The Free Speech Union (FSU) has published an article about my open letter to the Royal Society regarding the evident contraventions of its code of conduct by one of their Fellows, Elon Musk FRS. Unfortunately, Frederick Attenborough’s piece contains errors, omissions and speculative rhetoric which together contrive to misconstrue the meaning and intent of my letter.

Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 March. The final tally of signatories was 3494 (please see bottom of post for the full list).  Earlier today, I sent the letter below to Professor Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society.

There is an air of defeatism in progressive circles today, the day Donald Trump will be sworn in for a second term as President of the United States of America.

With a handful of notable exceptions, my book reading in the past year has not been an altogether happy experience. Micro reviews on Twitter – click for a larger image on Flickr I worked my way through 18 titles in all, work being the operative verb in many cases. That low tally is about average for me, a cyclically unimpressive feat. My excuses are two-fold this year.

Barcelona is color As is my habit my favourite photographs from the year just past can now be found on an album on Flickr . There are sixty-three in all, selected from a total of about 1800 which is quite a drop from my usual tally of around 2500. The dip in activity reflects my changed circumstances.

Apologies, this will be obvious to some, but I have seen enough so-so images on social media to convince me there are others who could post much better pictures if they took just a little bit more care. Smartphone cameras are so good these days that everyone is a photographer. But clearly, everyone isn’t a photographer.

Today is my last day at Imperial College London. It marks the completion of exactly 29 years as a member of staff. Two talks, about 30 years apart.

On Tuesday evening I was asked by Research Professional News for my views on a new report from think tank UKDayOne, which is calling for the abolition of the Research Excellence Framework, unlovingly known as the REF. The report is provocative and interesting. It has won loud support from one Dominic Cummings.

This is a repost of an article that was originally published on the Research on Research Institute website. Comments welcome! It is a truth universally acknowledged that scientists who take greater risks are more likely to make important discoveries.

“The Ruffian” is great title for Ian Leslie’s Substack given his predilection for roughing up lazy thinking.

A combination of life’s distractions, ill discipline and slow reading mean that I have only managed to finish 11 books this year. I am almost embarrassed to admit to such a paltry tally. There are people who can rip through that many titles in less than a month. I envy them their capacity. But it is what it is. Eleven. As is now my habit, there is a tweet thread of brief reviews of each book – summarised in the image below.