Marc Cooper

If you're backyard is close to water, consider building a frog sauna to help treat chytrid!

Kitt Peak National Observatory image of Arp 104, also known as NGC 5216 and NGC 5218, or Keenan’s System. A bridge of stars and gas about 7,000 light years wide and 150,000 light years long connects the two galaxies. Credit: NOIRLab, NSF, AURA, T.A. Rector, H. Schweiker Source

#ArtHistory 🗃️ 🐡 Weekend vibes... 2,000 years ago, a bronze masterpiece immortalized a young girl playfully chasing a partridge. Stolen from an archaeological site in southern Spain and recently recovered, the sculpture is now on display at Madrid's Museo Arqueológico Nacional. (my 📸)

Open this photo up and look for the small, white dot just left of centre. It looks like Venus, shining brightly in the twilight sky. But it's us. It's Earth. From Mars.

@guyshrubsole.bsky.social: “It’s ridiculous that in the 21st c. the public are kept in the dark about who owns the land beneath our feet. This is data that will help councils build more homes, expose who’s polluting our rivers and help communities restore nature.” My MP @elliereeves.bsky.social?

Grasmoor erupting 😉

Hubble and Dark Energy Camera image of Arp 122, also known as NGC 6040 and LEDA 59642. This pair of galaxies are in the midst of a collision, warping the top spiral NGC 6040. Credit: ESA, NASA, J. Dalcanton, Dark Energy Survey, DOE, FNAL, DECam, CTIO, NOIRLab, NSF, AURA Source

"A 2025 study proposed combining rice husk ash, wood ash and rice straw to make a low-cost, carbon-negative material that could eliminate the need for cement [which accounts for ~1/12 of global emissions]."

Not sure how many average people realize it but virtually all of ancient history, all that we know about it, is predicated on like just three lucky archaeology sites globally and about 1% of 1% of 0.0001% of recorded knowledge. So these are world shaking historical finds, taken in the long term.

Shoko Uemura, Night Herons, 1956.

Early morning mist at the head of Crummock Water today

Even though Saturn is 1.26 billion kms from Earth, this beautiful planet was as close to Earth as it gets this year making it appear big and bright. This is called opposition, which happened last night (October 4th). I used my 16 inch telescope. #astrophotography #astronomy #saturn

Hubble image of Arp 321, also known as Hickson 40. This group of galaxies include three spiral galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, Judy Schmidt Source

🔭 Supernumerary Rainbows over New Jersey Credit & Copyright: John Entwistle ap261004

If you've ever wanted to know more about 1066 and all that, then this is the one to read. You'll get all the facts, an honest appraisal of the ambiguities, and be thoroughly entertained too. It's a great intro to the Anglo-Saxons too, for which Marc also has you covered.

This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.

Happy anniversary to Thunderbirds! It aired again throughout my childhood and I watched it obsessively. One of those kids who desperately wanted to make the Blue Peter DIY version of Tracy Island but my parents (probably rightly) assumed I would get distracted half way through and leave a mess...

Great moments in Scottish engineering history: James Watt tries to work out how his phone attaches to his selfie stick.

[1963] Snow – Hypnotic British Transport Film showing the efforts of railway workmen to keep trains running in hazardous snowy conditions.

JWST MIRI image of Arp 107, also known as UGC 5984. In this pair of interacting galaxies, only the one-armed spiral glows brightly in mid-infrared light. Young, forming stars surrounded by dusty silicates and soot-like molecules glow in blue. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSc Source

Tyrannosaurus xkcd.com/3300/

Excellent use of FoI by @guyshrubsole.bsky.social reveals some large discrepancies in the so-called 'official' statistics on Pheasant rear & release in England. What? The UK gamebird shooting industry not complying with the law? Shurely shome mishtake. raptorpersecutionuk.org/2026/09/21/r...

The autumnal equinox is only a few days away and here's what Stonehenge looked like in the 16th century. BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social

Hubble image of Arp 321, also known as Hickson 40. This group of galaxies include three spiral galaxies, an elliptical galaxy, and a lenticular (lens-like) galaxy. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, A. Pagan Source

Fossil mugs in the works

Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra image of Arp 26, also known as M101 or the Pinwheel Galaxy. Spitzer's infrared light shows dust, Hubble's visible light highlights stars, Chandra's X-rays show things like hot gas and black holes. Credit: NASA, ESA, CXC, JPL, Caltech, STScI Source

Rare occurrence of heavy rains over Uluru (Ayer's Rock), the sacred sandstone monolith of the Australian desert: #AGoodPlace Source: www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFu...

Fun fact a falconer told me. A hawking glove's primary purpose is to stop the bird feeling the pulse in the hawker's wrist, otherwise it will tighten its grip with its talons until the pulse stops because that's how it kills prey. There's no way to override this instinct without hurting the bird.

Today about 100 people took part in a mass trespass in the Prime Minister’s constituency. There’s a right to roam over just 1% of Makerfield, & today the landowner proved our point for us: putting up fencing & calling the police. @andyburnham.bsky.social - please open the door to the countryside!

a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes

If you showed up at Defcon and gave talk about how your autonomous malware did something unexpected and damaged someone else's computers, the first question from the audience would be "Why are you so shit at making secure sandboxes?" It wouldn't be "How are you so awesome at making hacking tools?"

In case you were in any doubt physics' holy trinity is Einstein, Newton, and Maxwell. A Great Man trope, yes, but also a way to convey Maxwell's real status.

This nails it. (But inevitably, it seems some are totally missing the satire, which is a bit depressing.)

The way I explained the suppression of Atlantic hurricane activity to my students is that El Niño chops off the heads of hurricanes by altering global atmospheric circulation, generating strong upper-level westerly winds across the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean.

The 13yo just came home from his paper-round with this! I think I might have finally impressed him 👌 Vogue next? 🤣 👩‍🔬

Today's short walk on the Isle of Mull to Traigh na Cille, The Black Beach

This is shocking to hear! Einstein kept a picture of Maxwell on his office wall and admired him more than any other scientist. Every fall I teach a whole course about his work. This is like hearing that Westminster Abbey might be purchased so a new car rental place can built on Newton’s grave.

This is way past due, leave the whales alone.. Iceland to propose whaling ban, leaving Norway and Japan isolated www.nbcnews.com/world/europe...

Astrophotographer Adam (AJ) Smadi caught this image a few hours ago from Washington state. A thin crescent Moon, sunlight illuminating the rugged lunar surface. And 2,400 times farther away—and on the other side of the Sun—mighty Jupiter, and its moons Io (left) and Ganymede (right).

@philipcball.bsky.social Hi Philip, Would you consider reposting this, please? bsky.app/profile/astr...

I like Oxford a lot. Its architecture, and bookshops, and cafes, plus its all-pervading ambience of history and learning, but I think what I most like about it is its commas.