Hossam Aly

Rows of people wearing orange lanyards in a House of Commons committee hearing. At the front is Catherine sporting her "I'm about to perform an appendectomy" mask and looking particularly snazzy.

Here is my run-down of today's Science, Information & Technology Committee hearing (House of Commons) where @jonbutterworth.bsky.social @si-wills.bsky.social & I argued for no funding cuts, & Prof. Michele Doughtery explained why they were needed. The public gallery again packed with physicists 🔭👩‍🔬⚛️

The entire statement is nonsense, but the last sentence in particular: in what way are these servicemembers brave?!!!

They're not! They're pushing a button killing a bunch of civilians 100s of miles away, knowing that the retaliation will only be against a bunch of other civilians in the region

Operation Epic Fuckup

Not only that, but the US and Israel effectively and instantly killed any chance those protesters had.

The ESO studentship was probably one of the best experiences of my academic career so far; recommend it 100%!

Please spread into your networks. Happy to answer questions or even host a student with one of my fellow #exoplanets people. Just get in touch!💙

Can't you at least get your racism right? Imagine needing to pick a random middle eastern country for the purpose of anti-Muslim bashing and ending up with Lebanon!

The Bucket Stops Here UKRI’s new funding framework takes a stab at classifying budgets – but doesn’t yet govern research

I've written about the UKRI funding situation and the 'buckets' explainer, looking in detail at QR, STFC and Quantum. www.ersatzben.com/p/the-bucket...

Some planets look red,
Some planets look blue,
Often this is because their atmosphere scatter light,
In the way lord Rayleigh said they would do!

In any case, this really peripheral to what the white paper is really about

pursuing what was observationally verifiable within their own careers/lifetimes/ever. I would agree that astrophysics is an observationally-driven science, though

*'almost' because I have reservations on the "astrophysics is an observational science" argument. Not because I personally am a theorist, but because there are many seminal and useful results that were only possible because their authors did not limit themselves to

This is an excellent white paper and well worth a read. I find myself agreeing with almost* everything!

“If states don't act to stop this, there will not be a Palestinian West Bank, which is what the Israeli government wants (and says it wants). States know this. If they don't stop it, they will be complicit.” @markkersten.bsky.social

Hi everyone! I am trying to look into demographics + potential recruitment/retention initiatives for minorities in astrophysics, particularly in the EU, and have no idea where to start. Any advice, papers, and academics would be super helpful!

I seem to be in a bridge connecting the Astro main sequence and the planetary science branch. Not a bad place to be

The STFC Funding Crisis – Guest Post by George Efstathiou

The following guest post by George Efstathiou is a response to the current STFC funding crisis I blogged about here, and specifically to a letter by the Executive Chair of STFC, Professor Michele Dougherty. I include the letter here for…

An excellent open-letter enumerating the dangers to early career researchers and then wider society of proposed changes to UK science funding

ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io

Early-career researchers may like to add their signatures

🧪⚛️🔭 #AcademicSky #UKpol

Infuriating. Please share this:

Open letter from Early Career Researchers to the UKRI investment plan.

We can't let young people pay the price of "outcome-driven strategies". #stfc #ukri

ecr-openletter-stfc.github.io

If you are a postdoc or PhD, read and sign! 🧬🔭🔬⚗️🧪📡🛰️

It's paper day!

It turns out the CO ice line promotes the early formation of planetesimals in protoplanetary discs with porous grains.

Because it is fragile, the CO ice coating the grains in the cold outer disc prevents them from growing during collisions.

1/3

Of all the things he's regularly confused about, I'd say this one is rather understandable

It’s quite something to be Palestinian and watch the surprised Pikachu faces of western leaders at how the “international rules based order” is gone.

You did nothing to stop its destruction. You only care now because it affects you.

slightly diminish a game:

The Eltern Scrolls.

Aha! I knew there was a secret somewhere

Gave my first full lecture today and completely lost my voice as a result. And I thought I was tough...

Imagine thinking this is how academia or merit work

I deleted my X account when Grok went full Nazi. Wiser people deleted theirs earlier. If you're still on X, you should probably leave now

Your resolution was tried in 1987 and shown not to work

All those poor pets and birds! I never found joy in a simulated war zone. I understand most people do. But that should be irrelevant seeing how much harm they cause. I hope this is truly the last year

All my adult life I thought the Neumann boundary conditions (specifying the value of a derivative of function, rather than the function itself, at the boundary) were after John von Neumann

They wouldn't be able to change anything regarding Israel/Palestine imo. This has always been controlled by the army.