John Stott
Astrophysicist at Lancaster University. Mainly galaxy evolution, environment and feedback. Recent foray into machine learning and icebergs.
- Nice strong 4000A break there 🧪🔭 #extragalactic
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- Some unauthorised entry into the University yesterday. #academicsky @lancasteruni.bsky.social
- Reposted by John StottIn the fine British tradition of turning to memes in moments of crisis, I present your summary of today's UKGov committee session discussing the planned cuts, erm I mean cost reductions, at STFC. 🔭🧪⚛️ ℹ️: www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-02...
- Popcorn at the ready: the UKGov Science, Innovation & Technology Committee is about to quiz Sir Ian Chapman about UKRI’s new strategic objectives. Will they ask him about the devastating cuts planned for UK astronomy? Let's hope so. 🔭🧪 📺 Watch live from 9:30am: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...
- Reposted by John StottPopcorn at the ready: the UKGov Science, Innovation & Technology Committee is about to quiz Sir Ian Chapman about UKRI’s new strategic objectives. Will they ask him about the devastating cuts planned for UK astronomy? Let's hope so. 🔭🧪 📺 Watch live from 9:30am: parliamentlive.tv/event/index/...
- 🧪🔭 #academicsky
- Some initial reactions to the 'published on a Sunday afternoon' letter from the CEO of UKRI. 🧵 www.ukri.org/news/open-le...
- 🧪🔭 #academicsky
- Reposted by John StottRe the disastrous cuts to astronomy confirmed by Ian Chapman's letter, the Commons SIT Committee is questioning him tomorrow. I very much hope this is covered... One for @chionwurah.bsky.social to consider.
- Reposted by John StottI've updated my post on the funding crisis heading for British astronomy: docs.google.com/document/d/1.... UKRI made clear that astro and particle physics are being subject to unique cuts due to rising costs elsewhere. This looks like a deliberate decision not to fund fundamental physics. 🔭 🧪
- 💯🧪🔭
- Reposted by John StottThis letter more or less confirms that once again the need to fund the ‘fixed’ costs of STFC - essentially the labs - those of us who work in areas funded by the council can go swivel. So stupid and shortsighted.
- I am sorry. We all knew the three buckets were coming. We are all prepared for a shift in priority. But this message does nothing for all the UK scientists dependent on project grant funding. It doesn’t actually give any information www.ukri.org/news/open-le...
- Excellent title. Finally a headline that doesn't say "oldest galaxy" for such objects! 😀🧪🔭 #academicsky
- Reposted by John StottWe should party.
- OOOOH Researchfish Is going extinct 🐡🐟🐠 help.researchfish.com/en_US/resear...
- Indeed 🧪🔭 #academicsky
- The Royal Astronomical Society is gravely concerned at the drastic cuts to support for UK astronomy outlined by the Science and Technology Facilities Council. Read our statement 👉 ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...
- Some worrying stuff from UKRI/STFC in terms of funding today. "we will be asking individual projects...how their project would respond to flat cash and reductions of 20%, 40% and 60%, and also identify the funding point at which the project becomes non-viable." 🧪🔭 #academicsky
- This is frightening
- Reposted by John Stott1. The thing about science that these jokers don't understand is that science cannot be vibe-coded. Whatever its flaws, the point with vibe coding is that you're trying to quickly make something that sorta works, where you can immediately sorta see if it sorta works and then sorta use it.
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- Reposted by John StottThe Prime Minister of Belgium speaks:
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- Reposted by John StottIt’s a tremendous honour, really tremendous - to be presented with a ‘World No.1 University’ ranking from Oxford. Very smart people. The best. Everyone knows it. Nobody thought it could happen, but here we are. Absolutely incredible.
- Can the BBC not at least state facts along with this?... Greenland is in NATO and therefore is covered by article 5 so it seems highly unlikely that it would be invaded by anyone. Plus being in NATO means that the US can already put military bases there... in fact they already have one.
- Reposted by John StottIncredible article which points out that it often collectively costs more to apply for scarce research funding than the funds awarded to the successful proposals. What an absurd system we've built in the service of efficiency and competition. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
- Reposted by John StottMy airplane display has the Milky Way aligned with the Earth's equator and this really bothers me.
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- Reposted by John StottHappy New Year! It's cold out there but Lancaster University Press Office is back in action and ready to roll into 2026.
- Someone hurry up and cite this so I can stand on 2 legs again. #extragalactic 🧪🔭 #academicsky 🏏
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- Reposted by John StottI’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.
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- The proper motion on those stars is wild 😉 🔭🧪
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- Similarly the answer to life the Universe and everything (H0) is 42 miles per second per Megaparsec (or 68 km/s/Mpc for the metric fans) 🧪🔭 #cosmology
- Regular reminder: total matter / baryonic matter = Ω_m / Ω_b = 6.357 +/- 0.053 = 2π within 1.4σ & within 1.2% #Cosmology is easy 😎 🔭🧪
- Halifax bank unwrapped 😩 “you spent 50% of your wages in Lancaster University Greggs” #academicsky
- You would be too after billions of years sitting around in the Local Group with only really Andromeda to talk to 🧪🔭 arxiv.org/abs/2512.01350
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- The "ignore forever" option is an excellent way to not see things again by "independent researchers" on the Rubin forum 🧪🔭
