Mastodawn

Sorry to anyone who has tried to access #gwchirp recently, but the SSL certificates expired and updating them got lost in my todo-list. Rest assured it has now been updated and available again at https://chirp.research.exeter.ac.uk/.

There's not been an awful lot to see of late, as the #Gravitationalwave network is mostly not actively observing, but we'll hopefully be ready to catch them when the new events start to pour in.

Chirp - Gravitational Wave Alerts

Chirp is an app that allows you to keep track of the latest collisions of black holes, neutron stars and maybe more, just minutes after they are detected by the growing international gravitational wave detector network.

Dr Sam Morrell Mar 13

Peter Coles 🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️Mar 12

Hopeful news about the STFC Crisis

I've just got time this evening to pass on news that the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at he current STFC debacle (see this account), Chi Onwurah, has responded to the events in extremely frank terms. Here is an excerpt: The full response - which is definitely well worth reading - can be found here: documents…

http://telescoper.blog/2026/03/12/hopeful-news-about-the-stfc-crisis/

Hopeful news about the STFC Crisis

I’ve just got time this evening to pass on news that the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee looking at he current STFC debacle (see this account), Chi Onwurah, has responded to the e…

In the Dark

Dr Sam Morrell Mar 3

j_bertolotti Mar 3

After years almost unable to move due to long Covid, Dianna Cowern is back!
https://youtu.be/B3m3AMRlYfc

#ScienceCommunication

My first science video in 3 years

YouTube

Dr Sam Morrell Feb 8

Casey Liss Feb 8

This is perhaps a bit overly dramatic, but it rings very, very true to me.

https://nolanlawson.com/2026/02/07/we-mourn-our-craft/

We mourn our craft

I didn’t ask for this and neither did you. I didn’t ask for a robot to consume every blog post and piece of code I ever wrote and parrot it back so that some hack could make money off o…

Read the Tea Leaves

Dr Sam Morrell Jan 26

Abie Jan 26

MDPI gets bashed (and rightly so)
https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2026-01-22/thousands-of-scientists-inflate-their-cvs-with-self-published-studies-that-cost-millions-of-dollars-of-public-money.html

Thousands of scientists inflate their CVs with self-published studies that cost millions of dollars of public money

An analysis of 100,000 special issues of academic journals reveals that one in eight is filled with articles written by the editor, particularly at the publisher MDPI

EL PAÍS English

Dr Sam Morrell Dec 19

mhoye Dec 18

To spell this out clearly, the reason RAM has quadrupled in price is that a huge quantity of RAM that hasn't been produced yet has been bought with money that doesn't exist to populate GPUs that also haven't been produced to go in datacenters that haven't been built powered by infrastructure that may never exist to meet a demand that doesn't exist at all to make profit margins that mathematically can't exist while economists talk about this thing they call the "rational markets hypothesis".

Dr Sam Morrell Dec 18

j_bertolotti Dec 18

As someone working in #imaging and #optics, I have no notes.
https://xkcd.com/3182/

Telescope Types

xkcd

Show thread

Dr Sam Morrell Dec 10

It's been a pleasure working with the council, and applying our modelling techniques, developed in-house at University of Exeter, and expertise to contribute a piece of the puzzle for this. I'm looking forward to sharing a recently accepted journal paper that we did alongside this work soon.

Dr Sam Morrell Dec 10

Sharing some good news from #Devon. Devon County Council have been proactive in implementing part-night lighting and dimming in their #streetlighting installation. This has come with sizeable monetary and carbon savings, but also reduces the temporal and spatial extent of #ALAN across Devon, likely reducing ecological pressure on organisms at nighttime.

News article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvdnzvzljlo

Council to make decision over future of Devon street light trial

Devon County Council says a decision over whether to make the trial permanent will be made in 2026.

BBC News

Dr Sam Morrell Dec 4

Anyone looking for an #astrophysics #PhD? Particularly in the #SouthWest of the #UK? My colleagues in the Astrophysics Group at University of Exeter (@uoe_astro) are advertising funded PhD opportunities now. They are listed, along with other information about applying, the page below. Please reach out to them if you're interested and would like to know more.

https://www.exeter.ac.uk/research/groups/physics/astrophysics/phd-opportunities/currentopportunities/

Current opportunities | Astrophysics | University of Exeter

University of Exeter

Website	https://sammorrell.co.uk/
LinkedIn	https://www.linkedin.com/in/sammorrell/