Microbiologist & researcher | PhD | Tweets about science, the environment, and plants. Sometimes has opinions. | Nature nerd 🌳
West Midlands, England
Joined December 2014
- Tweets730
- Following636
- Followers275
- Likes4.5K
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
Windermere vs Buttermere
Which would you rather swim in?
Lake 1 (Windermere): Used as a dumping ground for sewage by United Utilities — a £7 billion private water company.
Lake 2 (Buttermere): Receives no sewage discharges from United Utilities.
Windermere shouldn’t look like this. Yes, these lakes aren’t identical — but this is a critical distinction.
📍First image: taken this morning at Cockshott Point
📍Second image: taken yesterday at Buttermere
savewindermere.com
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
If natural changes in the sun were the main driver of recent global warming, we would expect the stratosphere to warm along with the troposphere. But the stratosphere is cooling. This is a telltale sign of an intensifying greenhouse effect. From new paper by @ed_hawkins et al.👇
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
The more jargon you have in your paper the less citations you'll generally get.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
I'll absolutely allow that Zelensky did not play this well. He didn't. Anyone who knows this admin should know to come in, kiss a bunch of ass, sign the deal, and leave. He fucked up.
But really... can you blame him?
Imagine surviving three years of war and a decade of Putin's incursions, hundreds of thousands of your countrymen dead, then have to listen to Trump drone on about how much Putin suffered during the "Russia hoax" and JD Vance (who admitted he has never even been to Ukraine!) lecture you about engaging in diplomacy with the guy who invaded your country and killed your friends and family.
It'd be damn near impossible to bite your tongue and not try to set the record straight. I certainly don't blame him.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
To be clear: this entire thing went off the rails because Zelensky made the catastrophically offensive move of pointing out the reality that Putin broke a ceasefire in 2015 and that when Vance talks about diplomacy, he can’t explain how Putin is a trustworthy partner.
Zelensky simply spoke the truth, which Vance deemed totally unacceptable and offensive because he was trying to “litigate” the issue in front of the press.
And then it unraveled from there. Just wild.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
Francis Crick was Misunderstood.
Many students are taught that the Central Dogma is "DNA --> RNA --> Protein." But it's not.
Crick, who coined the term, never described it that way. His ideas have been adapted and confused over the decades. The truth is much more nuanced.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
The ISME Climate Change Committee, AAM, @AMIposts, @ASMicrobiology, @FEMSmicro and @ICRSCoralReefs are joining forces to encourage industry and policy-makers to make use of microbes to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
isme-microbes.org/harnessing…
#microbes #climatechange
Joining the mass migration to Bluesky. Probably won't leave twitter completely, but I'm biochirrup.bsky.social over there if anyone's interested. 🙂
Not a moment too soon! Agree, it's time we divert more attention towards finding applied microbial solutions to environmental problems 🦠
Emergency bulletin! 14 journals have co-published an urgent call for the deployment of microbial solutions against climate catastrophe, by @peixotors et al.
nature.com/articles/s41467-0…
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
How does a worldview become so fractured that it ends up interpreting "15 minute cities" as "I'm banned from travelling more than 15 minutes from my house" rather than as "residents have all the daily necessities within a 15-min walk or bike ride, but can of course go anywhere"?
I’m so not up for 15 min communities. It will not work for families with active kids doing all sorts of activities. And whilst the little people get to live confined with little choice those in the WEF fly in their jets & on their yachts telling ‘ the people’ to reduce their lives. Who voted for these globalists?
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
I feel like this may prove to be the most prescient cartoon of the 21st century.
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
They aren't quitting science, they're quitting academia.
Nearly 50% of researchers quit science within a decade, huge study reveals go.nature.com/3Y9H9a9
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
"Quitting science", as if industrial research doesn't exist and/or there is shame in putting your *very* expensive degree to work in high level tech support, consultation, contract research, tutoring, entrepreneurship, etc, etc. Weird culty language to say leaving academia, tbh
Nearly 50% of researchers quit science within a decade, huge study reveals go.nature.com/3Y9H9a9
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
The most grim plankton compilation video I've made. This should only be a beautiful world of microlife. Instead it's a microplastic-polluted, horror movie. Beauty and the beast. @zeiss_micro
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
The appeal to nature fallacy is the false belief that natural substances and chemicals are inherently “better” than those that are synthetic.
The source of a chemical has NO bearing on the identity, toxicology, mechanism of action, or potential harm (or safety).
1/
Really looking forward to reading this!
It's publication day!
My new book, THE LIE OF THE LAND, is out today.
Buy it here, or in any good bookshops! - lnkfi.re/dsHR7n
And check out this 'trailer' to whet your appetite:
Rachel Stirrup 🦠 🌍 retweeted
Over the summer at the @UniofExeter we have been investigating whether swimming in #sewage polluted rivers and lakes across the UK 🇬🇧 increases the risk of carrying antibiotic-resistant E. coli in our guts 🦠
But non-swimmers can carry these bacteria, too.
If you do not swim in rivers, lakes or the sea, take part in the #PooSticksStudy and help us understand how widespread these bugs are among the British public and if swimming in rivers is linked to changes in the likelihood of harbouring these types of bugs🦠
Request your kit now: bit.ly/poo-sticks
Find out more: ecehh.org/news/poo-sticks-ri…
Images below show a positive sample of E.coli (blue dots) resistant to 2 types of antibiotics, grown from a 💩sample we've received this summer.
#waterquality #publichealth #AntibioticResistance #SewagePollution #sewage #ecehh #wildswimmeruk #wildswimminguk #universityofexeter #floodthestreets
@WATERSHED_i @SteveReedMP @MarkAvery @ChrisGPackham @MarkAvery @Ruth_Garside @WillHGaze @OxonAndrew @WaterWaysProtct @sewageuk @theAliceRoberts @UKAMREnvoy @Feargal_Sharkey @joymorrissey @natalieben @outdoor_swimmer @UniofExeter @uniofexeHLS @ExeterMed @ECEHH @BSACandJAC @APPGonAMR @niamrnetwork @WeFightAMR @MattyMckennaUoB @Bristol_AMR @MarchforWater @WaterUK @SirGeogy @AnglingTrust @CE4AMR @AfonyddCymru @biainfection @freshwaterbio @theriverstrust @WestcountryRT @Riverflies @on_esk @RiverActionUK @PaulWhitehouse
Recently spent a wonderful weekend at the "Wild Service in Action" workshop organised by @Right_2Roam.
Had so many inspiring conversations with some amazing people, and learned so much! Brilliant talks from @guyshrubsole on FOI requests, @paulpowlesland on River Guardianship and @RuthTingay on identifying Raptor persecution.
Would love for this to happen again next year! #RightToRoam #WildService
