iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Kate Littler

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 12h

From a discussion of updating a department website...

A photo with baby Yoda and adult Yoda with the caption "Could it be time for a new photo?"

Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 7h

One of the joys of parenthood is helping your kids discover new music. Honestly didn’t expect my 5 yr old to be so into AC/DC, but there you go! Today we explored Green Day (‘pretty cool”), Blink 182 (“these guys are silly”) and Iron Maiden (“the most awesome thing I’ve ever heard!”) 😅

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Our primary school’s ofsted report is interesting reading. Overall a v good result with 5/7 criteria ‘strong standard’, but the raw stats are stark when compared to our sister school in the richer area <1 km away. 49 vs 10% on free school meals 20 vs 9% persistently absent 28 vs 13% SEND 🧵

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Solidarity to colleagues at Edinburgh. 5 weeks of strike, my goodness. That is Herculean commitment, and will cost those staff thousands of pounds in lost wages. I hope that gets management’s attention at least.

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Dr. Merritt Rae Turetsky @queenofpeat.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I am a mom and scientist begging everyone to look closer at the muck. We’ve been conditioned to see wetlands as wastelands. But three decades of research, I see a fiercely defiant wilderness. The boreal mire is a dynamic carbon-trapping vault that in some places has outlasted ice ages. 1/

A woman scientist - me! - standing over the boreal forest in interior Alaska.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The discovery of a ww2 bomb in Falmouth harbour has prompted interesting discussions with the kids. -How did it get there? (USA bomber). -How long ago was 80 years? (Older than grandad!) -Is it still dangerous (oh yes) -Why do we do wars? (Good question kid…) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I’ve always wanted a really big dinosaur to be named after me, so it can be the Littlersaurus. I can dream!

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There must be a German word for when you’re really looking forward to eating something and then it’s snatched away from you? Exhibit A: My sweetcorn 🌽 lovingly raised from seed since April, tended in the drought, moments away from being harvested before being ravaged by beasts unknown. 😭 😭

My sweetcorn patch a few weeks ago. Tall, healthy, cobs developing beautifully. So close…

The patch this weekend. Flattened stalks, uprooted plants. Carnage.

A totally nibbled sweetcorn cob on the ground. I hope you enjoyed my corn, you bastard!

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

My god, the sheer number of wasted human work hours that these statistics expose. Think of all the great stuff they could have been doing rather than writing doomed proposals. Almost anything would have been better!

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 21/09/2026

This year's El Niño event is moving into record territory, with the daily Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) tying the record previously set during the 2015/2016 super-El Niño. My latest over at Carbon Brief: www.carbonbrief.org/...

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Getting harder to find flowers in bloom other than the ubiquitous gorse, heather and red campion, but saw an interesting clump of common toadflax today near the clifftops. A beautiful early autumn day in Cornwall for a walk. #wildflowerhour

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William Carruthers @williamcarruthers.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Have universities tried saying this?

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Jeeze Louise. And apparently pulling out of the new Falmer campus too. Yikes.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Ooof that’s quite a reduction 😬

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

The ‘protests’ at Dover today are really frightening. That these men feel emboldened to act in this way without impunity should scare us all.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Confirmed there will be no compulsory redundancies at Exeter for now because enough staff took ‘voluntary redundancy’ over the summer. (Is it really ‘voluntary’ with a metaphorical gun to your head of being in a small compulsory redundancy pool though? 🤔 ) We have lost so many good colleagues 😞

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

My youngest son is doing imagination play with his extensive car collection. Just overheard him lamenting another stall on a steep hill-start: “Oh not again. Come on baby!” I feel seen and not in a good way 😅

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Ah that lovely week at the beginning of September where the kids still aren’t back to school but all the ‘summer’ childcare camps are finished and you’ve maxed out grandparents and the weather has crapped out and you’ve run out of entertainment ideas and you’re supposed to be back to work. 🤦‍♀️

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Rebecca M-O @reduplicater.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Crop art at the Minnesota State Fair! It is what it says it is - art made from various parts of crops, primarily seeds, lentils, and grains, occasionally leaves or flowers. For any non-Minnesotans viewing this, I'll start with mostly less political pieces. It's harder than you might think.

Untitled? by Jenny Lau
A red heart with radiating lines is in the upper half of the piece. In the middle are two loons, rising up out of the water to either fly or dance. The words "Forever - MN" appear in black at the bottom. The piece is edged in a wavy border. You can see from the seedlist that the inspiration was a Keith Haring drawing on a US "Forever stamp" where people instead of loons are dancing and holding up the heart.

Crops include white sorghum, red sorghum, french lentil, canola, wild rice, garlic skin, and millet. Any others have been cut off by the photographer's (my) carelessness.

Untitled? by Alice Hogan
In the center are two traditional portrayals of Vikings, with horned helmets. The left is a bearded man with a photo of Governor Tim Walz's face, and the right character is a female with long blond braids and a photo of Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan's face. She holds a scepter topped by what might be a stalk of wheatand stands next to some miniature ears of multi-colored corn. Below them are the words "WELCOME TO MINNESOTA" in blue and green. Behind the two Vikings are a lake or river with swans, a pink house I don't recognize, and a stylized version of the Minneapolis skyline with some of its landmark buildings such as the Foshay Tower and the IDS Center.

The seed list is partially hidden and partially too blurry to read due to the photographer's (my) inability to take good photos.

"Pac-MN" by Meredith Keller
This is a 3 dimensional piece in that the yellow frame of it is moved forward and shaped as if it's an arcade game. The screen has a black background. The words "MINNESOTA STATE FAIR 2026" are written in the Pac-Man font at the top left. the rest of the screen has a map of the fairgrounds making the path that Pac-Man can follow, complete with yellow trails. Some of the yellow trails have the street names spelled out on the seeds. The screen also has red and blue ghosts, but instead of the normal bonus icons we see a pickle, an ear of corn, some pronto pups, and a chocolate chip cookie - all popular foods at the MN State Fair.

The seedlist shows yellow painted mustard seed in a Pac-Man shape, and the rest of the seeds are lined up for Pac-Man to eat: red and blue painted mustard seed, black canola, white, yellow, and green millet, white navy bean, yellow soy bean, and yellow split pea.

This entry was awarded a blue ribbon for first place in its category.

"Minnesota Welcomes You" by Megan Bell
Paul Bunyan, in brown laced up boots, blue jeans, and a pink and ight blue checked shirt and cap, is neeling on the ground. He steadies an axe against the ground in his left hand, while his right hand is outstretched to the viewer. The grass is green, there are autumn colored trees in the background, and a multicolored swirly sky is above. The words "MINNESOTA WELCOMES YOU" are in the foreground.

This piece was made with amaranth, hulled barley, black beans, canola, flax seed, millet, rye berries, and wheatberry. Most of these were painted.

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Dr Craig R McClain @drcraigmc.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

America's national parks are being quietly taken apart: mass layoffs, record budget cuts, monuments shrunk by millions of acres, protected land reopened to drilling. None of this is speculation. Ten sourced examples, one at a time. 🧪

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Ditto for paleoclimate. You only have an exciting ‘big picture’ story by amalgamating lots of little ‘parochial’ studies (often that couldn’t attract significant external funding), running some pretty models, and submitting it to Nature. Please recall that the next time you are on a grants panel.

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

The fallout from the collapse of this glacier - a torrent of mud surging down the valley - killed hundreds of people. Gone, in a flash. Those people were wiped out by anthropogenic climate change. Our governments are simply not responding quickly enough to this disaster which is already upon us.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

“…the university had seen "exceptionally strong demand from students wishing to study at Exeter this year..”” Record recruitment to the point we are asking students to defer a year because we can’t house them? Ideal time for mass staff redundancies 👍 thetab.com/2026/08/26/i...

thetab.com

'I may be forced to defer': Students left with no rooms amid Exeter's accommodation shortage

One student said he was 'encouraged' to seek private rooms, only to discover the rent was more than his student loan

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Channeling my sadness today with a donation to one of Dolly’s greatest achievements - supporting kids’ reading and education all over the world. (I can also recommend Booktrust for those based in the UK: www.booktrust.org.uk)

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Not talented, courageous, sassy, wise, kind, beautiful Dolly?! Nooooo!!! 💔 💔 💔

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Prof Sam Illingworth @samillingworth.com · 24/08/2026

🧊 A tropical ice core rewrites the methane record A new tropical ice core shows equatorial wetlands emitted more methane before industrialisation than polar ice cores ever suggested. 🔗 doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10938-1 #ClimateScience #Methane #IceCore 🧪

doi.org

A global atmospheric methane record from a tropical ice core - Nature

A 2,000-year Peruvian ice core record of atmospheric CH4 concentrations contains the first historical global CH4 record from the low latitudes, and implementation of a four-box model indicates higher ...

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Reposted by Kate Littler

Tits McGee @scientits.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Actually felt proud to see that line at the top and realise it was this stupid little island We are very good at some things

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

It’s been interesting to see which plants have dealt well with drought (not often an issue in Cornwall!). Many wild plants seem to have done ok, with a particular shout out to wild carrot which has thrived. In the garden, the verbena bonariensis has been a low maintenance star and butterfly fav.

The wild carrot has dominated my little 2x1m meadow area at the allotment this year. Here is is earlier in the summer when still flowering, with delicate white heads beloved of insects

I haven’t really watered the meadow bed at all this dry dry summer (one bucket of water in July?) but it has thrived. Here it is in late august with most of the wild carrot gone to seed, but the understory of other wildflowers still lush and green.

Verbena boniarensis is a lovely tall cultivated plant that has clusters of purple flowers on long tough stems. It spreads easily and the pollinators absolutely love it. Have seen many butterflies, and bees, and numerous hummingbird hawk moths on it this year. Hardly watered at all.

A small white butterfly on a purple verbena flower head.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Some hardy plants like heather and gorse are tough enough to grow on heavy-metal rich Cornish mine waste. They soften this post-industrial landscape, and provide nectar and shelter for all sorts of other creatures, as well as a splash of colour in late summer. #wildflowerhour

The post mining landscape near bissoe Cornwall. Bracken in the foreground, purple heather covered slopes in the middle ground, and the ruins of old mine workings (I think associated with the old Wheal Fortune mine complex) in the background. Blue skies and white clouds above.

Bright yellow gorse and beautiful purple heather

Bright purple heather, showing the bell-shaped flowers up close.

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GeophotoMarli @marlimiller.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Preparing an Earth Sci or Geog course for fall? Please check out geologypics.com. There, find >5500 searchable captioned photos for free download to promote good instruction. Just uploaded 60 new photos I shot from this year-- coastal to desert, rocks to landforms. Please share! #teaching #geology

six colorful Earth Science photos: melange, cross-bedding, differential erosion, soft-sediment deformation, desert varnish, Oregon Coast

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Tobias Wilson-Bates @phdhurtbrain.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

James Bond: you think I haven’t faced death before? Supervillain: oh, I don’t expect you to die, Mr. Bond. I expect you to suffer. *opens travel funding reimbursement software I think you will find your motorboat rental and casino reservations especially complex James Bond: no. no. pls kill me

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Femke de Jong @fmkdejong.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

Optimist: The cup is half full Pessimist: The cup is half empty Oceanographer: The water in the cup is Denmark Strait Overflow Water that formed in the Nordic Seas and entrained Atlantic intermediate waters when it cascaded of the sill of Denmark Strait

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

With ever more uni students ‘choosing’ to live with family rather than on/ near campus (due to £), it’s clear that closing departments and leaving ‘cold spots’ in certain subjects is going to limit options. And it’s not just ‘niche subjects’ - think English, History… www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

More students planning to live at home for uni over 'insane' living costs

Students like Jessica say they worry about missing out on student life, but feel they have no choice but to stay at home.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

As a former kid growing up with asthma in London, who remembers the black gunk in her nose when venturing ‘up town’, I’m all for ULEZ! Wish it has existed in the 80s/90s. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

Ulez led to better lung size and function among London children, study finds

Researchers find capacity stunted by pollution restored after introduction of ultra-low emission zone

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

To hell with LLMs. It is fundamentally breaking the uni staff - student relationship, based on mutual trust & respect. Students, I want to be your instructor, your mentor, & a friendly presence. I don’t want to be locked in a perpetual arms-race where you try to cheat and I try to catch you 😞

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Never thought I’d be so happy to see some summer rain in Cornwall! Looking forward to the water butts having a top up ☺️ It’s been toasty and so so dry. Can’t describe how weird it is to see short brown dead grass in coastal Cornish parks. It’s usually one of the wettest counties in the UK 😬

View from my office window over the green roofs and solar panels of the campus, with lovely grey skies and rain falling.

Dead brown grass in a park overlooking Falmouth in Cornwall. The sea is visible in the background behind a line of green hedgerow and trees. The sky is blue with light clouds.

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Ed Hawkins @edhawkins.org · 14/08/2026

Earlier in the summer I presented a figure showing how a comparable weather event to the summer of 1976 would be experienced in a warmer current climate. It would be 3-4°C hotter, with London hitting 38°C. Yesterday, that is exactly what happened.

Weather of 1976, and a version for the current climate

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

'Geography courses at the University of Exeter’s Cornwall campus have been shuttered, with staff and students only learning of the decision on A-level results day.' And it's not 'just' Geography. The week that 'doing an Exeter' entered the UK higher education lexicon. Don't do an Exeter.

timeshighereducation.com

Exeter shuts geography courses in Cornwall on A-level results day

University closes programmes just as applicants find out if they have gained a place, with students told to transfer to other courses or study 80 miles away

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

And look at the SW bumbling along near the bottom of the chart. There is (rightfully) a lot of focus on the north-south UK divide in opportunity and attainment, but the SW really struggles too. Thank god we have excellent unis in the SW that are definitely not closing programmes and firing staff 🙄

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Here, have some peaceful and cleansing eclipse photos, taken from a gorgeous Cornish beach yesterday. ❤️

A not particularly good photo of the solar eclipse yesterday, showing the sun with a bite taken out of the left hand side by the moon. Is about 10 minutes away from being over and I finally figured out how to take a photo with the eclipse glasses and my iPhone.

The dim light of a 95% solar eclipse as viewed from a gorgeous beach on the Lizard, Cornwall. The light is wan but the sky is clear with a bright sun in the centre of the frame. There are a few people silhouetted on the beach looking at the eclipse.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

So the Geography BSc/Ba programme on our Exeter Penryn Campus has been officially canned this morning. No new entry from Sept 2026, current students to be ‘taught out’. It’s been under ‘consultation’ since July but we had to legally inform our offer holders this morning (A-Levels results day). 1/n

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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Disturbing news about our #water resources is now constant & unrelenting. But what we’re experiencing now is not normal; it is the result of accelerating climate changes & long neglect & underinvestment in water institutions & infrastructure. My new op-ed: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.com

Drought, water rationing and dry rivers: our water crisis is here | Peter Gleick

It doesn’t have to be this way. We know what needs to be done

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Nanjing Paleontological Museum has an in-house traditional Chinese artist, Li Chen, creating paintings of famous Chinese dinosaurs. These are from 2022 exhibition "From Dragon to Bird" and can be purchased in the museum as postcards or book《从龙到鸟系列科学艺术化石复原图》

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Very much enjoying teaching and meeting students and fellow instructors at the USSP* in Urbino, Italy this week. And the views and gelato ain’t half bad either 😉 *urbino summer school in Paleoclimatology

A view of the northern Italian countryside near Urbino. The sky is blue and there are green trees and rolling fields and a few buildings in shot.

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

My god, I’m enjoying this football match!

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Butterfly Conservation @savebutterflies.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

The Big Butterfly Count 2026 is here and butterflies need our help! 🦋 From now until 9 August, spend just 15 minutes outside counting the butterflies you see and help us take nature's pulse. The best part? Anyone, anywhere can take part. Count yourself in 👉 butrfli.es/3SVFepj

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

RE: ‘complex cross-subsidies in HE’ the humanities (and business school) depts subsidise the more expensive STEM depts within each uni. £9.5k p/yr doesn’t touch the sides of educating a geology or chemistry student with pricey fieldcourses or labs, but an English/ history student is cheap!

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Kate Littler @palaeoclimate.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

So cool to see these iconic sculptures restored. As a south Londoner, I always loved going to Palace to check out the (dilapidated but cool) old dinos.

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