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Matthew Ponsford

@interspecies.agency

4K followers 5K following 159 posts

Journalist writing about nature and culture. MIT Technology Review, BBC, The Guardian, and many more

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 08/10/2026

Anne Carson in her boxing gloves

An extract from an essay by Anne Carson in the London review of books that reads: I
GO to boxing class three times a week. Everyone in the class has Parkinson's, various degrees of damage. At a certain point in each class (after we've done warm-up and strength training and footwork drills) the coach yells: 'Gloves on!' We rush to the lockers for our boxing gloves, then station ourselves at a heavy bag and start punching. There are six basic boxing punches. Each has a number:
I. Jab
2. Cross
3. Hook with lead hand
4. Hook with rear hand
5. Uppercut with lead hand
6. Uppercut with rear hand
The central portion of a boxing class involves punching the heavy bag according to a combination of numbers called out by the coach. We each reproduce the punches that correspond to the numbers. It goes quite fast. I find that when I am trying to perform a complicated boxing combination I can feel the neurons in my brain struggling and striving. I know this sounds crazy. But, as we saw earlier, that boundary between inside and outside is not so simple.
The more I know about Parkinson's disease, the more I see it as holding oneself upright against a current that never ceases to pull. The books tell me to pay conscious, continual attention to actions like walking, writing, brushing my teeth if I want to inhibit or delay the failure of neurons in the brain. It is hard to live within constant striving. It is hard to live within the word 'degenerative', which means that, however I strive, I do not win.
Of course everyone is striving all their life. And none of us will win against mortality.
But there is a difference between striving to (say) learn ancient Greek or do the vacuuming and striving to pay microscopic attention to every instant of a physical act.

A black-and-white photo of Anne Carson, in her mid-70s, wearing a pair of frankly massive boxing gloves.

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 25/07/2026

The "You Wouldn't Steal a Car" anti-piracy advert from DVDs but it says "You wouldn't clone a yak"

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 13/03/2026

Just incredible shoebill awareness-raising from this Hong Kong teens' magazine

Photographs of a dinosaur-looking bird, the shoebill, and popstar Sabrina Carpenter, overlaid with a height comparison showing both are 152 cm, with visual graphics saying the magazine's name SSWAGGER and some Chinese characters

Photographs of a shoebill and popstar Sabrina Carpenter overlaid with a height comparison showing that, yes indeed, both are just 152 cm

I can't even begin to describe this photograph. I think that might be Taylor Swift on a night out with Sabrina Carpenter. But Sabrina is photoshopped to have a shoebill face and talons, with wing-tips coming out her coat but still Sabrina's hair

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 02/08/2025

Featuring this very cool gif of Singapore! Via Prof Yuan Chao and National University of Singapore

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 13/05/2025

uncanny

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 11/03/2025

A ‘zombie’ snail infected by a parasitic flatworm which lives in the snail’s eyes and imitates a caterpillar. This attracts birds, who peck out the snails eyes and eat the parasite, which then lives inside the bird A convincing case for conserving parasites theconversation.com/parasites-ar...

A orange snail sits on a leaf, with swollen-looking green and white eye stalks with reddish black ends

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 05/02/2025

It’s sometimes hard to explain the strangeness and artificiality of the actions we’re taking to protect species on the very edge. It’s easier to say: “Google ‘Whooping Cranes’” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... great photo by Michael Forsberg 🦑🧪🌎

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 10/12/2024

Obsessed with the vibe of this farm news site. It's like if Blade Runner was set in Norfolk

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 06/12/2024

I really enjoyed learning where, deep in the dusty earth, silicon chips are born, in @edconway.bsky.social’s Material World www.technologyreview.com/2024/04/24/1...

Book review that begins: Some time before the first dinosaurs, two supercontinents, Laurasia and Gondwana, collided, forcing molten rock out from the depths of the Earth. As eons passed, the liquid rock cooled and geological forces carved this rocky fault line into Pico Sacro, a strange conical peak that sits like a wizard’s hat near the northwestern corner of Spain.

Today, Pico Sacro is venerated as a holy site and rumored, in the local mythology, to be a portal to hell. But this magic mountain has also become valued in modern times for a very different reason: the quartz deposits that resulted from these geological processes are some of the purest on the planet. Today, it is a rich source of the silicon used to build computer chips. From this dusty ground, the mineral is plucked and transformed into an inscrutable black void of pure inorganic technology, something that an art director could have dreamed up to stand in for aliens or the mirror image of earthly nature.

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 28/11/2024

A bunch of fascinating people on here - give them a follow! go.bsky.app/A7v5ZUQ

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Matthew Ponsford @interspecies.agency · 25/11/2024

Incredible logo here from the short-lived Partito d’Azione

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