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scurry.bsky.social
Stephen Curry
@scurry.bsky.social
5.7K followers 1K following 2.1K posts
Proud Ballymena Professor. Senior Strategic Advisor at RoRI; Emeritus Prof at Imperial. Former DORA Chair. Husband, father, carer. Also cares about science & equity. Personal a/c. Writes occasionally at http://occamstypewriter.org/scurry/.
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scurry.bsky.social
Well that was four kinds of wonderful. #Radiohead #Madrid
Radiohead playing on a circular stage in the Madrid Moviestar Arena. A cylindrical video screen hangs over the stage. Thom Yorke singing and on guitar; Johnny Greenwood beside him on a snare drum. Radiohead playing on a circular stage in the Madrid Moviestar Arena illuminated in red. A cylindrical video screen hangs over the stage showing images of Yorke singing. Close up of Thom Yorke singing on stage and playing guitar.
November 8, 2025 at 11:16 PM
scurry.bsky.social
In Madrid. Preparing for tonight by being (temporarily) a superterranean homesick alien.
Moon in a blue sky about the cloud layer Strips of cloud partially cover the fields and towns below From high above, white waves crash against a collection of small islands in a blue sea A brown rectilinear patchwork of fields.
November 8, 2025 at 12:49 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Now that he has passed I thought I would share this letter I received in 2013 from James Watson after I wrote to ask whether he or Crick had discussed the DNA work with Franklin following publication of the structure in 1953. Relations were cordial but the matter was not discussed.
Letter reads: “Dear Stephen Curry, Rosalind Franklin died after several years of very cordial relations with Francis and Odile Crick. After her second operation she recuperated at their home, not those of her parents. Then The Double Helix had not even started being written. If she had been alive, I would have sent her a manuscript copy for her comments. The incident now most troubling her many partisans, particularly her sister Jennifer Glynn, was our use of the MRC report sent to Max Perutz in mid-February 1953. To my knowledge the space group had already been worked by Wilkins group before Randall gave further DNA studies to Rosalind. After The Double Helix came out, I learned from Alex Rich that Jack Dunitz told him that early in Rosalind's time at Kings she went to Oxford to seek help about its meaning from Dorothy Hodgkin. Then Dorothy realized that Rosalind was still a novice with Bernal-type crystallography. So she urged Rosalind spend the time learning its methodologies. But that did not happen and Rosalind never realized the C2 space group implied two chains running in opposite directions. We did not need the Kings report, however, to believe that the two chains move in opposite directions. The symmetry of the A-T and G-C base pairs themselves implied two chains moving in opposite directions. Moreover, DNA chains like to rotate 30-40 degrees per base pair not the 15-20 degrees rotation that would come from two chains running in the same direction. After the April 21 Nature paper came out, I suspect Francis never had a conversation with Rosalind about why we won and she lost - not because we in any way felt guilty about our behavior but because he didn't want to embarrass Rosalind through making her relive mistakes of the past.”
November 8, 2025 at 9:22 AM
scurry.bsky.social
Autumn colours.
A gaggle of green parakeets squabbling on a bird feeder. A yellow-leaved cherry tree blurred in the background.
November 5, 2025 at 8:59 AM
scurry.bsky.social
Scene from Hot Fuzz in which one of the 2 Andys is covered in tomato sauce. Caption reads “It’s alright Andy, it’s just bolognese!”
November 4, 2025 at 7:19 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Arse of a tit
A great tit on a bird feeder facing away from the camera so you can only see its backside.grey-green plumage with dark and light grey striped wingtips. Background is a blurry yellow and green.
November 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Yellow and green and greed
Green parakeet hanging onto a peanut feeder; blurred yellow & green foliage in the background. Closeup of a Green parakeet hanging onto a peanut feeder biting into the peanuts; blurred yellow & green foliage in the background
October 31, 2025 at 7:24 PM
scurry.bsky.social
22nd Probably didn’t help that I read Hammett’s “The Thin Man” in hour-long snatches last thing at night but this New York whodunnit never quite caught alight for me. Contains an impressive amount of drinking though. #BooksOf2025
Noirish black and white photo of the paperback of The Thin Man lying on a desk. The cover shows the title and author’s name superimposed on a photo of a man’s legs and feet who’s walking across a rain-slicked pavement.
October 31, 2025 at 10:23 AM
scurry.bsky.social
Adherence to the code of conduct is a condition of fellowship. Musk is in breach IMO. royalsociety.org/-/media/abou...
Screenshot of Royal Society code of conduct reads: "Section 1 – Principles 1. Fellows and Foreign Members shall support the Society and its charitable purposes. 2. Fellows and Foreign Members shall adhere to the provisions within the Society's governing document relating to them and their role and responsibilities, and shall adhere to all of the Society's policies that at any time are relevant to Fellows and Foreign Members. 3. The Society strives to act in accordance with the highest standards of public life. In their work with the Society, all Fellows and Foreign Members are expected to follow the Nolan principles of public life, namely: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty and leadership. 4. Fellows and Foreign Members shall have due regard for the statement of values developed from time to time by Society from time to time (the current version of which is outlined below in the Appendix), and shall use their best endeavours to promote these values. 5. Fellows and Foreign Members shall not act or fail to act in any way which would undermine the Society's mission or bring the Society into disrepute."
October 29, 2025 at 11:43 AM
scurry.bsky.social
The real reason for the delay in the REF P(eas)CE pilot results.
Cartoon of a giant machine for making peas which are coming out red. There are 3 controls, for size, roundness and greenness. The greenness know is set at zero. An engineer points at the settings and explains “Here’s your problem.”
October 28, 2025 at 1:27 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Decisions, decisions…
Guardian story on best places to buy bacon - illustrated with image of pink and white cooked rashers Guardian story on how bacon increases cancer risks - illustrated with image of pink and white cooked rashers
October 25, 2025 at 12:43 PM
scurry.bsky.social
A potent and plain-spoken defence of DEI in science - from the experts. Representation *matters*.
Highlighted excerpt from article quoted reads: Put more plainly, broadening participation in and democratizing science is not a zero-sum enterprise; it produces more effective and supportive training environments for all scien-tists, creates a wider and more relevant array of scientific research questions and approaches, and results in more innovative science and technologies that benefit all people.
October 23, 2025 at 10:03 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Today I have mostly been reading this great paper by Andy Stirling www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Screenshot from linked paper reads: More broadly, then, it is here that a further final issue emerges. Just as the power gradients on which the politics of research evaluation play out are never flat, so it is neither rigorous nor democratic to insist on some notionally 'neutral' status for analysis, free from any contingent influence (Stirling, 2019). The manner and extent to which issues explored may productively be 'opened up' is in itself inevitably affected by local structures of power and privilege in appraisal (Mierlo et al., 2020; Brown and Dillard, 2015; Sykes and Macnaghten, 2013). So rather than pretending that a single research evaluation method can be value free, it may instead be acknowledged in a more plural approach, how the answers that are obtained relate to which questions are asked and how they are posed and addressed. Here again, contending interests might agree that a further common element in diverse ideas both of democracy and of science, is that - as reflected in the motto of the Royal Society 'nullius in verba' ("not on authority") (RS, 2008) - quality is enhanced where power can be challenged (Stirling, 2015). Hence, the central point in this critique is not that closure is somehow always wrong but that it is more likely to be so if it is not chal-lenged. In science, it is power-challenging practices like openness, communitarianism, experiment and peer review that help militate against knowledge of the world becoming invisibly shaped by incumbent interests or hegemonic privilege - be these disciplinary, economic, cultural or political (Stirling, 2015). When recognised as "access by the least powerful to the capacities for challenging power" (Stirling, 2014b), many different forms of democracy can also be seen to hinge around some deliberate correcting bias towards opening up, in the face of constant incumbent pressures for closure.
October 21, 2025 at 4:21 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Competition.
Six bright green parakeets on a bird feeder, all eyeing each other. Shot from above. A leaf strewn lawn in the background.
October 20, 2025 at 6:17 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Had no idea they’d made a movie about me.
Poster for the movie ‘Scurry” - a tentacled creature is poised above a deep crater in a city street
October 17, 2025 at 6:04 PM
scurry.bsky.social
(Cont.) It’s clearly a political project so any pushback from universities & researchers also needs to be political. So can we drop the ‘science isn’t political’ charade?
Screenshot from article linked in previous post reads: A decade ago, higher education was "an away game for Republicans," Rick Hess, a senior fellow at A.E.I., said. That has changed. "The Trump Administration's very aggressive moves against Columbia and Harvard in 2025 would have been unthinkable in 2017," Eitel, the former Education Department official, told me. As Trump's assault on higher ed has unfolded, conservatives have learned to stop worrying and love federal power. "For so long, conservatives were, like, 'We can get there by hoping, "Mailman said. " 'We'll write some op-eds. We're going to be nice to people. "That approach has failed, she said. This Trump Administration marks a new era. "You don't feel like a bunch of losers anymore," Mailman told me. "You have a seat at the table."
October 17, 2025 at 5:28 PM
scurry.bsky.social
21st Madeline Miller’s novelisation of the Iliad’s tale of Patroclus & Achilles has its moments in fleshing out the protagonists’ adventures but in the end was too pat, too sketchy and too remote for this reader. More 2D than 3D. #BooksOf2025
Paperback copy of “The Song of Achilles” lying on a wooden table, the creased spine towards the viewer. Cover has the title & author’s name above an below a bow an arrow pulled taut into the shape of a heart.
October 16, 2025 at 5:46 PM
scurry.bsky.social
20th Colin Barrett’s “Wild Houses” rattles along at a good pace. It’s well told and observed - you’re in safe hands. But somehow I wasn’t quite as swept away by this tale of drug dealing shenanigans in Ballina as the celebrated authors whose pull quotes adorn the cover. #BooksOf2025
Paperback copy of Wild Houses sitting on a wooden table. The black silhouette of a goat on a red background dominates the front cover, alongside the title in white letters and the author’s name in light green below.
October 14, 2025 at 4:18 AM
scurry.bsky.social
London - figures in the distance
A golden statue of a warrior on the balcony of the cream coloured Athenaeum building Two people with their backs to the camera sitting on a park bench underneath a tree. A lamppost stands to their right. The light stonework of Buckingham Palace glimpsed beyond dark trees in the foreground. Various figures walking. A solitary soldier stands at his post in front of of the squared lines of Buckingham Palace
October 12, 2025 at 8:05 AM
scurry.bsky.social
Pretty impressed with the photo I took with what is effectively a 200mm lens using my phone. But would it have killed him to look at the camera? Tit.
A great tit faces away from the camera on a wire bird feeder full of sunflower seeds. Green leaves in the background.
October 9, 2025 at 4:22 PM
scurry.bsky.social
19th In ‘Long Island’, the sequel to ‘Brooklyn’, Colm Toibin picks up his story 20 years later, a story of people caught in webs of secrets spun from their reluctance (inability?) to find words for everything in their hearts. Captivating and tragic, I struggled to put it down. #BooksOf2025
The paperback copy of Long Island lying on its side on a wooden table. In the spine, crinkled by use, you can read the author’s name and the title.
October 7, 2025 at 9:27 PM
scurry.bsky.social
That’s the spirit - screw Autumn!
A lone bee towards the bottom right defies the turning of the seasons and collects some late nectars from lilac flowers with yellow centres.
October 6, 2025 at 5:01 PM
scurry.bsky.social
One of our blueberry plants thinks it’s in New England.
Two blueberry plants in pots on a grey patio with a brown wooden fence behind. One with green leaves, the other leaves are gold and red.
October 6, 2025 at 2:41 PM
scurry.bsky.social
Adjectives to aim for in life. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Headline on Jane Goodall’s obituary reads “Jane Goodall: determined, courageous, resilient and passionate.” Also shown is a photo of her in a striped shirt holding on to a young chimpanzee.
October 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM
scurry.bsky.social
18th Claire Keegan’s short story “So Late in the Day” is exquisitely written but I was left wishing she had given her characters more room to live and breathe. Beautifully done but not quite up there with her best. #BooksOf2025
Paperback copy of the book on a grey kitchen counter
October 2, 2025 at 8:58 AM