Michael Murphy

If you are applying to a PhD, don't use an LLM in composing your proposal.

If you are doing a PhD, don't use an LLM to do the writing and reading and thinking for you.

Sorry, I am going to die on this hill.

It is hard to feel safe when you fear people who (you think) aren't exactly like yourself.

I didn't get the memo. Is the "Harvard Professor" involved somehow?

Spain bids €400 million to host mega telescope at risk in US budget cuts New Canary Islands home could save controversial Thirty Meter Telescope first proposed for Hawaii.

Spain bids €400 million to host mega telescope at risk in US budget cuts www.nature.com/articles/d41...

We moved from BB to Canvas about 8 years ago. At that time, at least, Canvas was much better. I mean, still needlessly complex and jargon-loaded, but usable. No-one here misses BB.

International students have not driven rents and inflation higher, RBA says An RBA paper suggests the rapid growth in foreign students post-pandemic did not play a big role in pushing rents higher.

An RBA paper suggests the rapid growth in foreign students post-pandemic did not play a big role in pushing rents higher.

Especially when there’s no space between the words and the em dash.

A view of the interior of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation building in Ultimo. A tall airy atrium with balconies and lots of light.

Visited the ABC building in Sydney and had a wonderful chat with David Marr for Late Night Live. You can listen tonight at around 10:30pm (not, in this case, actually live!) www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

They seem to be … how to put this … struggling to find their editorial niche. Opinions from academics outside their expertise areas wasn't their original proposal, I recall.

A photo of cat sitting in some Venetian blinds they have just destroyed with the text JOY DIVISION at the top and UNKNOWN PLEASURES at the bottom

This might be my favourite cat meme of 2025 so far

By the way, none of this research would be possible without Australia's access to @eso.org facilities via the current strategic partnership. That ends in a couple of years!

We should join ESO as a full member – invest in a stable partner at the government treaty level.

ESO telescope time allocation day. I had a good run this time, together with excellent collaborators. Commiserations to those who didn't.

I'm a professor & don't need plaudits, but it's nice to have a panel of peers say "Yeah, that's a good idea, and well presented".

Gas companies want to charge you for using gas.

They also want to charge you for others not using gas.

(If only those who said that this would happen could charge people for not taking their advice!)

To me, peer review might be OK to determine if something should be published, say, but scoring/ranking proposals relative to each other is a completely different thing. Conflating the latter with “peer review” has never made completely sense to me.

Has anyone has ever tested the outcomes of grants (or other type of proposal) against the score or ranking during the “peer review” process? From your statement, I guess not.

Although we like to imagine that conventional peer review is the “gold standard”, this prejudice is not borne out by evidence.

The only way to test it is to duplicate review and see how well it reproduces. The available evidence indicates that it is indistinguishable from distributed peer review.

Then I try to carry on after thinking that it probably will.

Then I stare at the screen for a few more seconds wondering if that'll actually happen.

Every time NASA/ADS takes a second or two longer than usual to find a paper, my heart skips a beat as I worry it's been defunded and taken down.

Unsung observatory worker was UK’s first professional female astronomer, experts say Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy is trying to find a photo of Annie Walker, who died in 1940, to give her star billing

Anybody got a picture of Annie Walker? Possibly first British professional astronomer, later moved to Oz. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Disappointed the Spectator deleted this blog post heralding a pause in global warming based on 2 years of data.

www.spectator.co.uk/2017/06/trut...

We cross live to Peter Dutton for his take…

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Similar story for me and the didn’t know that either! Do the baby teeth fall out or something at a young age? I don’t recall any random fangs on the carpet!

Yes, but in true Australian style, it has no Government funding and is "seeking funders" (i.e. donations) 🙃

Electric vehicle myths: more than half Australians wrongly believe EVs are more likely to catch fire, survey shows Findings highlight how misinformation about battery safety prevents drivers from investing in low-emission cars * Australia news live: latest politics updates * Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast More than a third of Australians believe misinformation about electric vehicles, while almost half accept the myth that battery-powered cars are more likely to catch fire, a study shows. Interventions using fact sheets and artificial intelligence chatbots may help lower false beliefs, researchers say, but those with a strong “conspiracy mentality” are harder to convince. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s breaking news email Continue reading...

Electric vehicle myths: more than half Australians wrongly believe EVs are more likely to catch fire, survey shows

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At least if it passes it will be an easy ban to implement.

A few general nuggets from the Astrostatistics summer school I keep hearing over and over again (and which I firmly agree with)..... 🧵

I have one coffee a day. One. But if I miss that single coffee I get a headache by 3pm. I can stop anytime I want…