iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Instantly makes me think of Self Esteem's "I cannot stress this enough / You'll never know how to love"

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Keith Alexander @keithalexander.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

It’s monstrous that people would consider trying to kill 1000 beings that are hundreds of years old and take 150 years to even reach sexual maturity, purely because they interfere with fishing for halibut. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

theguardian.com

To cull or not to cull: Greenland debates fate of world’s slowest shark

As trawlers compete with Greenland sharks for halibut and cod, conservationists and fishers clash over what to do about misunderstood species

14269111

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I thought it was @catamaroon.bsky.social talking about rewriting the narrative - away from dystopian doom. But it’s Sarah Hall 🙏

110

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Rosalind Franklin had already noted the helical structure of DNA in photograph 49!

1118

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Florent Waltz @florentwaltz.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Huge congratulations to all three Nobel Laureates, and especially Peter Hegemann! 👏 His seminal work on the green alga Chlamydomonas 🦠 laid the foundation for optogenetics. Thank you for putting Chlamy in the spotlight! ✨ Proof that groundbreaking discoveries don't always come from animal models! 🔬

023680

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

(More feathered dinosaurs) And the classic Velociraptor (these from the Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs)

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Some of the previously discovered microraptorines

110

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Did dinosaurs evolve flight more than once? Maybe! Not only birds, but microraptors too… I unpack it for @newscientist.com with @rowhoop.bsky.social & @pennysarchet.bsky.social #fossilfriday m.youtube.com/watch?v=aZsN...

m.youtube.com

This New Fossil Dinosaur Looks Just Like A Bird - But Isn’t

YouTube video by The World, The Universe And Us

1163

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Exceptional fossil shows birds weren’t the only dinosaurs to evolve flight. Me and @pennysarchet.bsky.social have a fantastic discussion with the brilliant @stevebrusatte.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZsN...

youtube.com

This New Fossil Dinosaur Looks Just Like A Bird - But Isn’t

YouTube video by The World, The Universe And Us

191

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Richard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The BBC's new director general's brain is smaller on the inside.

32926205

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

next I'd like to hear The Killing Moon and Dreaming of You at conference

110

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Look at that temperature line. Our piece on the El Niño catastrophe www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxNH...

youtube.com

This El Niño Is About To Cause a Global Catastrophe

YouTube video by The World, The Universe And Us

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

oh that bit (the son of a man who failed his 11 plus becoming prime minister) choked me up

001

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

“Dr. Mestre said that he analyzed the same data a year ago, which helped them identify the RNA genes associated with the jumbotrons. They shared this unpublished information with Claude” 👀

093

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Nick Sousanis @nsousanis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I love it when my reading interests collide, as Alan Moore & Swamp Thing turn up rather unexpectedly in the final chapter of @rowhoop.bsky.social’s important look at the symbiotic interconnected nature of life in Togetherness!

Page from a book, with text:

CHAPTER 22
Our symbiotic future
As a teenager, my favourite DC superhero wasn't Batman or Superman or Wonder Woman, it was Swamp Thing. A plane-based sentient monster modelled on a man who died in a swamp in Louisiana, he — they would be a better pronoun - they are the personification of the wood wide web, the vast network of connections between life forms in a forest. Swamp Thing's superpower is the ability to connect with all other forms of plant life, to interface, to mesh with them, and swap information. When! first went to New Orleans, on my own as a teenager, I was drawn partly by the desire to hear jazz on Bourbon Street, but also by the ecological pull of the Mississippi Delta, by the fertility, the exuberance of life that I read about in Alan Moore's Swamp Ibing: Until then l'd seen only European ecosystems, and Louisiana was a startling new experience. The heat, the steam, the trees draped with Spanish moss, the grinning caiman slipping into the water, the scrape, the buzz, the bite of the insects! The place seemed more full of life, with more niches crammed with more life forms than I was used to.
This book has been about these life forms and their con-nections. We've learned of the sheer extent of the mycorrhizal network, in forests and graslands, and the mind-boggling amount of information that travels through the network. As we ve seen, scientists have been able to measure that information

Text from the book:

on a small scale. They have tound that warnings about her-bivory, for example, can be transmitted through the network, and perhaps information about drought and other environmental conditions. What if, like Swamp Thing, we could tap into this symbiotic network, this alliance between plant, fungi and bacteria, and learn something? In this final chapter we will look ahead to our symbiotic future, starting with the concept of a programmable land.
Andrew Adamatzky runs the Unconventional Computing Lab. He is in the right place. When I spoke with him almost the first thing he said, as an aside, was that most people over eighty are tired of life. Why, for example, do fungi or slime moulds - theoretically immortal - never get tired? Or do they?' Well, I thought, the sexual and social lives of fungi and slime moulds are far more active than those of most humans of any age, let alone those over eighty. Perhaps this keeps them going? Whether ancient life forms - slime moulds, Pando the polytree, elderly lichens, slow-growing stromatolites - get tired of life is something I'd never considered.
But I wanted to talk to Adamatzky about interfacing with fungi. In effect tapping into their network with electronic com-puters. He has shown that electrical activity is transmitted in fungal networks in the lab; he thinks about whether we can take this further. Manipulate that activity, and build a funga computer." Adamatzky grows oyster mushrooms in the lab and connects them to electrodes; he has wired up a decaying stick gathered from a nearby woodland. The sight of this piece of wood, sprouting mushrooms and covered in lichen, in a lab connected to wires and electrodes and connected to machines - it's incongru-ous. Adamatzky thinks we could not only interface with fungal networks, but that we could weave them into wearable computers

393

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

You’re the first person to comment on that, delighted!

110

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Thanks Karen, so glad it has stuck!

010

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Karen Tanenbaum @drtanenbaumii.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Just finished the audiobook of Togetherness by @rowhoop.bsky.social and I can tell it's going to be one of those books that sticks with me. If you have care about ecology, evolution, climate change, fungi, lichen, plants, the gut biome, mutual aid, or just what it means to be a human, read it!

271

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Climate News @climatenews.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Number 4 on the Climate News Weekend Watchlist is from @newscientist.com with @rowhoop.bsky.social discussing the extreme weather conditions being forecast globally during the extremely powerful El Niño of 2026/27. Worth watching:

youtu.be

This El Niño Is About To Cause a Global Catastrophe

YouTube video by The World, The Universe And Us

21611

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Haha sorry about that. Gritty optimism, stubborn positivity is required…

010

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Wow a Netflix adaptation is in the works of LONESOME DOVE

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I go into why symbiosis and cooperation are compatible with modern evolutionary biology in Togetherness - available in English now and in Dutch soon!

011

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I loved travelling around Iceland - but if you invite me to Hawai'i I will happily change my allegiance

040

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

An image for our times (petrol station in Argentina hit by massive floods)

022

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Thanks Ian, so glad it landed with you!

010

Reposted by Rowan Hooper

Ian Robinson @ianrobinson.info · 23/09/2026

I finished listening to the audiobook edition of Togetherness. Symbiosis and the Hidden Story of Life's Greatest Collaborations by @rowhoop.bsky.social It is a much-needed book. And a must-read. Well worth your time. www.audible.co.uk/pd/B0G7KS8VHJ #Science #Ecology #Books #Audiobooks

audible.co.uk

Audible | Listen to Audiobooks, Podcasts, & Originals

Try Audible free for 30 days. Discover best-selling audiobooks, free podcasts, and exclusive Audible Originals. Listen offline with the Audible app.

131

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

If we can get cereals to fix their own nitrogen and make ammonia like legumes can... then we can massively cut down on synthetic fertiliser use (I get into this in my book Togetherness :)

110

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

1. Solar installation is unstoppable! 2. GLP-1 3. We can get rid of synthetic fertiliser 4. Entirely new class of drugs 5. The best diet 6. Hopeful about AI (!) 7. Resilience of nature 8. Extraterrestrial life www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5lk... @mscaitlinmoran.bsky.social

youtube.com

How Science Can Give Us Hope: Caitlin Moran with New Scientist

YouTube video by The World, The Universe And Us

162

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Grim sign of future food shortages: the heat and drought this year wiped out 3.1m tonnes of potatoes. www.ft.com/content/8eda...

ft.com

Heatwave triggers potato shortage in Europe

Extreme weather wiped out about 3.1mn tonnes of spuds, worth up to €620mn

032

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

As the older generation they feel they have to take responsibility for the nuclear disaster that they themselves have some culpability for. Parallels with the climate crisis! But also v funny. Recommended!

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Saw Lucy Kirkwood’s brilliant play The Children at the @lyrichammersmith.bsky.social. Meera Syal, Declan Conlon and Kerry Fox as retired nuclear engineers in the aftermath of a Fukushima-style disaster.

110

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Pod of pilot whales in the Thames - hope they get out soon or this could go very bad www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Whales spotted in Thames in Tilbury in rare sighting

People are urged not to crowd the whales or make a lot of noise.

170

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Oh god the Anthropic “it could kill us all” guy is a climate denier

264

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Good grief. The This Charming Man Rickenbacker just went for £360k. Also, fittingly, What difference does it make?

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

We just recorded a podcast about this. One positive thing (admittedly much is negative) is that there will be huge progress on scientific problems - we've seen this in maths already, could see more in fusion, materials science, drug design etc. Podcast out tomorrow!

130

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Quite helpful as the Monbiot book is a critique of Hayekism, should anyone want to go to the original

000

Rowan Hooper @rowhoop.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

At the screening I met Gerry Finley-Day, the writer who created Rogue Trooper. He’s now 78. I asked him why the biochips (Gunner, Helm, Bagman) don’t have proper names. You find out in the film!

020