

The Variables Present: A Loose History of Science in 7-ish Comedians Join Cambridge's Science Comedy group "The Variables" as we turn the science of the past into the laughter of today

A comedic take on the History of Science from our fab set of comedians! Demonstrating that science is not a steady stream of progress, but instead a series of mishaps, bad ideas and general confusion that somehow, sometimes, leads to understanding! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-variab...

This institution keeps it's most important ring binders next to each other.

PhD Timeline

One of the most important xkcd comics
xkcd.com/3081/

Humanist Heritage: Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593) I count religion but a childish toy,And hold there is no sin but ignorance. Christopher Marlowe, The Jew of Malta, […]

Yesterday was Shakespeare day, but before Shakespeare, there was another great Renaissaince playwright with the soul of a humanist: Christopher Marlowe.

HIs bio is now on the #HumanistHeritage website.
heritage.humanists.uk/christopher-...

Two views of planet Mars on a black background of space observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. At left, text: December 28, 2024 20:00 UT. At right, text: December 29, 2024 13:18 UT. In both images, its atmosphere is clear and the surface appears detailed. Most of the planet is shades of orange. At left, the brightest orange area appears in the left half. At right, the brightest orange area is centered and takes on the rough shape of a sleeping mask. In both views, darker surface features are noticeable on the lower half of the planet. These have a mix of orange, blue, and gray hues. At the top and bottom, white regions mark the planet’s polar caps. The entire limb of the planet, its visible edge, has a blue hue. The blue doesn’t form an even circle at the edges, and appears thinner toward the left and right, and thicker in some areas.

The planetary nebula NGC 2899 is shaped like a single macaroni noodle, with its edges pointed up, but its edge-on central torus is semi-transparent in the middle. The top and bottom edges are thick and orange. The center is semi-transparent blue and green. The wider central region looks roughly like a moth, also filled with semi-transparent blue and green. There are two pinpoint-like white stars with diffraction spikes toward the center. Immediately below them, slightly toward the right, is a smaller blue orb, a central star. The next layer of gas and dust is whiter, with some thicker pillars that look like they are rising up at bottom center. The colour fades into reds and purples, and then to orange.

A tiny portion of the Rosette Nebula. Very dark gray material shaped like a V extends from just below top left all the way down to the lower right corner and back up toward the top right. It looks like thick smoke that has billowed out irregularly, thicker along the line from top left to bottom right, and looser on the piece that goes toward the top right. Behind the dark gray on the left side, from the bottom left to top center, there is dust that looks like arced claw marks that appears in light orange and yellow. The background at top left is hazier and some blues are covered in semi-transparent orange wisps, which makes sections take on green hues. In the bottom right, the background is bluer. There are a few bright red and purple stars scattered along the right half, most toward the bottom. The largest star is at right-center, just at the edge. It is red and has four diffraction spikes.

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 5335 observed by the Hubble Space Telescope takes up the majority of the view. At its center is a milky yellow, flattened oval that extends bottom left to top. Within the oval is a bright central region that looks circular, with the very center the brightest. In the bright central region is what looks like a bar, extending from top left to bottom right. Around this is a thick swath of blue stars speckled with white regions. Multiple arms wrap up and around in a counterclockwise direction, becoming fainter the farther out they are. Both the white core and the spiral arms are intertwined with dark streaks of dust. The background of space is black. Thousands of distant galaxies in an array of colors are speckled throughout.

Happy anniversary, Hubble! 🎂

Celebrate 35 years since this NASA/ESA space telescope was launched into orbit with four anniversary images! They roam from the planet Mars to dramatic images of stellar birth and death to a neighbouring galaxy.

Read more 👉 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

#Hubble35 🔭 🧪

A worn out doggy and Easter Bunny.

'I'm terminally ill - I should have the freedom to choose a dignified death' Jacqueline, who has incurable cancer, says she wants the right to choose when to end her own life ahead of Scotland's assisted dying vote.

'I don’t think you realise until you see someone close to you going through the pain and the agony, it changes your opinion,' she said. 'That’s what did it for me.' Jacqueline, who is suffering from incurable cancer, shares her story 👇
news.stv.tv/west-central...

I will be performing a short set here next month! With a theme I hope you can really dig! 😅

Humanist Heritage: Heroines of Freethought Borrowing the title of an 1876 work by feminist freethinker Sara Underwood, this article celebrates the many brave women who have populated and propelled the humanist movement.

This #InternationalWomensDay, we celebrate the remarkable women who shaped humanist history – women who challenged convention, fought for equality, and championed reason, compassion, and social progress. heritage.humanists.uk/article/hero...

🧪👇

Open letter to the President of the Royal Society – time to stand up for your values If you wish to show your support for the letter below regarding apparent inaction by the Royal Society in the face of breaches of its code of conduct by Elon Musk FRS, please sign below. I invite anyo...

Please consider signing this letter to the Royal Society if you have not signed already.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Over 2400 scientists have signed.

#microsky #archaesky #astrosky 🧪🦠🧫🔭

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science! You can try to silence or erase us, but we aren’t going anywhere. We will keep fighting and being awesome 😤

Scientists Strapped QR Codes Onto Thousands of Bees to Learn How Far They Actually Fly Researchers put a sensor at the entrance of beehives to register each time the pollinators entered or exited, and how long they were gone.

When I started reading the article I thought it might be a way to make an order from a bee-spoke website. gizmodo.com/scientists-s...

Companies House have all the data and could write a Python script in an afternoon to spot things like filing identical accounts in successive years, or just to flag suspicious accounts for review. This is really outrageous - not ‘flying under the radar’ because clearly there is no radar.

The Big #Garden #Birdwatch this weekend! Spend an hour looking at what lands and pass on the information! www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happen...

Why the Paris Climate Agreement Matters in 5 Graphics One of President Trump’s first executive orders withdraws the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement. These graphics show why the pact is crucial to curbing the worst effects of global warming

The Paris climate agreement really, really matters. These graphics show why: 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-...

Human Altitude xkcd.com/3039

David Lynch has passed & like many others I feel the urge to post on his fantastic oeuvre. My favourite of his works is DUNE, with its demented floating baron, drink carton, space guild navigator, and making the Spice an integrated character rather than 'unobtanium' as the more recent films did.

#BloodDonation day comes round again. Definitely got a more speckled beard (in fact, a beard!) thank when I first did this at university. You can join in too at blood.co.uk