We were promised action; all we get is betrayal. In 2023 water companies in England and Wales spent 4,608,494 hours dumping sewage into the environment. @Ofwat say if you get a 1 star environment rating your bonus will be banned. Q: How many water industry fat cats do you think would get their bonuses banned for dumping 4,608,494 hours worth of sh*t into the environment in 2023? A: None. Every single bonus would be paid. What a shambles!

🌟Our latest work published in @ScientificData today is the chromosome-scale genome assembly of wheat wild relative Aegilops mutica in collab with @sangerinstitute and @EarlhamInst Blast available at @GrainGenes ✅ nature.com/articles/s41597-0… @UoNresearch @UoNBiosciences @Notts_WRC

Listen to Atmospherics & Greatest Hits [Live At The Royal Albert Hall 2022] by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark (OMD) tidal.com/album/274702370?u

A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read: “Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?” A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief. Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty. Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness. There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege. And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down. So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that: • Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are. • You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man. This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump. And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.” -Nate White

Junior doctor starting salary in: 🇦🇺 Australia: £60,000 🇨🇦 Canada: £46,000 🇫🇷 France: £43,700 🇺🇸 USA: £41,900 🇬🇧 UK: £29,384 Any ideas why they might be leaving in their droves? We simply cannot afford to lose these skilled dedicated professionals #JuniorDoctorsStrikes

After a super successful workshop on #GeneIntrogression at #PAG30 Julie King from @Notts_WRC now talking about increasing the genetic diversity of wheat using wild relative species in #CropGenomics for Global #foodsecurity session. @UoNBiosciences @PlantSciNottm @UoNFutureFood

Introducing genetics from wild varieties of #wheat can improve resistance to #disease & climate change, a discovery that could help protect the future of this vital food source. New research from @UoNBiosciences @Notts_WRC @sbzipk Full story here: tinyurl.com/2p99hsx2

Shout out to anyone* in Melbourne that wants a game of cricket tomorrow night. My team is struggling to get 11 covid free, fit players on the park. Warm up starts at 6.30pm at Marvel Stadium. Free beer afterwards, potentially out of a large cup. DM if keen *no test cricketers

“Pfizer say that jab 1 only confers 52% efficacy for 21 days. and by day 42 is down to zero again. What our Govt is doing is creating perfect conditions for a mutated strain that's vaccine-resistant, which would render the vaccine USELESS.” How inept is this tory poshboy govt

Food security and seeds: Inviting wild relatives to the table france24.com/en/europe/20200… via @FRANCE24

Final day of the First International Experts Workshop on Pre-breeding Utilizing Crop Wild Relatives in #Rabat #Morocco. Participants travelled to @ICARDA’s research station at Marchouch to see work with #CWR @croptrust #pbcwr #cropwildrelative @CGIAR

A significant interest in pre-breeding with #CWR on display at @ICARDA #Rabat #Morocco. More than 80 scientists now attending the First International Experts Workshop on Pre-breeding Utilizing Crop Wild Relatives. #pbcwr @CropTrust @CropWildRelativ

Meet the Beacon: Dr Jon Atkinson - Future Food blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/futur…

Julie King from @Notts_WRC talking @IWYP_wheat meeting about our new iwyp project on flowering morphology for hybrid wheat production. @sbzipk

Field tour of the Rice & Wheat Research station of Palampur University at Malan in Himachal Pradesh, India. One of 10 substations for wheat research in this vast state where wheat is top priority. Thank you to our hosts Dr. Daisy Basandrai and Dr Sindhu Sareen for a great time.

Great day with Peter Isaac of IDna genetics learning how to use this beauty! @Gilsonuk with a rare lab visit by the boss @sbzipk #dontletheprofessornearthenewtoys!

Wales Converted at funtranslations.com/quenya #funtranslations

'Hidden hunger' - £4.4m to help alleviate micronutrient deficiencies in Sub-Saharan Africa @martinbroadley @UoNBiosciences @UniofNottingham @gatesfoundation ow.ly/GLG830hipSY

Congratulations to our first PhD student Urmila Devi on passing her PhD viva! #nextgen #phdlife #thankgoditsover #welldone

Oh no, I’m on the front cover! #sacrificesforphotosynthesis x.com/iwyp_wheat/status/9283…