We got our London mayoral bumf through the post. I already hated the new ID requirements, but I didn't realise the Election Act had changed the rules of the election from Supplementary Vote to First Past the Post. What absolute nonsense.

Fully illustrated, 100ish page Otherlands!

Written to be understood by 7-11 year olds, but with enough scientific content for adults who like a lot of pictures. Can't share anything yet, but what's been done so far is very pretty!

So happy for my friends and colleagues in this year's Linnean Society awards. My PhD co-supervisor Paul Upchurch, former desk-mate Anne-Claire Fabre Anne-Claire Fabre, and just-about-overlapping lab-mate Heather White Dr Heather White. Delighted for you all!

linnean.org/news/2024/04/0…

According to the biblical story, Jesus's right hand man was Shimoun bar Younah (Simon, son of John). And he was given the nickname Cephas = Petrus, which wasn't at that time a common name.

The first Catholic pope was 'The Rock' Johnson.

First time back in the BL today following the cyber attack, and I hadn't quite realised the lingering effects so long afterwards. Everything's being done on paper, and there's not a lot on the shelves. Devastating.

First sighting today of an Otherlands reader in the wild - not just someone who came to an event!

And actually, he spotted me, stopped, and pointed to the back of the book, questioningly.

Lily Gower - the woman who won the Open Gold Medal so much the male organisers changed the name to the Men's Gold Medal in 1907.

But they didn't change the rules, so she entered anyway and won it again. And then Nina Coote won it in 1908. So the men changed the rules.

🚨New paper Science Magazine led by my PhD student Cooper Malanoski on extinction selectivity. We find taxa will go extinct regardless of their traits if climate change is great enough: science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…
University of Oxford Dan Lunt Alex Farnsworth🌻 Graphic by: Maija Karala

I believe I've sort of answered this in Otherlands, but if I had to pick one...

Miocene

Desiccated Mediterranean and reflooding for the view. Partially ice-free Antarctica.
Giraffids, early whales, Necrolestes, SANUs, early hominids - so much possible data (including DNA...).

Aha, thought I smelled a 🐀 here on TwiX, have been bombarded with these recently, while reach of my own tweets has been dramatically throttled & new followers dropping to virtually zero.

That’ll be Mr Elmo Freezepeach in action, no doubt.

Happy #WorldBookDay2024 ! I'm still astounded that somehow I've been able to make this work as a career for the past three years, and am hard at work on the next (two) books. Thanks, everyone, for making this possible.

Excited to learn that a short extract from Otherlands is being used in a new dance piece, Warpscapes, by the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company, if nothing else because I have no idea what to expect. I hope it's recorded.

dfdc.de/en/produktion/…

My grandpa who is 85 started making this rock map of Scotland in 1992.He collected rocks during amateur geology trips over 30 years. He says it had to be geologically correct and also aesthetically pleasing.He asked if I could share online as He wants to go viral so please share

Obviously an extreme future scenario that we will avoid, but I like a hypothetical map, and ... wait a minute, how did Glasgow manage to become Scotland's capital when Edinburgh's still above the waves? That cannot stand! To arms!

I totally agree with this, but would go much further.

Here in my own place, I'd say trees are probably closer to 3% of the plant species present, than a third.