Daniel Cressey

Mystery as remains of seven-arm deep-sea octopus wash up on beach Arms from the rarely-seen species were discovered at an Aberdeenshire national nature reserve.

Anyone know if you can eat seven-arm octopi? Asking for a friend.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Continued use of 'Moonshot' as denoting risky but high ambition shows a paucity of both imagination and technological progress.

Humanity should be at least on 'Marsshot' (Marshot?) by now. Ideally 'Saturnshot' or 'Plutoshot'.

Going to trademark "ProximaCentauriShot", just to be on the safe side.

Benefits and impacts of use of light in UK fisheries and their wider effect on the marine environment Applications are invited for three 3.5 year PhD studentships: Benefits and impacts of use of light in UK fisheries and their wider effect on the marine...

PhD opportunity! "Benefits & impacts of use of light in UK #fisheries & their wider effect on the marine environment" (aka #scallopdiscos!) Supervision by me @thembauk.bsky.social Tom Davies @plymbiomarsci.bsky.social Tim Smyth @pml.ac.uk @fishtekmarine.bsky.social www.plymouth.ac.uk/study/resear...

“The [Royal S]ociety has a strong track record in setting out the science around climate change and when the president of the United States says the science is a ‘con-job’, we will call him out. If UK politicians start to copy such ridiculous statements, we will also hold them to account.”

"There is still a job to be done in making sure that association works in the best interests of UK science—and that the UK community fully exploits all the potential funding routes available" - Adrian Smith's valedictory RS address

UK due a rebate after not winning enough Horizon funding in 2024

Decision at first #highseastreaty COP in NY

But, on a personal level, I was somewhat surprised by how many ocean positives COP30 attendees were able to list about at the meeting, and about how hopeful many people are that this bodes well for the future.

Climate finance is still in very short supply for the ocean, even as discussion of the ocean shifts from it being a problem that needs solving to a solution that needs funding.

But talk about offshore fossil fuel phase out is largely absent in NDCs, as it was in the final COP30 text.

“The number one thing we can do to protect the ocean is phase out fossil fuels.”
- Anna-Marie Laura, @oceanconservancy.org

There's more talk about the ocean in general at COP.

“If we look back to 2015, the word ‘ocean’ does not exist in the Paris agreement. 5 years ago, you would have said ‘ecosystem’ or ‘forest’ or ‘land’. But now, the ocean has entered the conversation.”
- Kerstin Bergentz, @scrippsocean.bsky.social

More recognition of the importance of the ocean in NDCs that set out nations' climate plans.

“There is an increasing awareness of the importance of the ocean to climate actions.”
- UNSW Eliza Northrop.

Concrete ocean pledges lacking in countries’ climate plans, say experts Ocean-based goals in submitted Nationally Determined Contributions overlook tougher targets including fossil fuel phase-out

What happened for the ocean for COP30? My colleague @reginalam.bsky.social has been diving deep into NDCs, and I've been talking to people who were in Belem for @dialogueearth.bsky.social

Here are some takeaways...

dialogue.earth/en/ocean/con...

Africa’s forests transformed from carbon sink to carbon source, study finds Alarming shift since 2010 means planet’s three main rainforest regions now contribute to climate breakdown

The ocean remains the only true carbon sink. 🥲

The First OAE Credits: An Independent MRV Review - Carbon to Sea Initiative Carbon to Sea’s MRV Blog Series: This is the second installment in Carbon to Sea’s monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) blog series. I’m Anna Madlener, Senior Manager for MRV at Carbon to Sea...

Want to understand how the world’s first carbon credits for ocean alkalinity enhancement were issued? Anna Madlener — one of the new colleagues I’m extremely excited to work with at the Carbon to Sea Initiative — has you covered:
www.carbontosea.org/2025/11/25/a...

I actually laughed out loud at this intro:
Is Haldane dead? The short answer is “yes”. Richard Burdon Haldane died in 1928.

Great feature on an important topic.

Is the Haldane principle under threat? - Research Professional News Increasing political direction in the allocation of research funding is alarming some policy experts

Liz Kendall talked about Haldane principle this week as she set out (broadly) how UKRI would spend 4-year, £38.6bn budget.

@chrisjparr.bsky.social looks at whether Haldane under threat from more interventionist govt - or whether it is misunderstood.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Hammerheads as river monsters? Throughout the first year of our journey to uncover the secret lives of hammerheads and what habitats are crucial to their survival, we have made many interesting discoveries; one of which surprised a...

Hammerheads in rivers? In Cape York’s mangrove-lined waterways, great hammerheads push more than 20 km upstream, surprising Nicolas Lubitz and team, and upending assumptions about where these endangered predators live.
What drives them into these rivers?
saveourseas.com/update/hamme...

Our most recent publication in @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social illustrates how cost-effective deep-sea imaging tools, such as the Azor drift-cam, can effectively build local capacity, promote equity in deep-sea science and generate essential data for the conservation of marine benthic habitats.

Text says "Overall, for each critical appraisal item, the included meta-analyses received the lowest score (represented in red) or the second-lowest score (represented in amber) in 83.4% of cases, indicating that low-quality methodologies are prevalent in meta-analyses investigating the impact of organochlorine pesticides"

How many times do journalists get told "meta analyses are the gold standard for evidence"? (Often accompanied by "you shouldn't write about science until it's peer-reviewed and published.)

Hmmmm....

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Let’s personalise productivity with the weightiest metric yet: academic BMI Measuring researchers’ output mass against their body mass will incentivise even harder running on the academic treadmill, says Dariusz Jemielniak

This has to be a record - proposing two new metrics in two days in two different publications.

www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/lets...

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thankfully not! If you were picking a model for vengeance against a sea creature, Captain Ahab might seem a bad choice given the outcome for him in Moby Dick...

UK expects Horizon Europe rebate after limited winnings - Research Professional News Clawback in prospect after UK’s sluggish EU research programme start, with losses capped at £330m

When getting your money back is a bad thing: UK expecting a rebate on £2bn paid to EU to join its research programme in 2024, @resprofnews.bsky.social reveals.

UK fared worse than expected in winning Horizon Europe grants.

By @annamckie.bsky.social
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Biologist bitten in head by shark hopes to meet animal again Despite having worked with sharks for 30 years, Mexican Mauricio Hoyos never thought he would encounter one so close up.

What a headline!

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Lord Patrick Vallance, the science and technology minister, said the UK and China had agreed to work together in the “uncontroversial” areas of health, climate, planetary sciences and agriculture.

Enjoyed the quote marks in this paragraph.

www.ft.com/content/edc0...

www.cnn.com/2025/11/11/p...

Interesting - a Reverse Aaron A. Aardvark effect.

Hold a bird gathering in England What counts as a bird gathering, and how to notify the Animal and Plant Health Agency.

I know! This page really makes me want to organise a bird gathering.
www.gov.uk/guidance/bir...

Gruesome knowledge: How to classify sheep carcases

‘‘Another respondent stated that ‘charismatic-species study groups have a ‘mafia-like’ structure, supporting each other and rejecting non-members’.’’

Really interesting paper, despite the outrageous labelling of crabs as 'non-charismatic'.