Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast artwork

Adam and Jo standing in a park

A taxidermy hedgehog (the victim of a road accident) on a wooden table

The back entrance to the John Moore Museum, looking from the back gate with trees surrounding it

🎧 Ep 218 of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast is out now:

@adamhartscience.bsky.social returns to myth busting - we look at hibernation, how & why it happens + which animals

🦔 Plus hedgehog at John Moore Museum

📲 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j...

💻 jodurrantsbeautifuluniverse.libsyn.com

Headshot of Jo wearing a black leather jacket over a black dress with gold stars on

Chris and Jo

Jo interviewing Adam on stage

Kate and Jo on stage

📆 Incoming Diary Dates! I’m delighted to share my first three on stage events for 2025:

🎭 Fri 24 Jan: Dr Chris Laoutaris @stationerscomms.bsky.social

🦁 Sat 15 Feb: @adamhartscience.bsky.social at John Moore Museum

📗 Mon 24 Feb: @kate-werran.bsky.social at Portsmouth Book Fest

jodurrant.co.uk

#ICYMI: My special guest in Ep 218 of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast is @adamhartscience.bsky.social who busts myths on hibernation.

🦔 Plus we learn about hedgehog hibernation at John Moore Museum.

📲 podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j...

💻 jodurrantsbeautifuluniverse.libsyn.com

Frank Worsley - Wikipedia

Someone asked me today who from history I most admired.
No question
This man
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_W...

two men are standing next to each other on a television screen and smiling . ALT: two men are standing next to each other on a television screen and smiling .

I see eating kangaroo anus in Gregg Wallace's future

Really foolish move 🤣

Clifford Chance, elevating the Streisand Effect into true artistry.

Adam and Jo standing in an arboretum

We got lucky with the weather again! Lovely morning recording a new myth busting episode of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast with @adamhartscience.bsky.social - coming early in 2025!

Adam and Jo standing in an arboretum

We got lucky with the weather again! Lovely morning recording a new myth busting episode of Jo Durrant’s Beautiful Universe podcast with @adamhartscience.bsky.social - coming early in 2025!

Southern African countries in bid to fight UK anti-hunting bill Representatives from the six nations have now requested a meeting with British government officials to discuss the issue. Mqondisi Dube reports from Botswana's capital, Gaborone

With legislation planned to ban trophy imports to the UK, it's time to realise real world conservation is complex, evidence needs to lead, & we need to listen to those nations that do "rather better" than us at conservation. I'm quoted in this Voice of America piece
www.voanews.com/a/southern-a...

Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in 'remarkable' Scotland project ‘The sound of traffic and a uniform sea of barley have been replaced by the most beautiful meadows, full of wildflowers, young saplings and the buzz of bees’

Bumblebee population increases 116 times over in 'remarkable' Scotland rewilding project -
"Wildlife can recover, and quickly, if we just give it a little space and let nature work her magic" #RestoreNature
www.scotsman.com/hays-way/bum...

Often see videos of people getting close to hippo. I see it IRL too. A quick visual reminder of why it's best to keep your distance...

But every time from now on that they say "the UK public wants this import ban" (and they say this a lot) they should be reminded that the UK public also wants an export ban. So if they're going to use the UK public as their main reason to push for bans, they shouldn't get to pick and choose.

This is one of them, and it tells us (1) that most UK respondents don't care much about African jobs and (2) they are just as much - or more - against domestic trophy hunting and UK trophy exports as they are against it in Africa and the imports.

I've made threads on X about all other trophy hunting surveys so far, so might as well keep it up and try it here. This survey is from July 2024, but I hadn't noticed it until now.

Thread.

1/11

www.resourceafrica.net/wp-content/u...

This Wasp Was Brought To Christmas Island In 2017—7 Years Later A Struggling Species Thrives An ecological upheaval involving crazy ants killed millions of red crabs and threatened the survival of the species on Christmas Island, Australia. Now, a micro-wasp has helped restore balance.

A fascinating story of interactions, problems and solutions
www.forbes.com/sites/scottt...

Wishing the Elsevier editors who desk-accepted this all the best for their next career moves.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ij...

The ultimate guide to #SciComm on Bluesky
🧪 #AcademicSky

Use the feed to talk *about* SciComm, not to *do* SciComm. If you have an astronomy or ocean fact to share: neat! But the ppl who want to engage w you are not on the feed. Feed ppl are talking shop

1/🧵

bsky.app/profile/did:...

Where's the starter pack for inaturalist contributors? I need an injection of citizen science

Hello birders! I'm looking for a British hawfinch expert to talk to for an ecology outreach project with the Universities of Edinburgh and York. Is there anyone here willing to chat to me about hawfinch monitoring and conservation?

#ukbirding #ornithology #birds #birdingwales #birding #ukbird

First quick draft of a list with people I've seen here who I know to have valuable knowledge and experiences with hunting.

go.bsky.app/E8snieN

It's Friday, which means it's Wildlife Crime day @uniofglos.bsky.social - a new module this year and one that I'm hugely enjoying. Today, we're joined by a former student here who worked with the police and is now a lecturer and researcher on wildlife crime in the UK. And then we learn about ivory.

Turgeon: dynamics of small pops of mountain ungulates. One of the most satisfying papers I've ever contributed to. > 100 pop-years of data in 3 pops, > 2K marked bighorn sheep, mountain goats. Cougar predation, pneumonia override density-dependence 🧪 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Funding available
The Gunduwa Regional Conservation Association welcomes applications for funding to conduct biodiversity conservation & sustainability projects in the Gunduwa region.
For more details, visit the GRCA website, and download the GRCA 2024–30 Prospectus: gunduwa.org.au/gunduwa-pros...

Trump’s science-denying fanatics are bad enough. Yet even our climate ‘solutions’ are now the stuff of total delusion | George Monbiot The ‘progress’ made at Cop29 has been on carbon markets: a world of magical thinking, over-claiming and distorted truth, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot

The soil carbon market is going to collapse - and that's a good thing.
One of the issues I explore in this week's column, about the dreamworld of climate fakery our legislators have created.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Important context here:

● over half of farms are less than 49 acres (20 hectares)

● "a big farm" is 217 acres.

Now let's see who's angry:

● Clarkson farm is 1,000 acres
● Lloyd Webber farms 4,000 acres
● Viscount Rothermere (Mail owner) 4,700 acres
● Dyson owns 36,000 acres

Kenya has been such a place for decades. How's that gone? As you say, Botswana is one of the last places with large and increasing elephant numbers. 🤔

So many people say. Apparently the glass will crack and shatter. I regularly get people offering me this advice on the street when I do it. Boiling water on really.cold glass - I guess maybe. But warm water- nope.

a man in a straw hat says " don t worry " ALT: a man in a straw hat says " don t worry "

Hard frost this morning as I start my 33rd driving winter defrosting car with warm water. I'm still waiting for the disaster that apparently will befall me...
It's quick and easy. UK winters fairly mild. Car glass very tough. Even 1980s mini metro glass survived.

I saw this earlier. It's not news to most of us I'm sure but it never hurts to reinforce the fact that our "usual" world view is very wrong! I don't know the source so apologies for reusing without credit