Fabrizio Scarpa

Italy beats the USA 8-6

And so we write to brilliant postgraduate students from Sudan, withdrawing the offers and scholarships they won in open competition with the best in the world. A sad day for the University of Oxford.

Today, at the side event of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, I made it clear: Russia is desperate to damage Europe. Its operations in Africa are hybrid warfare aimed at fueling instability, driving migration flows northward & weakening EU unity. Europe must act!

Methane venting is not some avoidable mistake. It's a baked in part of gas extraction + processing.

If we continue to extract gas & oil, no way round it, we will be releasing vast amounts of this incredibly potent greenhouse gas.

We have to stop extracting fossil fuels, now.

Scientific Shot of a Peacock mantis shrimp eyes which are the most advanced in the animal world. Photo by Daniel Sasse.

the mantis shrimp has 16 types of color receptors.

humans have 3.

we see roughly 10 million colors and think that's impressive.

the mantis shrimp is sitting there processing a visual reality so hyperchromatic that scientists genuinely aren't sure what it's like to be one.

#addOcean

Hexagonal Boron Nitride as a Two-Dimensional Surfactant: Low-Density Flame-Resistant Composites Based on Boron Nitride Exfoliated by an Interface Trapping Technique Hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) is a two-dimensional material isoelectric to graphene. It has a hexagonal structure with alternating boron and nitrogen atoms and is electrically insulating, thermally…

hBN is graphene's electrically insulating cousin. Like graphene, we found that it exfoliates at an oil-water interface and stabilizes high internal phase emulsions (HIPEs). What do you get if you polymerize the oil phase around it?

doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c16149

Every second of free time you have ever had in your life was subsidized by the existence of the combine harvester.

#AcademicSky What a time to be alive. Even the IgNobel now.

Bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure to have major environmental fallout, experts warn Monitors admit they are struggling to keep track of the environmental disasters arising from widening war

Bombing of Iran’s oil infrastructure to have major environmental fallout, experts warn

I will talk about #metamaterials, their challenges and future directions tomorrow at the Royal Scots Club in Edinburgh. Limited availability for places: nearyou.imeche.org/near-you/UK/... Hope to see you there 😀🧪⚙️ #AcademicSky

OTD in 1944 the Red Air Force carpet bombed Tallinn, destroying 20,000 homes & killing 757 people.

Imagine, in 21st century, Russia being run by a madman capable of that.

For the world outside America perhaps the central lesson of the world after 2008 is that efforts to sustain economic stability and expand geopolitical strength cannot afford overconcentrations of risk.

It would be one history‘s great plot twists if Trump has now managed to alert the entire world to why they should transition away from single-use fossils to renewables as quickly as any possible - even while having dismissed global warming.

And Hormuz isn‘t even Asia‘s biggest risk.

Water supply gets cut, then things get complicated. Here's today's quick scan on Iran The ABC's global affairs editor, Laura Tingle, is in Dubai and will provide daily updates on the Middle East war.

'Emirates told The Jerusalem Post that the UAE was "struggling to understand Israeli conduct and the nature of briefings coming out of Jerusalem", and accused Israeli officials of leaking false reports about UAE actions'
www.abc.net.au/news/2026-03...

This 👇🏻

Dramatic rise in water-related violence recorded since 2022 Experts say climate crisis, corruption and lack or misuse of infrastructure among factors driving water conflicts

As we witness the horror of attacks on desalination plants, we need to be aware, on a warming planet, conflict over water, using water as a weapon of war, & targeting people seeking water is on the rise

- in the past 4 years, it's nearly doubled:

share.google/p0PrSGiLMdz0...

‘Toxic’ Black Rain Falls on Tehran After Oil Sites Struck Israeli air strikes targeted an oil storage facility in Tehran on Saturday night, according to reports.

-Iran's Red Crescent warns rain tainted with combusted oil could cause 'chemical burns & lung' damage

-Urges people to shelter indoors during rain

-cover doors & windows with damp cloth

-remove contaminated clothes & seal in bag

share.google/BiU5RNpkxiAB...

The impact of Brexit on immigration to the UK A new analysis finds that Brexit raised the number of foreign-born workers in the UK by about 200,000, but resulted in a more dramatic shift in the countries of origin.

The impact of Brexit on UK immigration - new research by @johnspringford.bsky.social & me for @centreeuropeanref.bsky.social & @ukandeu.bsky.social

Brexit

a) reduced EU-origin employees by 785K (2.3% of workforce)
b) increased non-EU origin employees by 992K (2.95%)

www.cer.eu/insights/imp...

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s and sending oil prices soaring nearly 60%. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s.

Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has ground to a virtual halt, unleashing the most severe energy crisis since the 1970s. on.wsj.com/4rhSXCo

This is due to Liz Truss as Energy Secretary…she allowed our Centrica storage site to be shut down.

Everything she touches.

And to be fair to Ed Miliband, once closed, surveying in detail & re-opening storage again is not quick I am told.

"What kind of town is this? The sun can hardly pierce the haze. Not a haze made out of fog; but steaming, thick, and hot, like the mist in a slaughterhouse."

—Peter Weiss, MARAT/SADE

A new class of active and passive metamaterials with rolling bistable mechanisms for robotics and high static/low dynamic frequency actuators and absorbers. #OpenAccess paper here: doi.org/10.1039/D6MH... 🧪 🤖 🦾

#AcademicSky 🧪

I am a professional humanitarian responder and I'm trying to think how this ends and the bottom line is there is no way it ends without mass casualties *from the water issues alone* especially coming shortly before summer.

Just insane that 43 years later humans walked on the moon

I'm out of words here

🧪

I have watched this approximately 47 times and laughed out loud 47 times

🧠 This is what neurons look like forming new connections under a microscope

It’s already happening. Iran attacked a desalination plant in Bahrain.

This war has to end immediately. If it turns into a water war we will be dealing with a whole different level of a humanitarian catastrophe across the region.

aje.news/64yl8m?updat...