A Humanoid Robot Just Beat the Human World Record for the Fastest Half-Marathon During a Race in China A self-navigating robot called Lightning, developed by Chinese electronics company Honor, won the 13.1-mile race. Its results and others mark significant advancements since last year's inaugural event...

Interesting article in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social but implications are scary. A commentator asks how the tech translates into productivity & profitability but not on a finite planet with a burgeoning human population. And how long before robots carry weapons? www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a...

An Eccentric Tycoon Left a Fortune to the Winner of a Baby-Making Contest. The Great Stork Derby Divided Canadians During the Great Depression In his will, Charles Vance Millar offered roughly 500,000 Canadian dollars to the mother who "has since my death given birth to the greatest number of children"

Very interesting story in @smithsonianmag.bsky.social and to see the nationalism and "them foreigners" in it. A problem that pervades Earth today that doesn't recognise humanity's imaginary boundaries that it draws upon its surface. Now 8,266,000,000 of us. www.smithsonianmag.com/history/an-e...

Petition: Ban foreign media ownership, enact a social media levy & new regulatory reform Pass law to ban foreign & offshore ownership of UK media, enact a social-media levy to distribute media ownership across society & fund independent, local & cooperative-owned media. We believe democra...

There are countless petitions but this one does effect every one of us. If you don't want to exist in a world of lies and misinformation please sign this. Petition: Ban foreign media ownership, enact a social media levy & new regulatory reform petition.parliament.uk/petitions/76...

What if the whole country saw the full picture? This is a national emergency. The impacts are already here.
But the solutions exist.

Communities are watching the People’s Emergency Briefing and discussing what to do next with neighbours and MPs

#EarthDay
Screenings www.nebriefing.org/screening-map

NASA shuts off another Voyager 1 instrument as humanity's most distant spacecraft prepares for risky 'Big Bang' maneuver to save power After nearly 50 years in space, the two Voyager spacecraft are very low on nuclear power. Voyager 1 just shut off another instrument to save the mission.

The Voyagers limp on. They're old and tired and basically dying but still sending back useful data as some add to the book of science. But how many with their heads stuck up their digital anuses have even heard about one of humanity's greatest achievements? www.livescience.com/space/space-...

India and China solar boom see renewable energy overtake global demand Countries continue to turn to renewables for national security despite Trump's attacks on wind and solar.

Changing to renewals is still not happening quickly enough and people haven't come to realise that we are still going to have to change the way we live, work, travel and consume. www.euronews.com/2026/04/21/i...

Ranked: EU nations with cleanest energy mix to save 58% more on bills Consumers in five EU countries will save up to €8.5 billion on their energy bills this year, compared to those with the dirtiest energy mix.

The cleverest countries are going big on renewables. I suspect the UK will lag far behind in the race to get rid of fossil fuels. www.euronews.com/2026/04/22/f...

Photographer captures Earth’s delicate systems ‘losing their rhythm’ Nature photographer Jon McCormack warns the Earth's vital systems are 'changing faster than we realise’.

The natural world and the stability of the Holocene Epoch are disappearing in front of our eyes but many aren't looking or even aware because they are distracted in many ways. How do we get through to these people? www.euronews.com/2026/04/22/b...

Somehow America managed to elect the world's greatest a hole and rapist paedo not once but twice.

11/ OBSERVATIONS - Also published just this week: data from four mooring arrays along the western Atlantic shows a consistent decline in deep overturning transport across all latitudes over the past 20 years.

The models predicted decline. We're now measuring it.

Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections Shutdown of northern Atlantic overturning after 2100 following deep mixing collapse in CMIP6 projections, Drijfhout, Sybren, Angevaare, Joran R, Mecking, Jennifer, van Westen, René M, Rahmstorf, Stefan

10/ And Drijfhout et al. (2025) found that the #AMOC could fully shut down after 2100 when deep-ocean mixing collapses, a mechanism most models still don't capture.

The IPCC's "unlikely" assessment is looking increasingly out of date.

9/ MODELS - When Earth system models are corrected for known biases, collapse becomes far more likely.

A new study released this week applying observational constraints projects ~50% AMOC weakening by 2100 - nearly double previous estimates, with far less uncertainty.

8/ Key papers on AMOC proxy evidence:

Caesar (2018): nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0006-5

Li & Liu (2025): nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02403-0

Ren et al. (2025): nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02793-1

7/ e.g. The North Atlantic "cold blob", a patch of ocean cooling while the rest of the planet warms, is now firmly linked to AMOC weakening.

And a new equatorial deep-ocean warming signal has emerged as an independent fingerprint of slowdown.

6/ PROXIES - We only have direct AMOC measurements since 2004. But sea surface temperatures, ocean salinity, subsurface density, and deep-water tracers all tell the same story: the AMOC has weakened since the mid-20th century.

Different methods, different data, same conclusion.

Bifurcation diagrams showing AMOC strength vs freshwater forcing. The system has two stable states, strong circulation (~20 Sv) and collapsed (~0 Sv), with a bistable regime in between where either state is possible. A blue arrow shows the abrupt collapse trajectory. The present climate sits near the edge of the bistable regime.

5/ PHYSICS - We understand why it can collapse.

The AMOC's salt-driven circulation creates a self-reinforcing feedback: weaken it enough and it can no longer sustain itself.

tos.org/oceanography/article/is-the-atlantic-overturning-circulation-approaching-a-tipping-point

4/ PALEO - Deep-sea sediment cores from the Atlantic preserve chemical fingerprints of past ocean circulation.

They show the #AMOC shut down repeatedly during the last ice age, triggering hemispheric temperature swings of 10–15°C within decades.

This system has an off switch.

3/ What's changed isn't one alarming paper.

It's a consilience of evidence:

- Paleo records
- Basic physics
- Proxy reconstructions
- Earth system models
- Direct observations

All now converging on the same conclusion. Together, they can't be ignored.

NASA: The Thermohaline Circulation (The Great Ocean Conveyor Belt) [720p] YouTube video by djxatlanta

2/ It's called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, the #AMOC.

Warm, salty water flows north at the surface, cools, sinks, and returns south at depth.

But add enough freshwater from melting ice and rising rainfall, and that engine stalls. It's happened before.

Globe showing the Atlantic Ocean with arrows depicting the AMOC circulation: warm surface currents (pink/red) flowing northward from the tropics toward the Arctic, and cold deep return currents (blue/purple) flowing southward. The background shows sea surface temperature trends, with a prominent blue cold patch, the "cold blob", south of Greenland, contrasting with warming (orange/red) across the rest of the ocean.

1/ There's a system of ocean currents in the Atlantic that shapes Europe's #climate, drives monsoons, and keeps sea levels stable along the US coast.

In the last 5 years, the scientific evidence that it could collapse has shifted dramatically.

Most people have no idea. 🧵

Drought, migration and the fall of civilization: A cautionary tale Sprawling civilizations, as we see, are fragile, requiring cooperation and a degree of common interest among diverse communities.

An apt and timely reposting of a piece written by Prof. Michael E. Mann in October 2023. The overall situation including that of climate change looks far worse today. thehill.com/opinion/ener...

Drax power plant claims £1bn in subsidies despite being UK’s largest carbon emitter The Drax power plant in Yorkshire claimed £999m in subsidies from the government in 2025 despite the controversial nature of its claims to be a low-carbon energy generator.

It's difficult to believe that DRAX were given £999,000,000 of subsidies in the 365 days of 2025 to accelerate climate change? That money would be a huge startup fund for renewable installations on peoples' homes rather than funding corrupt corporations. eandt.theiet.org/2026/04/16/d...

The Colorado River disappeared from the geological record for 5 million years: Scientists now know where it went Geologists have solved the mystery of the disappearance from the geological record, millions of years ago, of one of North America's most important waterways: the Colorado River.

Geological evidence indicates the Colorado River once flowed into an ancient lake east of the Grand Canyon before carving its current path to the Gulf of California around 5 million years ago. doi.org/hbxjjg

Global warming is making the strongest hurricanes stronger » Yale Climate Connections Recent studies link human-caused warming to more powerful, more destructive storms worldwide.

An excellent article by @drjeffmasters.bsky.social on how global warming is making the strongest hurricanes stronger. That trapped heat because of the CO2 and other greenhouse gases has to go somewhere. yaleclimateconnections.org/2026/04/glob...

Buried 30 paragraphs into this abysmal BBC piece blaming renewables for the high cost of UK electricity is the actual reason it's so expensive, which is fossil gas. But Justin Rowlatt seems uninterested in this detail.

I see @nilspratley.bsky.social is still peddling nonsense!

I hope @katharineviner.bsky.social examines this given the
@theguardian.com's #Climate pledge

Its incoherent for their finance editorials to take this line, it undermines the excellent climate reporting by @dpcarrington.bsky.social & team

Swiss people will vote on their financial center’s climate policies 146,000 signatures for a popular initiative handed in today

#GoodNews: A new Swiss popular initiative, submitted with 146,000 signatures today, will bring binding measures to shift Swiss banks and insurers away from fossil fuels to a vote. You’ll find more information at open.substack.com/pub/swisscli....

Why are uni administrators so credulous about AI's obviously exaggerated promises, throwing vast resources at a socio-technological project that is visibly failing at basic tasks & flailing as a commercial venture?

I'd have thought AI-fueled suicides alone would make risk-averse unis steer clear.

Later that evening, another Israeli drone strike hit Shati refugee camp, killing several people. Gaza officials say 754 Palestinians have now been killed since October’s so-called ceasefire, brokered by the U.S.

📢 Volunteers needed!

Can help steward at our upcoming 'Hands off Iran' demonstration at RAF Fairford on Saturday 25 April?

Get in touch: https://cnduk.org/stewards-needed/