Dr Susannah Lydon

Close-up photo of a single flower. The sepals and petals are white. The large, prominent corona is pale lavender, and the five anthers and three stigmas are held on an androgynophore. Photo by Scott Zona CCBYNC2.

Passiflora is a genus of over 600 spp., 95% of which are native to the Americas (5% Australasia). They are mostly lianas with tendrils (which are modified shoots); leaves have glands; flowers have a stalked stamens + ovary (androgynophore). This is P. bahamensis. #Passifloraceae #Botany 🌾🧪🌱

In amongst everything else going on, you might've missed the news that Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People 2025 is on sale now! 4 shows in London and, for the first time ever, a night in Cardiff. All tickets on sale now! linktr.ee/thecosmicsha...

ncredible scenes!

I applied a second (final) time for a DYCP grant from @artscouncilengland.bsky.social and... I got it!

From September, I'm developing my bookwriting skills for youth companies & coming up with new ideas for British Musicals to nurture towards production over the coming years 🙌

Also I've said it before but if anyone is interested in child development and imaginaires, self-built Minecraft worlds seem like an amazing resource to explore; we have 7 yrs worth of creation in ours - not just buildings but labyrinths, hidden spaces, symbolism, jokes...

This includes a Director position at one of the world's leading #PlantScience institutes, the @mpipz.bsky.social.

Dhal Mellanby...

This is incredible

My wife asked what I really wanted and I told her it was a 52 part podcast examining every episode of Blake's 7. Turns out, she meant korma or jalfrezi.

DinoCon

Let me remind you that #DinoConUK - Aug 16th-17th, University of Exeter - is going to be huge. Tickets are selling fast. Art exhibitions, talks, palaeoart workshops, panel discussions, the biggest number of dinosaur-themed vendors ever in the UK... info and more at www.dinocon.co.uk #dinosaurs

A photo of Alan Moore and Jack Kirby. Thanks to the angle, Alan, an actual wizard, appears to be twice the height of Jack.

This is my Gandalf and Bilbo.

Early harvest in 2025 from what I am seeing in central southern England. Yew (Taxus baccata) on chalk downland already bearing ripe fruit. More unripened ones to come if you look closely. @wildflowerhour.bsky.social @bsbibotany.bsky.social

It feels like we should be making a bigger deal of “we actually did in fact find a cure for AIDS”

Imagine if, instead of war memorials, in every town and village, there was a memorial to all the victims of domestic violence from that place.

Guardian of the harvest. The central Devil's Arrow at Boroughbridge.
#StandingStoneSunday
#photography

The Wicker Man: Falkland Islands remake.

🏺 The site has been building a new museum next to the cliffs (pic 1 of our visit in June during construction), with a viewing platform, so for the first time all visitors can look inside the cave and see the cavity where the #Neanderthal skeleton was found.
It opens this autumn!

A Rose O'Neill pen and ink drawing, featuring a giant humanoid embracing a smaller one. It is captioned "Man and the Earth."

A Rose O'Neill pen and ink drawing, featuring a giant female satyr embracing a small human male. She appears to be nuzzling him.

A Rose O'Neill pen and ink drawing, featuring a giant female humanoid nuzzling a tiny male humanoid. It is titled "Besieging the lips of the Earth."

This is your occasional reminder that Rose O'Neill, creator of the Kewpies, first published female cartoonist in the United States, and among the first cartoonists to build a merchandising empire on their work, turned out some absolutely baller, romantic-feeling size-difference monster art.

Tom Kimmerer (@tomkimmerer) I like to write by hand; it’s how I wrote my first book and, if my hand holds up, will do the same for the next books. I like fountain pens (two Lamy’s in the first picture) and I like wood pencils. ...

Pencils are wonderful writing tools. After a long dominance of the pencil industry by one tree, eastern redcedar, there has been a long absence of these pencils from the market. It is, though, the best wood for pencils. Read about redcedar and the return of cedar pencils at Our Trees.

For future Opabinia reference, Wiki actually has the anatomy that we think is the case now.

- mouth is not at the end of the proboscis, but like an elephant
- it had soft legs!

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opabinia

Learning to Think. When Tracy King was twelve she was exorcised. Unfortunately, the demons that beset Tracy could not be so easily displaced. While her life was filled with creativity, curiosity, and love, it was also c...

If you’re following the Salt Path debacle and want a memoir that is not only true, but actively goes back to debunk a key event of the author’s childhood, may I recommend the critically-acclaimed me (also in audiobook and e-book) www.penguin.co.uk/books/442390...

Post from "The Rundown" July 18 at 5:30 PM · DuckDuckGo has introduced a new feature allowing users to filter out AI-generated images from search results, addressing growing concerns over synthetic content overwhelming authentic visuals online. The filter can be activated through a dropdown in the Images tab, search settings, or by using a dedicated AI-free domain: noai.duckduckgo.com. The system relies on curated blocklists, including uBlockOrigin’s Huge AI Blocklist, to detect and suppress AI-generated imagery. While not perfect, it significantly reduces synthetic content visibility. This move sets DuckDuckGo apart from competitors like Google and Bing by giving users direct control over their exposure to AI-generated material. Source: TechCrunch

DuckDuckGo has added a feature to filter out AI images from search results.

A sign reading: danger! High voltage A sign underneath reading: danger! Compressed air

Electric Six’s second less successful single

Know an Evolutionary Genomicist looking for a faculty position? Join us in EEB @utknoxville.bsky.social Position is open for studying any organism, but personally I have some botany bias. 🌱 Apply before Sept 19 for full consideration. apply.interfolio.com/170735 Please share widely. Thanks!

Tom Kimmerer (@tomkimmerer) As you walk among trees, you may notice that we are at the time when leaves begin to look bedraggled, with wounds, pests and pathogens, pallid colors, overall an increasingly pathetic demeanor. There ...

Look at some tree leaves on your walks. They look terrible - blotched, wounded, discolored. Leaves cannot repair themselves and begin to deteriorate surprisingly early. Read more at Our Trees.

Dougal Dixon in a bookshop holding a model of a Cutlasstooth (Caedosaurus gladiadens)

Dougal Dixon's After Man is such an important book to me. Finally got to see him yesterday, talking about the new edition of The New Dinosaurs 🦖🦕🐳🦒

Thinking about that time the Daleks kidnapped a child and plugged her into a battle computer to use her imagination to drive their warfare because even they knew that AI was shit #DoctorWho

Researchers Determine Coelacanth Faked Own Extinction To Escape Massive Gambling Debt

Researchers Determine Coelacanth Faked Own Extinction To Escape Massive Gambling Debt theonion.com/researc...

The Pacific is still ringing three days later!

It probably helps to know that the British Museum covers human history/archaeology not #paleontology

A highland cow, red with hair drooping over its eyes, with large horns, sitting on brown, dried grass, directly facing the camera. Some distance behind it pine woods.

if you go to a metal gig and the bassist looks like this, you are going to die in the pit