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Paul McAuley

@unlikelyworlds.bsky.social
4K followers 323 following 1.2K posts

Scribble scribble scribble Latest novel: Loss Protocol Working on: Heaven's Grand Design Website: www.unlikelyworlds.co.uk Agent: Oliver Cheetham at Mic Cheetham Agency

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Reposted by Paul McAuley
Richard Wells @slipperyjack.bsky.social · 21h
My kind of tourist trap! Visited the Museum of Alchemists and Magicians of Old Prague (I attended the puppet theatre production of Faust in its courtyard the other night). Reputedly Edward Kelley's residence where he conducted mad alchemical experiments for the emperor in the late 16th century...
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HiRISE Beautiful Mars (NASA) @uahirise.bsky.social · 21h
HiPOD: Trundling Boulders These trundling boulders left behind conspicuous tracks, up to a kilometer long. The tracks resemble dashed lines or perforations, indicating that the boulders bounced as they trundled down the slopes. uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_046381_1665 #Mars #NASA #science
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Natalie Weiner @natalieweiner.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
gosh there is so much great music out right now. here's a little bandcamp friday survey of mostly new stuff, out from behind the paywall because we want you to get money to artists! www.dontrocktheinbox.com/put-a-record...
dontrocktheinbox.com
Put A Record On: Bandcamp Friday Edition
Taking down the paywall this week to just share a bunch of new, great music that you can buy — it's Bandcamp Friday, which means that every cent you spend goes directly to the artists (instead of Band...
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Adam Roberts @adamroberts.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Flashback to when Walnut Whips were a thing.
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The Oikofuge @oikofuge.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Interested? And how! oikofuge.com/paul-mcauley...
oikofuge.com
Paul McAuley: The “Jackaroo” Short Stories
Ever since first contact, when the Jackaroo kicked off a global war on Earth, and swindled the survivors out of rights to most of the solar system in exchange for a basic fusion drive and access to a ...
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Just been tinkering with the proofed MS of a story* I sold to Asimov's SF a little while back. Should be out early next year. *a new instance in the Jackaroo series, for those who may be interested
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 02/10/2026
This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.
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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 01/10/2026
#NASAWebb has provided a crash course on planet-shattering collisions, providing clues to the amount of energy in their collisions. (1/6) 🧵 🔭 🧪
Artist’s concept of a star and its debris disk against the black background of space. The star is in the background, right of center, and depicted as a small, luminous sphere. The debris disk is a large blue ring that encircles the star. The debris disk is angled toward the viewer, so that the portion nearest to the viewer extends beyond the bottom frame of the illustration. Many dark, rocky fragments are scattered throughout the debris disk. In the foreground, toward the left, is a small planetary embryo colliding into the left side of a larger spherical object. The impact site glows bright yellow and orange and has a mottled appearance, as though chunks of both colliding bodies are breaking up and being destroyed. Orange-yellow streams of vapor extend outward from the collision area. Behind the debris disk and its star are many small stars in the background. A label in the bottom right corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”
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Center for Space Environmentalism @space-environment.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"It is unfortunate that the US has positioned weapons in space. This development is expected to rapidly make space warfare a reality, which is not in the interest of any country in the world." thewire.in/space/the-us... #SpaceWarfare #SpaceEnvironment
thewire.in
The US Decision to Deploy Weapons in Space Sets a Dangerous Precedent
The growing strategic importance of outer space makes its security a concern for the entire world. Some states may view space-based weapons as instruments of deterrence, but their deployment could tri...
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The Associated Press @apnews.com · 01/10/2026
Spring has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, and even Chile's Atacama Desert is blossoming.
bit.ly
Earth’s driest desert is covered in wildflowers right now
Spring has arrived in the Southern Hemisphere, and even Chile's Atacama Desert is blossoming. Known as the driest nonpolar desert, it's now covered in flowers due to heavy rains from the El Niño weather pattern earlier this year.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
I'm not going to make this a long WTF biology thread, but just a few comments on this paper. It's about a protein implicated in the stress-adaptive plasticity of intenstinal wound healing and metastasis of colorectal cancer cells. /1 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
ZFP36L2 orchestrates stress-adaptive plasticity in regeneration and cancer - Nature
The RNA-binding protein ZFP36L2 mediates stress-adaptive plasticity in intestinal regeneration and colorectal cancer metastasis.
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AFP News Agency @en.afp.com · 01/10/2026
'Catastrophic': Swiss glaciers lose 20% of mass in five years. Swiss glaciers saw 5.5% of their volume melt away just this year, the second-biggest melt on record, Glacier Monitoring in Switzerland (GLAMOS) network reports u.afp.com/S9B2
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Goldsmiths Prize @goldsmithsprize.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
We are delighted to announce the #GoldsmithsPrize2026 shortlist! 🎉🎉   Congratulations to our six brilliant novelists! 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥   Visit our website to find out more www.gold.ac.uk/goldsmiths-p...
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R.S.A. Garcia (BUY THE NIGHTWARD) @rsagarcia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Mighty Sparrow played in my house & my grandparents' house my entire life. Like him, my grandparents were immigrants from Grenada who helped build Trinidad & Tobago. He was one of my first storytellers. RIP Calypso King of the World, gone at 91. We'll never forget you youtu.be/K872vZRTT5M?...
youtu.be
Mighty Sparrow - Slave
YouTube video by Remy Gumbs
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 28/09/2026
These are what the clouds on Jupiter look up close. The small patches of white are cloud tops, soaring above the main, colourful cloud layer. Image from NASA's Juno spacecraft during its 38th close approach to Jupiter on 29 November 2021, processed by Kevin Gill (@kevinmgill.bsky.social)
A complex, swirling pattern of lighter and darker clouds. One large system, angled to the upper left in this scene, is a tawny brown colour and is elongate. Another, more circular storm system is at lower centre, and is a grey–greenish colour. The background swirls are various shades of grey to blue; small, white features dot the scene.
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Ruairi Dubh @ruairidubh.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
✨Bullet Shattered Cafe windows in Paris 1944 by Photographer Lee Miller✨🇨🇵💥
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The Cosmic Shambles Network @cosmicshambles.com · 25/09/2026
In part 6 of 'For the Record' we travel to North America to talk to former Smithsonian curator and member of the Mohawk nation, Tim Johnson, about the influence of the music of indigenous Americans on genres such as the blues. Watch the full series for free at www.youtube.com/show/VLPLoVT...
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Mike Curry Photography ©️ 📷 @mikecurryphotography.com · 16/09/2026
Just daydreaming. A reflection of a building in water. No Photoshop, no AI
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Adam Roberts @adamroberts.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is amazing.
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Hampstead Heath, 07:48
A crow perched on the back of a park bench, against a background of trees, with the tops of some of London's tower blocks rising in the distance.
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Mark Peifer (He, him) @peiferlabunc.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This is a wonderful story, weaving together historians, hippies, old apple tree fanatics and DNA sequencers to reveal how French immigrants in Maine brought along one of the ancestors of American apples 🧪
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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Cannot tell you how much I hate this & how ashamed & angry I am that @ukri.org have taken this step. We KNOW this sort of gAI is socially biased, we KNOW it favours slopAI output over human-written. Our research landscape is falling apart due to underfunding, & they do this? it's *appalling*
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Ethan Hein @ethanhein.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
In a few weeks in pop history, we get to talk about Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, one of my favorite favorite bands of all time. I love how impossible it is to categorize them. At 1:49 the guitarist plays an unmistakeable Charlie Christian lick! youtu.be/jtbZ8dp2AIw?...
youtu.be
Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys
YouTube video by ClassicCountry1978
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Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A new report from Europe raises serious alarms about orbital collisions arstechnica.com/space/2026/0...
arstechnica.com
A new report from Europe raises serious alarms about orbital collisions
I think we are going to lose the ability to use certain orbits."
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Kirkdale Bookshop @kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
👇🍟 as it's his birthday (HT @johnnymains.co.uk )
Blind Lemon Jefferson
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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Steve Rose @steverose7.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is one of the longest, hardest, most worthwhile pieces I’ve ever written. The story of a pollution incident in rural Sussex that’s Britain in microcosm - polluted rivers, dumping on farmland, govt agencies doing nothing. But also plans for a better way… www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
‘The eels were climbing out of the water to die’: why did every fish in this idyllic lake perish overnight?
Furnace Brook in East Sussex was home to carp, tench, bream, roach and trout – and 15 trailer-loads had to be buried. The mystery led to a neighbouring farm, and a story of waste, pollution and dirty ...
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This kind of smart sustainable urban infrastructure is illegal in most American cities
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Repainted the bedroom so that I could finally hang a photograph I bought four years ago.
Grey wall, edge of white door, top of white radiator, white plug, a black and white photograph in a black frame.
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The Booker Prizes @thebookerprizes.com · 22/09/2026
Presenting the Booker Prize 2026 shortlist. Find out more about the books and authors that make up this year's list. thebookerprizes.com/bp2026
The Booker Prize 2026 shortlist in full:

The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
John of John by Douglas Stuart
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Simon and Gargamel @kellylink.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
theguardian.com
‘To sleep in a sculpture is a wonderful idea’: a hike along Andy Goldsworthy’s epic art trail in Haute-Provence
A long-distance walking route in the south of France devised by the celebrated land artist offers intrepid hikers an opportunity to immerse themselves in nature and art
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SETI Institute @setiinstitute.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
What if we could search for alien life without knowing what alien life looks like? Research involving SETI Institute affiliate Stuart Bartlett explores whether the complexity of reflected light could help distinguish living worlds from lifeless ones. @sciworthy.bsky.social: buff.ly/nKxochP 🧪 🔭
sciworthy.com
Finding alien life with light signals – Sciworthy
Scientists found that planets with life produce more complex, information-dense signals than nonliving worlds.
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
'Asgard are by far the coolest thing to happen to microbiology in the last 30 to 40 years.' Difficulties and rewards of cultivating lab cultures of contemporary relatives of the ancestor of all complex life on Earth.
nature.com
These bizarre, much-coveted microbes are revealing the origins of complex life
Researchers are racing to culture a menagerie of exotic organisms and finding lots of surprises along the way.
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Guy Shrubsole @guyshrubsole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Over 100,000 people have now signed the @nationaltrust.org.uk’s petition calling for climate resilience to be made a national mission, and for the government to restore nature to defend against wildfires and floods. Add your name below: bsky.app/profile/nati...
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Laurent Peraldi @tintamarre.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Saul Leiter
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William Gibson @greatdismal.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Akin to writing fiction, for some of us
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Christopher Brown @christopherbrown.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Field Notes from a trip to NYC’s rewilded landfill, with urban prairies, industrial estuaries, harriers & herons, abandoned shopping centers, 9/11 memories, and packrafting for the psychogeographer: fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com/p/in-the-bur...
fieldnotes.christopherbrown.com
In the Burial Mounds of Eghquhous
No. 201
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
NASA picture of the day today is a real 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿beauty! This is a composite image of the ~5000yo Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis. The amazing Giuseppe Petricca has only gone and photographed the Sun at noon there, every few days, for a whole year. #Dedication 🔭🧪👌 ℹ️: science.nasa.gov/image-articl...
The imposing Callanish Stones stand talk with their shadows spanning out across the glass.  It's a super clear sky, but looks cold. Above the central stone is a strange figure-of-8 shape of dots.  This is the location of the Sun, at noon, on various different days across the year.
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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
We love a good win. buff.ly/tI3Q7DK
buff.ly
Sally Rooney just defeated a data center.
Here’s a rare piece of heartening tech news to buoy you toward the weekend: A West of Ireland data center objected to by novelist Sally Rooney has just had its planning permission overturned …
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Future Revisitations @futurerevisited.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Celebrated author Keith Roberts was born OTD 1935. Still best known for his superb alternative history novel ‘Pavane‘ - although I was delighted to discover that there’s a whole body of work that‘s equally captivating. One of the few authors to have ignited the ‘completist’ gene in me.📚📖📚🙂 #booksky

Four recent editions of books by British author Keith Roberts - ‘Pavane’, ‘The Furies’, ‘The Grain Kings’, and ‘Kiteworld’.
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Jonathan Hopkin @jonathanhopkin.eurosky.social · 20/09/2026
Although the cost of housing in London is insane and makes life difficult for anyone under 50, youngsters are mostly unaware much of the city used to look like this
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Jonathan Portes @jdportes.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
taken in the year I was born on the street I live in..
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Hampstead Heath, 07:49
Two mallard ducks, male and female, float on Viaduct Pond; trees pack the far shore, with a glimpse of the brick-built Viaduct.
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#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
"Homo Sapiens Declared Extinct" (1999) medium.com/@bruces/homo...
medium.com
“Homo sapiens declared extinct” by Bruce Sterling (1999)
First published in Nature magazine, November 1999.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Eidolons in @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social SOMETHING COMING THROUGH, though whether they are true ghosts (whatever that is) is another matter. But is it ethical to buy a ghost?
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Space.com @space.com · 17/09/2026
A NASA spacecraft just found a giant new crater on the moon. Here's why everyone's talking about the 'once-in-a-century' discovery www.space.com/astronomy/mo...
space.com
A NASA spacecraft just found a giant new crater on the moon. Here's why everyone's talking about the 'once-in-a-century' discovery
"McGetchin crater is exceptional because it is the largest newly formed impact crater that has been identified to date."
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Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa @benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Some pretty awesome images from this year's Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlist:
Watched by the Moon by Jean-François Gely
Arvieux, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, FranceSetsu-getsu-ka by Takanobu Kurosaki
Asahi, Toyama Prefecture, JapanMoody Partial Solar Eclipse by James McBeathSuspended Plasma by Mario Cogo
Monticello Conte Otto, Vicenza, Italy
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Paul McAuley @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Brain organoids for Algernon.
nature.com
Human brain cells transplanted into mice in ‘most extensive’ integration ever
Lab-grown organoids wire into mice missing a key part of their brain, offering a new way to test drugs for developmental conditions.
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SF Encyclopedia @sfencyclopedia.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Lisa Tuttle sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/tuttle... was born on this day, so here are some of her covers (Artist: 4th by Enrique Jiménez Corominas, couldn't identify the others):
The cover to the audio book "My Death" by Lisa TuttleThe cover to Lisa Tuttle's "Lost Futures"The cover to Lisa Tuttle's "My Death"The cover to Lisa Tuttle's "Futuros perdidos"
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Emily Lakdawalla 🏳️‍⚧️ Uranus Expert @elakdawalla.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Not a crazy thing to assert! Jupiter's moons Io and Europa are also terrestrial planets, under a definition of "terrestrial planet" that would include our Moon. Yeah that's right I said Europa. Its mean density is basalt. It's a terrestrial planet. Fight me.
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