Mark Webster

@markrennywebster.bsky.social

64 Followers 73 Following

I'll always be a scientist. I used to be a forensic scientist and before that, a reproductive endocrinologist. Staffordshire, UK

The Eastern Veil Nebula, a striking supernova remnant located roughly 1,500 to 2,400 light-years away in the Cygnus constellation, is the glowing, filamentary debris of a massive star that exploded 5,000 to 8,000 years ago
To Vance, faith and western values are inseparable. In Communion, he recalls his first visit to the Munich Security Conference in 2024 as a senator. He found it to be "a place where people trafficked in comfortable lies rather than accepting uncomfortable truths" and with no reference to Christian values. In fact, he said, the Munich conference had "as much Christianity as a 1959 meeting of the Soviet high command".
When Roger and Carol (80) woke up on the morning of June 24, 2016, in their home overlooking the fairways of Mijas golf course, they had some big regrets. The couple had lived in Spain for 15 years, but both had voted for Britain to leave the European Union. They were "shocked" when the result came in. "We didn't think it would actually happen," says Roger, sipping a cold beer last Wednesday lunchtime in the Magpie bar in Fuengirola, where the couple are visiting friends. Roger had worked at Luton's Vauxhall car factory from the age of 16, retired at 55 and moved to Spain. Suddenly, their future on the sunny Costa del Sol hung in the balance. Fearing (incorrectly, it would turn out) that the consequences of Brexit could mean losing their pension and NHS access, they sold their Spanish home and moved back to the UK shortly before the transition period ended in December 2020. "It was the biggest, worst decision we ever made," says Roger, who declined to give his surname. "I didn't think it through properly." The couple now live in Luton. They "hate it", and would like to move back to Spain. But with freedom of movement gone, they can't. "We're stuck." They plan to vote for Reform at the next election.
Use Code: You can ask me to "Write a Python script to find words matching this pattern." When I write code, I use literal logic rather than linguistic intuition, which is much more accurate for patterns.
A galaxy viewed edge on, looking like a splinter of light with a supernova showing as a faint spot.
M 100 - Blowdryer Galaxy Messier 100 (also known as NGC 4321) is a grand design intermediate spiral galaxy in the southern part of the mildly northern Coma Berenices. It is one of the brightest and largest galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and is approximately 55 million light-years from our galaxy, its diameter being 107,000 light years, and being about 60% as large. It was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1781 and 29 days later seen again and entered by Charles Messier in his catalogue "of nebulae and star clusters".. It was one of the first spiral galaxies to be discovered, and was listed as one of fourteen spiral nebulae by Lord William Parsons of Rosse in 1850.
A spiral galaxy and a dwarf galaxy interacting.
A crescent moon, imaged using a Seestar S30
A Minton dinner plate, looking like a planet against a starry sky.
The Horsehead nebula
A double star cluster
The Orion Nebula
White slime mold on a woody stem.
A dim red aurora in the northern skies peeking out from behind tree branches
Wax caps. Bright red mushrooms growing in a meadow.
A parasol mushrooms, pictured from below, a blue sky showing behind the mushroom.
Very large parasol mushrooms, fallen over on grass.
I have sometimes thought of the final cause of dogs having such short lives and I am quite satisfied it is in compassion to the human race; for if we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?
Large bracket fungus
A red nebula shaped like Pacman
The Pinwheel galaxy.
The Pelican nebula
A blue moon
Image of a gibbous moon
According to Professor Paul Taylor, the national police chief scientific adviser, the next step could be on-the-spot DNA analysis, which allows officers to use a Covid-style swab and a piece of equipment similar to an espresso machine to identify potential suspects without having to send samples to a forensics lab. "Technology is democratising our ability to do specialist tasks," he said. "The future is bright when it comes to science and technology and policing."
Dense cherry blossom in Staffordshire UK
Tesla rebadged as an Audi
Humans will always want to read what other humans have to say, but like it or not, humans will be living around non-biological entities. Alternative ways of seeing. And perhaps being. We need to understand this as more than tech. AI is trained on our data. Humans are trained on data too – your family, friends, education, environment, what you read, or watch. It’s all data. AI reads us. Now it’s time for us to read AI.
Three solar panels mounted vertically on a south facing brick wall.
DeepSeek wants to talk about something else when asked if China is a force for good.