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Ruth Watson

@ruthwatson.eurosky.social
25K followers 2.5K following 15K posts

Journalist. Activist. Working for a better tomorrow today. Political perspectives. Sustainability. Resilience. Food security. Social justice. Scottish. Irish. Algerian. Kabyl. There is no Planet B.

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Reposted by Ruth Watson
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10h
Ossoff says that Mike Collins has "hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office"
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Rebecca Sear @rebeccasear.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Just yesterday a student told me how interesting she found the evolutionary psychology module a colleague teaches at Brunel. Her enthusiasm won’t survive reading this textbook. Surely it’s a matter of self-interest for the discipline to guard against harbouring this kind of unscientific nonsense
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billkittle.bsky.social @billkittle.bsky.social · 20h
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Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 20h
Not sure why anyone bothers with anti-AI activism when the most effective strategy would be to just point as many microphones as possible to its most vocal champions.
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 2h
In my view, one of the most important innovations of the modern world.
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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 11h
Bacteriological chemist & refrigeration engineer Dr. Mary Engle Pennington, the "Ice Woman," revolutionized food safety by inventing the "cold chain." Her groundbreaking work on continuous refrigeration kept perishable food fresh from harvest to consumer. She was born #OTD in 1872. 🧵 #WomenInSTEM
A black-and-white photograph of Dr. Mary Engle Pennington (1872–1952), the pioneering American bacteriological chemist and refrigeration engineer known as the "Ice Woman." Shown from the chest up, she poses at a three-quarter angle, facing left while turning her gaze calmly toward the camera. Her expression is serene, intellectual, and confident, marked by a slight, knowing smile. Her wavy, light-colored hair is parted down the middle and neatly pinned back, framing her face and her thin, round wire-rimmed spectacles. She is elegantly dressed in a textured, small-checked pattern blazer over a collared blouse with a delicate, ornate pendant hanging from her neckline. Pinched to her left lapel is a prominent corsage featuring two light-colored, lifelike fabric flower blossoms complete with subtle leaves. The overall composition uses classic soft studio lighting that creates a gentle gradient across her face against a dark, featureless backdrop, capturing a dignified and scholarly mood that honors her monumental contributions to global food safety.
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Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 19h
arstechnica.com
ExxonMobil's own scientists doubted climate fixes the company hyped
Court filings reveal new details about Exxon's decades of internal climate deliberations.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 11h
This is fascinating.
apple.news
Eye Cells May Have Been Rejuvenated for the First Time in People — TIME
Three people have received an innovative treatment designed to rejuvenate vision cells. In a presentation at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, researchers from Life Bioscien...
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 2h
America, 2026.
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Laura Bassett @lebassett.bsky.social · 7h
“If you don’t like public executions just don’t watch it” says the crowd trying to ban drag shows and books
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 12h
Hideous, inhumane, Mediaeval.
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Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 23h
It's #HeritageCareersWeek which aims to showcase the wide variety of careers available in the heritage sector. ❤️ We've made a video showing some of the many, varied jobs carried out by Library and Archive Assistants in a day at Orkney Library & Archive. #HeritageCareersWeek
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 22h
Restore is such a weird mix of fascism and random mad boomer Facebook shit.
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The National @scotnational.bsky.social · 21h
'Should we not be increasing the tax on the richest people like Malcolm Offord' A Debate Night audience member tore into Reform UK's Thomas Kerr over his party's call for tax cuts
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 22h
Using phone calls, travel movements and location data, Der Spiegel has traced the recent drone attack on a German airport back to the elite SSD unit of the Russian military intelligence service GRU. When are the authorities going to start saying we’re at war and have been for a long time?
spiegel.de
(S+) Leipziger Flughafen: Das sollen die Männer hinter der Drohnen-Attacke sein
Ermittler meinen zu wissen, wer den Leipziger Flughafen mit Drohnen angegriffen hat. Ihren Auftrag erhielten die Verdächtigen nach SPIEGEL-Recherchen wohl von einer Spezialeinheit des russischen Gehei...
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
This is a genuinely interesting thread. ICYMI @dieworkwear.bsky.social
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Hannah Booth @hannahbooth.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Fascinating thread, this:
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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...
politico.com
EU, Canada and Lithuania pull out of disinformation conference after US pressure
The Trump administration was bothered by panels that referred to the U.S. as a disinformation threat.
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Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Clergy leaders of different faiths in California have begun an eight-day, 96-mile pilgrimage demanding the shutdown of ICE jails.
democracynow.org
Interfaith Clergy Begins 8-Day, 96-Mile Pilgrimage Demanding Shutdown of ICE Jails
Clergy leaders of different faiths in California have begun an eight-day, 96-mile pilgrimage demanding the shutdown of ICE jails. The march started Tuesday from the troubled Adelanto ICE jail in the M...
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Professor Peter Matthews @urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It was the "balanced debate" between two writers for right-wing outlets that really was the icing on the cake with this one
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zoë @zo-e.xyz · 07/10/2026
okay so this anecdote in Margaret's obituary has me crying because this is exactly what it's like being in tech and trying to anticipate failures and having men basically tell you you're being hysterical and then you have to fix it later
"the Lauren error": One day, her daughter Lauren, then four years old, was playing with the command module simulator at the
Instrumentation Lab when she somehow activated a pre-launch program, called P01, while the simulator was in midflight - which
crashed the simulator altogether. Hamilton created a program add-on in the technical documentation warning users not to launch P01 during flight.
She also proposed a software fix to prevent the error happening during a real mission, but she was overruled on the grounds that the highly trained astronauts were never going to make that same mistake. Yet during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, that's exactly what happened: Jim Lovell inadvertently launched P01 during the flight, causing the on-flight navigational data to vanish. Hamilton and her team were called in to solve the error, and after that her proposed changes were integrated into the program. This was an early example of "defensive" programming, the
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Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
How come Wikipedia is doing better than academic publishing? Btw love that icon: 🚫🤖 🔗 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmat...
	
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Paul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It’s not a controversy. It’s something quite different.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Australia’s bush fires got worse after British colonization — this is why The suppression of Indigenous burning practices probably spurred the growth of flammable forests. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Australia’s bush fires got worse after British colonization — this is why
The suppression of Indigenous burning practices probably spurred the growth of flammable forests.
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Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The work of Anne Damer (1748- 1828), English sculptor. Described as a "female genius", one of the 1st recognised women sculptors, who lived with her lover, Irish actress Elizabeth Farren #WomensArt
Monochrome photograph featuring a sculpture of the upper half of a woman in a greek style
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The National @scotnational.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
EXCLUSIVE: Concerns have been raised over the emergence of a new far-right group holding weekly training sessions in the south of Scotland led by a former military trainer 👇
thenational.scot
Concerns over new masked Scottish far-right group 'trained by ex-military'
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The Spaceshipper 🚀 @thespaceshipper.com · 07/10/2026
According to MIT News, Margaret Hamilton died at the age of 90. "A profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program". This famous photo 🔽 inspired the For All Mankind character Margo Madison.
Margaret Hamilton, but the famous 1969 photo that inspired the For All Mankind character Margo Madison is in the quoted post.
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EdinburghMinute.com @edinburghminute.com · 08/10/2026
🌤️  Good morning Edinburgh. Today’s headlines: Summerhall artists have more questions, Fringe could shift for school holidays, adventurer Mark Beaumont's 'Extreme Dreams' + Porty family on Grand Designs ⏰ Read more in Edinburgh’s ad-free local newsletter: www.edinburghminute.com/the-edinburg...
Three screen-captures from the Grand Designs TV show, showing a man walking on a road next to a new house. Text over reads: The Edinburgh Minute ⏰ Thursday 8 October 2026 Summerhall artists left with questions after consultation, Fringe could shift for school holidays, adventurer Mark Beaumont shares 'Extreme Dreams' + Porty family on Grand Designs
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Le Monde in English @english.lemonde.fr · 08/10/2026
'Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya believed that a society that accepts lies ends up accepting violence as well'
lemonde.fr
'Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya believed that a society that accepts lies ends up accepting violence as well'
Twenty years ago, the journalist was murdered at the instigation of Russian security services. Documentary filmmaker Eric Bergkraut, who knew her well, recalls in an opinion piece for Le Monde her fight for truth and against Kremlin propaganda – a struggle that is more necessary than ever as Vladimir Putin continues to kill.
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Rachel Courtland @rachelcourtland.com · 08/10/2026
RIP to the world's first software engineer news.mit.edu/2026/margare...
news.mit.edu
Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90
Margaret H. Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT’s Instrumentation Lab during NASA’s Apollo program, died at age 90.
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
Ugh. Yuk.
static.klipy.com
Clippy Asks: Keep Digging?
ALT: Clippy Asks: Keep Digging?
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
Oh, America, what have you done?
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
Well, he sounds like the type who would punch Nazis, so there's that going for him.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A record-breaking UK summer may be shifting climate attitudes. 62% now say extreme heat is the most pressing climate impact, up from 36% in October 2024. Concern about wildfires has soared from 13% to 47%. But still little change in behaviour… theconversation.com/did-the-hot-...
theconversation.com
Did the hot summer make more people worry about climate change? Here’s what the latest indications show
Around 65% of the British public are now concerned about climate change.
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Prem Sikka @premnsikka.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Private equity owners of Boots sell it to another PE group from Canada for £6.74bn. Debt-laden PE has no long-term interest. Everything is a commodity. No UK tax levied on dividends paid to foreign owners, which sweetens cash extraction. PE dominates town centres, when it crashes ...
theguardian.com
Canada’s Weston family buys Boots for $8.9bn
Former Selfridges owners buy UK high street institution from long-term backer Stefano Pessina
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
me, an immigrant, watching people who said immigrants are corrupting america engage in actual corrupt behavior
An Asian man looks out the window with binoculars. An Asian man smiling at the camera.
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Trump’s Global Grift Operation is starting to collapse under its own weight.
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
There is a lot going on in there. The guy sounds like a total Begbie, but not a bigot, so there is that.
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Ruth Watson @ruthwatson.eurosky.social · 08/10/2026
Some threads you cannot unsee.
static.klipy.com
Giant Moray Eel Opening Mouth
ALT: Giant Moray Eel Opening Mouth
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Oddr 🇸🇪 🇨🇦 🇪🇺 @citizenofearth.wsocial.eu · 07/10/2026
👏👏👏 Good job people 🥳 www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/...
aljazeera.com
Tens of thousands march across Germany to protest against far-right AfD
Protesters in about 20 cities, including Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, demand the banning of the Alternative for Germany.
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The Hindu @thehindu.com · 08/10/2026
Official says WHO doesn’t know exactly how lab worker in Russia died in plague case
thehindu.com
Official says WHO doesn’t know exactly how lab worker in Russia died in plague case
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Andrew Deck @andrewdeck.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
ChatGPT is adding the signatures of real New Yorker cartoonists to its AI-generated images. So far, I've found the signatures of more than 15 contributors. "It’s slop, and unlike the other slop that I’ve encountered, this is slop that’s pretending to be me." www.niemanlab.org/2026/10/chat...
Left: A cartoon generated by ChatGPT and signed with Emily Flake’s signature that was posted to a Reddit forum in June. Right: A real Emily Flake cartoon published in The New Yorker on August 20, 2026 and licensed via The Cartoon Bank.
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Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
So very sad to see friends who have given so much to the Green party over decades quit. Sadder still that I don't feel comfortable sharing their posts for fear they might get trolled.
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Dmitri. #freeLink @momus.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
the most predictable consequences ever: Strikingly, every single one of the many smart glasses videos we found were captured by teen boys — and their bad behavior was overwhelmingly directed at girls.
futurism.com
Teen Boys Are Using Meta Glasses to Terrorize Girls at High Schools and Middle Schools
Teen boys are using Meta's AI glasses to harass and bully victims -- overwhelmingly girls -- at middle schools and high schools.
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Joel S. @joelhs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I wrote about Elon Musk, and why it bothers me that he is still first and foremost described in the media as an entrepreneur, rocketeer, or tech mogul, when the most salient fact about him is that he is now the world's most powerful white supremacist. religiondispatches.org/2026/10/06/e...
religiondispatches.org
Elon Musk, the World’s Richest Human, Is a White Supremacist
The latest warning about the Republican Party’s far-right turn has come from the unlikeliest of places: conservative commentator, George W. Bush Chief of Staff, and renowned Republican strategist Karl...
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Médias 🇫🇷 @mediasfr.skyfleet.blue · 08/10/2026
"Plus jamais Bolsonaro" : des milliers de manifestants mobilisés avant le second tour au Brésil
france24.com
"Plus jamais Bolsonaro" : des milliers de manifestants mobilisés avant le second tour au Brésil
Portant des autocollants proclamant par exemple "Non au père, non au fils", des milliers de Brésiliens ont participé mercredi à la manifestation convoquée à Rio de Janeiro par des organisations étudiantes. Ils appellent à faire barrage au sénateur conservateur Flavio Bolsonaro, arrivé en tête au premier tour face au président sortant Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Tommy Robinson will go on trial on October 19th on charges of harassment of journalists, through X posts, Direct Messages and a phone call. (He is telling X followers he expects to get 10 years; a fundraising drive is doubtless imminent) news.sky.com/story/tommy-...
news.sky.com
Tommy Robinson appears in court over alleged harassment of two journalists
Robinson is charged with two counts of harassment causing fear of violence to two MailOnline reporters through his X account between 5 and 7 August 2024.
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Prof Ian Hall @ianhall.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
…and of course it's driven by climate change. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
World's largest penguin colony hit by climate-driven decline
Climate change is blamed for dramatic decline of chinstrap penguins living on a remote volcanic island.
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Kevin Maguire @kevmag.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Declaring war on welfare while splashing billions on a wealthfare privileged elite is immoral. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
mirror.co.uk
'Declaring war on welfare while splashing billions on elite is immoral'
Kevin Maguire writes the Conservatives 'are for the wealthiest few while kicking the young and struggling in the benefits' after Kemi Badenoch's conference speech
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