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So the blooms, pretty as they are, are probably best removed, for the sake of the tree and your future crop.

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If this is happening to your tree, be aware that any pears that start to develop in autumn are exceeding unlikely to make it. They will just use up the tree's energy stores, leaving it more vulnerable to disease over winter and potentially reducing how much it flowers and fruits next year.

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I imagine this is something we will see more and more as climate change brings increasingly hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters.

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The mechanism behind it isn't clear, but it is thought drought conditions make trees go into survival/dormant mode and when mild, wetter conditions arrive, the tree reacts as if it is spring. This pear tree doesn't look vigorous - it has lost most of its leaves early - as it might for winter.

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Autumnal flowering in fruit trees is sometimes seen in years when there has been particularly stressful/hot/dry weather during the summer.

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Spotted a confused, pear tree this morning, flowering on 1st October, when it should be preparing for a nice, dormant winter. 🧪 🌱 #plants #gardening #flowers #climatechange

Flowers in bloom on a pear tree in October

A weedy looking pear tree with a bunch of flowers, in autumn/fall

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Good question. Maybe it would work cutting sugars down once the antibiotics are prescribed, but also I suspect getting a prescription for antibiotics is rarely a surprise to people. People tend to have some signs of illness that prompts a visit to a doctor, so there is a warning period.

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The research that shows this has been done in cancer patients, but given that experiments in mice back it up, it seems reasonable to expect this principle to apply to people generally

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For every 100-gram increase in high-sugar foods during the 24 hours before an antibiotic dose was taken, the drop in total bacterial diversity was on average 24 per cent greater.

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And apologies for the jerkily rapid zooming in during the videos. Rewatching it makes my head spin a little

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It boggles my mind to think of how many little pupal cases from leatherjackets there must be scattered around here from which the adult craneflies emerged, like tentative, long-legged butterflies.

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Still buzzing with joy at finding all these craneflies, or daddy long legs as we call them in the UK. I was told long ago that there's a local name for them in Finland or Sweden that translates as "something in your hair". Anyone know what that word is? (Google doesn't seem to know)

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Although the craneflies don't look very mobile in these pictures, they were all wriggling away. Other smaller groups of them were gathered on the lee of large cowpats nearby. Not sure about the species because they were wriggling so much. Tipula of some kind. Tipula paludosa?

A congregation of crane flies gathered by a trig point

A congregation of perhaps 50 craneflies being lifted up by a hand

A congregation of craneflies gathered by a trig point, with others stretched out across the grass

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Chris Simms @chrisnsimms.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Have you ever seen so many craneflies in one place? Spotted this group by a trig point in Somerset during a run. A few were mating. They seemed to have chosen this spot to shelter from the wind. 🧪 🦟 #wildlife @flygirlnhm.bsky.social @juliet-turner.bsky.social @teamdiptera.bsky.social

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I just love the idea of dinosaurs with four wings. My latest for @livescience.com: A newly discovered feathered dinosaur named Norellraptor barsboldi had four wings, and adds evidence to the idea that flight evolved several times in different dinosaur groups. 🧪 www.livescience.com/animals/dino...

livescience.com

Remarkably preserved feathered dinosaur discovered in China reveals new secrets of flying predator evolution

A newly discovered feathered dinosaur named Norellraptor barsboldi had sharply curved teeth and claws, as well as four wings, and it adds evidence to the idea that flight evolved several times in diff...

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The study authors suggest it is a systemic effect, and the exact cause isn't known. The current thinking is more that it is the cumulative action of all sorts of molecules circulating around the body, often via the blood stream, which heal damage, clean away rubbish and protect against harm

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Which is, on the one hand, great news for possible ways to hold off or reverse some of the effects of ageing on our bodies or organs. But, on the other hand, it also hints that some aspects of ageing may simply be irreversible and no one will be able to resist the tick of time forever.

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Perhaps what I found most interesting about this research is that it looked into what functional difference was made by changing the biological age of a heart. Many functions in a rejuvenated heart improved, but not all.

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The find is both surprising and yet makes sense given previous work in which living organisms were surgically joined so they shared a single circulatory system. Those studies showed that the blood of young mice extended the lives of older ones to which they were connected and boosted cognition.

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The work is based partly on studies in mice but then also shows that the same ageing/rejuvenating effects are seen in samples taken in the course of past human transplants.

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Old hearts age backwards: transplanted organs adjust to host's biological age

Young donor hearts become biologically older in an old recipient, and an old heart gets biologically younger in a young recipient! The big implication: this could increase the number of organs available for transplant. My latest new story for @nature.com 🧪 #health www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Tracking the biological age of grafted organs suggests that donor pools could be expanded to boost organ availability.

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Chris Simms @chrisnsimms.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Well... In British English it tends to be more relaxed and "fish" can be used to mean one fish, many fish of one species, or many individuals of different fish species. Some people treat "fishes" as the scientific plural to indicate multiple species, some regard that as archaic and stick with fish.

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Chris Simms @chrisnsimms.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Music can be relaxing, as can time in nature. Now it turns out that watching a river flow via a virtual-reality headset while listening to classical music seems to quickly bring people's blood pressure down from a dangerously high level in hospital. 🧪 #health www.newscientist.com/article/2590...

newscientist.com

Virtual green spaces and classical music reduce blood pressure in hospital | New Scientist

Watching a river flow via a virtual-reality headset while listening to classical music seems to quickly bring people's blood pressure down from a dangerously high level in hospital

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Reposted by Chris Simms

Stevie Kilner @1steviekilner.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

If anyone would like to see a short video of a deer fawn asking you to follow it to Narnia, this is your lucky day.

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... Sondern, dass man versteht: Du bist happy und verstehst, dass du Glück hattest, in diesem wundervollen Land geboren zu sein, aufgewachsen oder zugezogen bist."

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In the original Germany it runs more like this: "Ich würde uns gerne die Fahne zurückholen. Da bin ich ganz ehrlich. Ich möchte, dass, wenn jemand sie schwingt, niemand denkt: 'Was ist mit dir denn nicht in Ordnung?'...

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Lovely quote from Jurgen Klopp.

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