(See  Wong, M. L. et al (2025) Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis–GC–MS and supervised machine learning. PNAS, vol. 122 (47), e2514534122.)

Concatenation Science Communication

Autumn 2025  Microfossils have been identified in rock 3.3 billion years old.  When life began on Earth is a hotly debated topic. There is some contested evidence for early life 3.9 billion years ago (bya). These are specks of carbon depleted in the carbon-13 isotope (life discriminates against C-13).  An international team of researchers has now analysed 406 diverse ancient and modern samples and used supervised machine learning to discriminate samples of biogenic (biological) vs. abiogenic (non-biological) origin.  Their analysis included using machine learning tools.  The results suggest that life existed 3.3 bya.  Their machine-learning tool was trained dominantly on oxygenic photosynthetic organisms and future research trained on non-oxygenic photosynthesis (which is widely thought to precede oxygen-generating photosynthesis) is likely to help identify former life in even older rock, as would improved machine learning.

          My personal hypothesis is that life got going really early in the Earth's history -- even earlier than 3.3bya -- but there is not much geology that dates from so long ago, so don't expect major developments soon.

Autumn 2025  The 30th Climate COP has been held.  These are annual gatherings convened under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change that arose out of the UNCED (1992).  They are quite important but there has been little progress since the 2015 Paris Accord hence Greta's 'blah, blah, blah'.

          Even before this year's event started, there was a purpose-built road to the Belém, Brazil, venue causing even more Amazon deforestation.  The US stayed away, China stayed quiet (that's the two biggest greenhouse emitters), Europe shot its load (guaranteed finances) before other developing countries could sign up to a road map away from fossil fuels and so there was little motivation for them to do so. (China was, though, doing brisk business selling renewable technology...)  However Europe's plan for a border tax on high fossil carbon products (such as steel, fertiliser, cement, and aluminium) seems sound. Russia was being awkward and the oil-producing states blocked mentions of the need to phase out fossil fuels.  The host nation Brazil's President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wanted a fossil fuel road map but the COP President André Corrêa do Lago felt (sadly but possibly rightly) that consensus was not achievable.  And so it goes...

Autumn 2025  The early evolution of multicellular life has become a little clearer... Or has it?  The past few years I have been working on the big sweep of biological and planetary co-evolution.  Looking at the even bigger picture on the cosmological level, some have suggested that the evolution of eukaryotes as well as the evolution of multicellularity are hard (difficult) evolutionary steps providing a 'filter' that might explain the Fermi paradox – if extraterrestrial intelligences exists then why don't we see them?
          Well, the way biologists currently describe the evolution of eukaryotes is that it only happened once (and currently there is much debate as to when this happened).  However, this might be a little simplistic if not misleading as the process ('symbiogenesis' that led to 'endosymbiosis') occurred multiple times with various plastids including chloroplasts at least twice. So that the 'process' by which eukaryotes arose took place multiple times (even if it is said that eukaryotes arose just once) and this multiplicity of symbiogenisis suggests that the rise of eukaryotes was an 'easy' (not hard) evolutionary step.
          Similarly, multicellularity took place numerous times suggesting that it too is an 'easy' evolutionary step.

          All well and good, but it would be nice to have as much detail as possible regarding the tree of life early on around the time of the rise of true multicellularity.
          Now sponges are Porifera are technically multicellular, they are colonial and so they have no tissues or organs: they are not true multicellular organisms but have quasi-multicellularity.  Then there are comb jellies (Ctenophora) which are simple multicellular species.  So here is the thing.  At the evolutionary base of multicellular life, are sponges an evolutionary branch that took place prior to ctenophores and animals, or did ctenophores branch off earlier with sponges being more closer to animals than ctenophores? (See the diagram left.)
          There is much debate. For example, only the year before last a paper in Nature used a form of chromosomal analysis examining synteny.  This paper concluded that ctenophores branched of earlier becoming the sisters to animals. (Schultz, T. D. et al (2023) Ancient gene linkages support ctenophores as sister to other animals. Nature, vol. 616, p110-117.).
          The latest news is that there has been a paper published in the journal Science. (Steenwyk, J. L. & King, N. (2025) Integrative phylogenomics positions sponges at the root of the animal tree. Science, vol 390, p751-6  and the news item  Mulhair, P. O. & Redmond, A. K. (2025) Sponging away phylogenomic incongruence. Science, vol 390, p673-4.)  The researchers also looked at the species' genes but took a different approach: they used only genes with strong and consistent phylogenetic signal for either of two major competing ideas.  They concluded that sponges branched of earlier becoming the sisters to animals.
          And so the debate continues, and also it is the reason why I am omitting this detail (as biologically interesting as it is) from my next major work currently in press.  You may wonder to which hypothesis I subscribe?  However, in this case I am not going to nail my flag to any particular mast – I focus on other questions – but remain content to watch and see how this plays out.
          Having said that, while we have got much of biological evolution's history sorted out since the Cambrian boom (or explosion) some 541 million years ago (mya) or even the Avalon explosion some 575 mya that both saw the rise of a great number of species.  There is little we know before that took place before Snowball Earth II let alone previous to Snowball I in the Palaeoproterozoic prior to the Great Oxidation (around 2.2 billion years ago).  We need to get a better handle on these topics if we are to meaningfully address questions relating to the possibility of complex life elsewhere.

Autumn 2025  The draft artwork for my next major project is now in.  There was a choice of four.  Three I share (see left) but there is a fourth.  Though that one includes the venture's title.  (May the fourth be with you... Hang on, isn't that earlier in the year...?)

The project's implementation team managers both go with option four (not shown) but a life science friend who helped out with the project's photosynthesis and his partner went for option one (see left top).  So I ran the options by over a score of friends and SF² Concatenation team members.  Option one was the clear leader, so we'll go with that.  Subsequently, the pub quiz team I'm on also went with option one, so that confirms things.  Many thanks to one and all who helped with the decision.

The far left planet Earth represents how it might have looked over a couple of billion years ago. The middle is one of the two Snowball (or 'slushball' if you are that way inclined) Earths. The final Earth is today's with just one species harnessing over well half terrestrial photosynthesis, imposing its fingerprint on the atmosphere and oceans, as well as creating a data-rich technosphere with computer, internet, etc. data on its way to rival biological data (equivalent bytes in genetic nucleic acid).  Around some of the background stars there may be microbial life, around a few there will be complex, multicellular organisms, and possibly by just a couple, if any, there may (just 'may') be another technology-wielding species.

More news coming mid-2026.

Autumn 2025  The two-billion year oxygenation of our planet has been detailed by new research.  Our planet did not always have an atmosphere with roughly a fifth of it oxygen.  Prior to around 2.4 billion years ago, the atmosphere was devoid of oxygen (there was nothing but the faintest of traces which were quickly mopped up by the chemically reducing atmosphere).  Chinese (based in Chengdu) and Australian (based in Melbourne) researchers have now obtained more isotope data from the geological record and added to that from the academic literature. Their narrative of the timing of the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, eukaryotes and finally multicellular life, somewhat chimes with my own. This last is currently being 'pre-edited' prior to copy-editing (hence, this paper is too late to include).  We agree on when oxygenic photosynthesis arose. The big difference is that I maintain that eukaryotes arose earlier than this paper depicts as did multicellularity. (With regards to the timing of key biological evolution events, I agree more with the Science journal paper in the summer.)  Having said that, the timing of biological evolution in the paper is largely there for illustrative purposes: the thrust of the paper is the isotope detail in the geological record that reflects atmospheric oxygen levels and carbon drawdown/release.  It is an interesting paper that corroborates some earlier work.

Autumn 2025  Mysterious Martian minerals have been found by the Perseverance rover...  It could be signs of past life Jim...!  As some of you know, I have been following the Mars Perseverance lander's goings on with:  a look at the Jezero crater river delta sediments;  and the finding of expected water-altered geology.

          Perseverance has now left the Jezero crater as well as the Neretva Vallis river delta and has now moved up the Neretva (indeed it has currently left the Neretva).  Over a year ago (such is the research and then peer-review time) it found unusual phosphate and sulphide minerals at two sites, known informally as Bright Angel and Masonic Temple, in the Neretva Vallis.  Researchers conclude that the iron phosphate mineral most likely to be present in the greenish specks is vivianite (Fe₂ + 3(PO₄)₂ ·8H₂O).  There is also iron sulphide and carbon in the mix.

          Now, it is possible that these minerals could have formed through basic chemistry but it is unlikely as high acidity and high temperatures (over 150°C) are required.  Having said that, life could form these minerals.  Alas, the limited analyses Perseverance can do cannot confirm whether life was involved in the minerals' creation. For that, the samples need to be returned to Earth for sulphur and carbon isotopic analysis. (Alas, President Trump has slashed the NASA budget, and so the sample return mission has been 'paused'.)  For now, all we have are tantalising possibilities. (See the paper  Hurowitz, J. A. et al. (2025) Redox-driven mineral and organic associations in Jezero Crater, Mars. Nature, vol. 645, p332-340  and the accompanying news item  Bishop, J. L. & Parente, M. (2025) Martian minerals reveal ancient chemical reactions. Nature, vol. 645, p317-8.)

Summer 2025  Monty Python stamps are out in Britain.  What, Monty Python..?  That's neither, I hear you cry, science nor arts-related literature!  Well, true.  But it is, I contend, SF/F genre-adjacent, and also its humour provides a truly sideways look at life; an approach that can often be helpful in science when wrestling with seemingly conflicting hypotheses and data... And it is, for many with a Brit sense of humour, great fun.  So it is good to see the Royal Mail give a tip of the hat to the Python team.

(2025 marked the 50th anniversary of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.)

And now for something completely different...

Cue The Galaxy Song

Whenever life gets you down, Mrs Brown
And things seem hard or tough
And people are stupid, obnoxious or daft
And you feel that you've had quite enough

Just remember that you're standing on a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles an hour
It's orbiting at nineteen miles a second, so it's reckoned
A sun that is the source of all our power

The Sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day
In an outer spiral arm at forty thousand miles an hour
Of the galaxy we call the Milky Way

Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars
It's a hundred thousand light years side to side
It bulges in the middle sixteen thousand light years thick
But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide

We're thirty thousand light years from galactic central point
We go round every two hundred million years
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding Universe

The Universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go – the speed of light, you know
Twelve million miles a minute and that's the fastest speed there is

So remember when you're feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space
'Cause there's bμgger all down here on Earth

All together now.

Summer 2025  Attending the Earth System Science Group's Life & Planet 2025 3-day symposium.  This is part of my Continuing Professional Development (CPD) which is analogous to Continuing Medical Education (CME) if you are into the biomedical sciences or are a clinician.

        This symposium also included the Earth Systems Science Group's annual general meeting. This sought rationales for getting sponsorship from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).  This is all well and good but I opined we had just that morning heard a paper on marine vent Archaea in the hunt for anti-microbials (to identify new antibiotics) and so why were we not also approaching the Medical Research Council (MRC) and the other Research Councils involved in astronomy and space science (EPSRC) as they are interested in things like Mars habitability?  This was welcomed by the Chair and is being taken forward. My other suggestion (which may or may not be taken forward, but will be looked at) was for a joint symposium on planetary habitability with the Royal Astronomical Society especially as that body is a fellow (Burlington) Courtyard Society along with our Geological Society (to which the Earth Systems Science Group belongs).

          The science (as always) had its moments which made it worth attending (also I wanted to see if there was anything new that blew my next project out of the water before it entered press).  However, there was a real preponderance of contributions to the symposium from one academic institution associated with one of the symposium's convenors.  There is one obvious explanation for this, but it might simply be that this institution is the new British foci of Earth System Science research?  Nonetheless, some of the papers would have been better off presented as a poster, and some of the posters warranted a formal, verbal presentation: arguably, the decision-making here was a tad off.  But, hey, this symposium was still very much worth attending for those into this area of science, and I enjoyed it.  Programme archived here.  (But why are today's professors all so damη young?)

Summer 2025  It's this year's Royal Society Summer Exhibition!  This is something I drop in on most years.  This year saw an exhibit on fighting superbugs, which brought back memories as back in the late 1990s to early 2000s I serviced a number of Institute of Biology projects with some of its Affiliated (biological) Societies initiatives, including a two-day symposium, Parliamentary events and an introductory policy summary/briefing sheet on antibiotic resistance.  So, the same fight still continues today.  As it happens, one of the things we looked at a quarter of a century ago (championed by Lord Soulsby) was the use of bacterial-infecting viruses (phages), and this was one of the foci of this year's Royal Society event.
          This year's event seemed to cater decidedly for youngsters: there were next to no explanatory leaflets or displays at the New Scientist level. If there has been a change of brief to putative exhibitors then this is regrettable: the exhibition used to cater to both youngsters and oldies with an interest in science. Why fix something that is not broke? The visitor questionnaire also betrayed the organisers' perceptual bias as to who they think attends these events: it is not non-science interested members of the public who need their faith, trust, etc., in science bolstered... There were worrying omens that some at the RS may have lost the plot...

Early Palaeocene mammal.
My hand provides scale.

Artistic depiction from O'Leary, M. A. et al
© 2013, reproduced under non-
commercial fair-use with citation.

See  O'Leary, M. A., et al (2013) The Placental Mammal Ancestor and the Post–K-Pg Radiation of Placentals. Science, vol. 339, p262-7.

Summer 2025  We have travelled back to nearly 66 million years ago!  This was just after the end-Cretaceous extinction that wiped out the dinosaurs.  This was the start of the Palaeocene.  Any earlier and I'd have witnessed the asteroid strikes that caused the extinction, hence needed some sort of protection (probably something a tad more robust than a stiff brolly).  It would take around 100 thousand years for the small, surviving mammals to recover diversity and body sizes.  Those mammals that rode out the extinction event were tiny.  There is one by my hand (picture left).  It is an insectivore and omnivore.

          You can check this out for yourself in the front, garden area of the Natural History Museum which has a path that winds back through time.

          Some small ground and water living birds, who had evolved from dinosaur-related species, also survived the extinction event.  (I have never really forgiven the dinosaurs for what they did to Raquel Welch.)

          This imagining of the placental ancestor is based on the work of US-based biologists published in 2013 in the journal Science whose lead author was Maureen A. O’Leary.

          This work suggests that the ancestor of placental mammals (which was not a placental mammal itself) diversified a few hundred thousand years after the K/T – Cretaceous/Tertiary (or in new money, K-Pg – Cretaceous-Palaeogene) extinction event.  The first members of modern placental orders began appearing 2 to 3 million years later during the Palaeocene.

Ruscus in the wild in a nature
reserve, location to remain undisclosed.
My hand provides scale.

Close up of a Ruscus cladode.

Cladodes are twigs that are flattened to look like leaves. Butcher's broom (Ruscus) looks like it has flowers growing out of its leaves, but as its 'leaves' are not leaves but are twigs, its flowers are growing off of its twigs as is commonly found in plants.  It is called butcher's broom as since it has twigs for leaves it is very good at cleaning up butchers' tables and floors.  Butcher's broom is also sometimes known as 'knee holly' as it commonly grows to knee height and its sharp 'leaves', rather its cladodes, can easily scratch passers-by.

Summer 2025  Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes... Beware Greeks bearing gifts!  Though welcome friends with pressies!  This last being the Celt-Anglo alternate...  A long-standing friend used to live near SF² Concatenation's former mission control and so we met up to re-visit old haunts of 30 years ago.  Now, my compatriot back in the day looked after a fairly local nature reserve (nowadays he is part of a team for a National Park).  That local nature reserve had some old-ish woodland that had Butcher's Broom or Knee Holly (Ruscus aculeatus). This was a species I regularly referred to when, too many years ago, giving one of my exotic science talks – the one on exobiology – to schools, local learned society meets, and SF conventions, etc., as Ruscus neatly demonstrates the biological adage of shape or form following function: some alien species may well look similar to aspects of life on Earth but still be very different as though shape can reflect function, form may be different. Ruscus aculeatus provides one such example.

          The thing about Ruscus is that its leaves aren't. That is to say, its leaves look like leaves but they are not: they are flattened twigs packed with chlorophyll!  Their leaves are what are called phylloclades or cladodes. 'Phylloclade' comes from the Greek phyllo, leaf, and klados, branch.  Actually, I prefer 'cladodes' lest there be confusion with Phyllocladus, a genus of conifer, and so perhaps their 'cladodes' are best referred to as 'phylloclades', and Ruscus' as 'cladodes'. I hope that that clears that up: biology can be kind of messy but then that's part of the quirky joy.

          So, when it comes to exobiology, shape-form-and-function should still frequently hold, as should a number of conventional biological concepts like ' ecosystem function', 'trophic level', 'primary production' and much else, as it does on Earth; only in aspects of an alien planet's 'world system' (analogous to the 'Earth system'), and a heck of a lot of the biological detail, will there be major differences.

          Anyway, when my long-standing compatriot turned up with a plant – yes, the very Ruscus aculeatus – there was joy unbounded.  The only question is whether this woodland species, that likes poor soil, will thrive in the shadiest spot in the garden I could find (a garden that is sunny and little organic matter removed so it has accumulated). Will it flourish in an environment that is decidedly alien to its natural preferences?

          So, on with the field experiment. If needs be and things don't look good, I am up for creating a micro-environment, a special niche for it in the garden...

Summer 2025  Eukaryotes evolved before the Great Oxidation Event (GOE)!  The journal Nature carries the study (in an issue whose cover purely coincidentally has something of an SFnal riff with cyborgs – see left) on the origin of eukaryotes.  Now, my next big project is in its final stages and is in press. It is a look at deep-time evolution of life and the Earth system as well as what may be in store for us in the future). The deep-time history of the Earth is a somewhat controversial area of study as there is much debate as to what happened when?  One such question is when did eukaryotes evolve?  Everyone agrees that cyanobacteria evolved before the GOE of around 2.2 billion years ago (bya) as they were capable of oxygen-generating photosynthesis (oxygenic photosynthesis – OP). However, there is a big question as to whether eukaryotes evolved before or after the GOE.  If the latter, then it was cyanobacteria that did all the work oxygenating the planet, transforming the Earth's atmosphere from next to no free oxygen to one with one or two percent oxygen around 2.2 bya.  If it was the former, could OP eukaryotes have played a part?

          Now, in this debate I fall on the side of the former group and feel that eukaryotes evolved before the GOE and that OP eukaryotes could well have contributed to the GOE.

          Meanwhile, let's take a brief step back.

          Two and a half months ago, at the summer's start, I noted another study in the journal Science (see below) that suggested that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved 3.25 bya. That study looked at molecular clocks and this new study looked at 223 new Asgard archaeal genomes.  This chimes with my view that oxygenic photosynthesis arose before 3.0 bya even if you have to be wary of molecular clock evidence as – among other things – calibrating them is not easy.

          Then in May there was a paper in Nature (Patry, L. A. et al. (2025)), that did not use genomes or molecular clocks, but hard evidence from geological strata using lanthanum (La) /cerium (Ce) isotopes that showed that free oxygen was at least locally being produced as early as 2.87 bya – this is also before the GOE some time around 2.2 billion years ago (bya) (within the period 2.4 to 2.06 bya). No really big surprises there, but even if there were local effects of free oxygen then, oxygenic photosynthesis must have evolved even earlier still but any oxygen released was either used by the cyanobacterium itself or quickly absorbed by the highly reducing (oxygen free) environment of that time: it never made any significant impact on the local environment and La/Ce isotopes in carbonates.

          All well and good, so oxygenic photosynthesis arose before the GOE, and there is some evidence to support my view that it evolved before three billion years ago.  However, did oxygenic eukaryotes contribute to the GOE?  I am less sure of this but my suspicion is that they did.

          This new study (Zhang, J. et al. (2025) Deep origin of eukaryotes outside Heimdallarchaeia within Asgardarchaeota. Nature, vol. 642, pp990-998) looked at 223 genomes of Asgard archaea. The researchers used what is called a relaxed molecular clock model they conclude that the Heimdallarchaeia – the sister of eukaryotes – diverged 3.12 - 2.26 bya, that is to say eukaryotes arose around then... This was before the GOE!

          So now we have three, recent key studies this summer that shed at least some light on the mechanisms as to how how the Earth began to be transformed from its biosphere being devoid of free oxygen to one where there was 1-2% free oxygen in the atmosphere with the GOE.

          Bear in mind that all this does not mean (molecular clocks are hard to calibrate with certainty) that OP (oxygenic photosynthesis) eukaryotes evolved before the GOE hence contributed to it (as I contend), but as OP exists in cyanobacteria which were around well before eukaryotes, there was at least time (hence opportunity) for their being there for eukaryogenesis into eukaryotes.  So, it is not impossible that OP eukaryotes helped with the initial oxygenation of the Earth... (I may well be wrong and some will disagree but, either way, science will out in the end and this Zhang, J. et al paper helps.)

          Alas my own forthcoming work will not include these three studies but, as they chime with the deep-time co-evolution of life and planet narrative I have developed, it bodes well for my own work. That they all slot in so well to the deep-time narrative I am to present means that it is unlikely that my own work will be out of date when published early in 2026.

Summer 2025  Ancient Martian carbon cycle - New insight!  The journal Science has another interesting paper (just two weeks on from the previous post below on a deep-time planet system: this time it is Mars and not the Earth system).  For those that follow this site – if, that is, any do – then you will know that I have been keeping an eye on the Curiosity rover in Mars' Gale crater as well as the Perseverance rover in Mars' Jezero crater.  This time it is more news of the Curiosity rover in Gale crater.

          Researchers have now discovered iron carbonate (siderite) in samples remotely analysed (aboard the Curiosity rover) which was invisible in previous orbital observations. (This is another reason why roving landers are a vital adjunct to orbital observation.) Along with the siderite were highly water-soluble salts. This last is not surprising as Siderite forms from atmospheric carbon dioxide dissolved in water in a sedimentary environment.

          Assuming siderite is elsewhere beneath similar rocks overlying the Gale siderite (note the assumption), then from orbital observations (similar overlying strata can be seen from orbit even if the underlying strata cannot) then the researchers suggest that the amount of carbonate would have formed from an atmospheric carbon dioxide reservoir providing an ancient additional carbon dioxide pressure of 2.6 to 36 millibars. (This compares with the today total Martian atmospheric pressure in Mars' low lands of 11.55 mbar.)

          Why is this important? Well, for three reasons.  First, this is more evidence (if more evidence be needed) that Mars was once (billions of years ago) wet with an active hydrological cycle.  Second, that with is new reservoir of formerly atmospherically-sequestered carbon, this is more evidence (if more be needed and it is because we still need a much better quantitative handle) that the ancient Mars had a much thicker atmosphere. (And of course we know, because Mars no longer has a magnetic field protecting its atmosphere from Solar wind ablation and because Mars has a weaker-than-Earth gravity, that it is less capable than Earth of holding on to an atmosphere, Mars' atmosphere today is much thinner than is used to be billions of years ago.)  Finally third, if Mars was wetter with an active hydrological cycle and, with a thicker atmosphere warmer than today, then billions of years ago it was more conducive to the rise of life back then than today.  This in turn means that life may have once existed on Mars and even, having risen, be still with us today within near surface strata. Some might even be so close to the surface that oxygen generating photosynthesis species (probably/possibly vaguely analogous to Earth's cyanobacteria).  (Remember, seasonal trace oxygen has been detected by Curiosity on Mars.)  As ever, more new science will be illuminating and welcome.

The Gale crater landscape from which the Curiosity rover found siderite.

Summer 2025  Royal mail celebrates Narnia.  Those that know me know that I am not a big fan of fantasy, at least not compared to SF, but I do recognise its societal value and its cultural heritage. As a pre-teen child, I enjoyed C. S. Lewis' 'Narnia' books, though soon after found the Christian riffs a tad wearing.  Still, they do form a landmark in the history of British, children's speculative fiction.

          One set of eight stamps is based on the original book illustrations by Pauline Baynes (beige background), and a second set features eight new illustrations by artist Keith Robinson, reimagining key moments in the series from Lucy Pevensie’s first glimpse of Narnia to the epic finale of The Last Battle. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was published in 1950, 75 years ago.

British Narnia postage stamps. Some first class! (Literally.)

Summer 2025  Deep-time evolution - New insight!  The journal Science has an interesting paper on deep-time evolution (interesting but it still needs to be considered with a little caution) that alas came out after my next big project (which is related to deep-time evolution) had its academic cut off. (One can't keep updating a manuscript indefinitely: there has to be a cut-off point and the work has now come out of two-years of peer review and is entering pre-publication.)
          The researchers looked at the genomes of over 1,000 species of prokaryote and also genes from mitochondria and chloroplasts from diverse eukaryotes. Genes change with time and this can be used to create a sort of molecular clock to date when key evolutionary developments took place.  One has to be careful as molecular changes with time are not constant but using many species' genomes can help, as can robust calibration. Here, the authors of this research have an interesting approach to calibration linking it to the great oxidation event.
          Interesting for me is that their conclusions as to when the key events in evolution – oxygenic photosynthesis, rise of eukaryotes, and even when life arose – largely chime with my own. I contemplate that life arose really early, possibly soon after the Late Heavy Bombardment (and maybe even before?) and that oxygenic photosynthesis was established by three billion years ago which means it must have first arisen earlier.  This new work suggests that oxygenic photosynthesis evolved 3.25 billion years ago way before the great oxidation event. This fits with my own thinking that oxygenic photosynthesis was established by three billion years ago.  The new work also suggests a very early rise of life. No argument from me here either, other than it was unlikely to be widespread due to the early Earth's warm (hot?) oceans.
          The one area of possible significant divergence from my own thoughts comes with the rise of eukaryotes which I opine has having took place just a little earlier than this paper suggests. But, hey, you can't have everything.  Besides, on this scale a couple of hundred million years two-and-a-half billion years ago is not entirely unacceptable, hence my use of the word 'possible'.

Summer 2025  We have a partial eclipse of the Sun!  OK, so it is not a full eclipse, but I really enjoyed the full one back in 1999 in a very hot Timisoara having taken part in a Romanian TV presentation on the same, in the company of old friends, some new acquaintances and author Bob Sheckley who subsequently immortalised Roberto Quaglia and myself, suitably disguised, in the 2003 short tale 'The Refuge Elsewhere', Fantasy & Science Fiction, May edition, p137-160. Though that is literally another story...  And that was 1999 a couple of months before 13th September and the Moon being blown out of Earth's orbit...  But naughtily, you sidetrack me and I digress...

          Meanwhile, back at the plot (not to mention 2025) and here in Brit-Cit we have had a partial eclipse of the Sun.  A few friends are into amateur astronomy. Mark P. decided to go old school and use a homemade pin-hole camera, whereas Terry M. and Ian M. (no relation) went the whole Patrick using Seestar 50 and Seestar 30 respectively.

          If you missed it, don't worry.  There will be another next year on 12th August.  Where we are, some 90.78% of Sun's surface will be covered by the Moon. However many of our friends down in London will see 91.4% obscured, at 7.11pm and 7.13pm respectively.

Summer 2025  Royal mail celebrates British mythology.  Those that know me know that I am not a big fan of fantasy, at least not compared to SF, but I do recognise its societal value and its cultural heritage. So it's good to see that the Royal mail does too...  These new stamps are designed by the London-based artist Adam Simpson and include: the Loch Ness Monster, Cornish piskies, Beowulf &Grendel, Blodeuwedd of Welsh mythology, Irish heroic figure Fionn mac Cumhaill, the spectral hound of East Anglia, Black Shuck, selkies and a grindylow.  What's not to like?

British mythological creatures postage stamps. All first class! (Literally.)

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© NASA. Under its non-commercial
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Curiosity's successor, Perseverance which is in Jezero crater whose rocks reveal that the crater was once a lake.

Summer 2025  Long chain carbon molecules have been discovered on Mars!  NASA's Curiosity rover in Gale Crater.  Since landing in 2012, Curiosity has travelled more than 13 miles (21 kilometres) in Gale.  It previously has detected molecules similar to those that make up kerogen on Earth. On Earth, kerogen is formed from the decay and burial of living organic matter, but it can also be formed non-biologically.  The latest discovery actually comes from a sample drilled in 2013 and was analysed by Curiosity's Sample Analysis on Mars (SAM) instrument allowing there to be a preliminary announcement in 2015 that there were long-chain organic molecules present.

          A fresh look at the data, and comparisons with a twin rover to Curiosity on Earth, but kept in Martian conditions, now lead the researchers to believe that the alkanes decane (C₁₀H₂₂), undecane (C₁₁H₂₄) and dodecane (C₁₂H₂₆) – that have 10, 11, and 12 carbon atoms respectively – are present.

          What is the importance of this discovery?  Well, assuming it is correct, we still cannot tell if this carbon originally came from life? (For that, a more detailed analysis, than that can be performed by the rover, would be required.)  However, what this result does show is that such molecules, that could be indicative of life (biosignatures), can survive for billions of years: the strata is three billion years old.  This means that if there was now-extinct life on Mars then its biosignatures could, both theoretically and practicably, be detectable today.  Of course, it could be that there are is still microbial life still present on Mars: we just don't know.  These are exciting times.

Primary research:  Freissinet, C., et al. (2025) Long-chain alkanes preserved in a Martian mudstone. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., vol. 122 (13) e2420580122.

Review item:  Voosen, P. (2025) Mars rover detects long-chain carbon molecules. Science, vol. 387, p1,337-1,338.

Spring equinox 2025  Ground breaking research teases future sea-level rise.  Research just published reconstructs past sea-level rise after the end of the last glacial maximum (LGM) and reveals two pulses of peak rise around 10,000 and 8,000 years ago respectively.

          The paper teases both with what it does say and, more importantly, what it does not!

          But before I get on to that, the paper reminded me of my contribution to a sea-level rise workshop, appropriately held by the Thames Barrier, back in the 1990s.  Other contributors, seemed happy to blindly regurgitate the then published IPCC Scientific Assessments.  I say blindly because none mentioned the (understandable) assumptions behind the IPCC's sea-level rise scenarios (which included no additional greenhouse emissions after 2100 and it openly admitted that it took no account whatsoever of climate and Earth system feedbacks... the IPCC itself warns to be aware of 'surprises').  The other workshop contributors were happy to quote the IPCC headlines but were oblivious of the IPCC small print. (Oh dear... Welcome to my world.)

          Conversely, my own presentation looked at field research on palaeo sea-level rise that suggested that past sea-level rise after the LGM but a little before the study period of this latest research (and not the IPCC's interesting but assumption-loaded models). And I was roundly turned on by my fellow workshop contributors... Until, that is, an elderly gentlemen quietly spoke up saying: 'Well, it is good to see someone present hard data...'. It was a senior former science adviser. Had he not been there, that workshop would have come to a very different and (in my view) incorrect conclusion.

          So, back to this new research. While the research suggests that the past (thousands of years ago) rate of sea level rise is broadly comparable with those of the latest IPCC future scenarios (which is interesting), it remains silent on pointing out that the rate of current warming is more than an order of magnitude greater than that that took place after the LGM!  Nor does it mention the IPCC sea-level rise assumptions...  The other thing to bear in mind regarding this new research is that we need to beware of the Jerry Pournelle, 'It rained on [planet] Mongo' trap: what happened at one place (here in the N Sea off the Netherlands) may be just due to circumstances at that location and not a global change (in bad science fiction there are worlds with the same planetary conditions all over...). So we really need to see if research elsewhere comes up with the same pattern of sea level rise change.

          This might not seem obvious at first, but other factors define local sea-level change such as the height of the land. After the glacial ice sheet melted off Northern Europe (Fennoscandia), free of the sheet's weight, the land rose (isostacy).  The researchers behind this paper have attempted to take this into account, but the exact local degree of this effect needs checking.

          Those of us in the know, and who have an eye for the climate science detail, can join the dots.  Alas, that does not help politicians who actually have to plan for climate change adaptation, who don't know of the detail and who are prey to those who (as per Dunning Kruger) think they know the science...  And so it goes.

See  Hijma, M. J. et al. (2025)
Global sea-level rise in the early Holocene revealed from North Sea peats. Nature, vol. 639, p652-657.

Spring 2025  SF² Concatenation and myself name-checked in Watto's Wisdom.  For those into British science fiction of the latter half of the 20th century, Ian Watson needs no introduction.  Watto’s Wisdom: Zine & Con Writing by Ian Watson, compiled by Dave Langford.  While most of the contents will be mainly appreciated by British SF fans, there is much in there for a more broader readership. This includes a substantive piece on working with Stanley Kubrick on what would eventually be Steven Speilberg's film A.I. that was based on a short story by Brian Aldiss...

          (A brief aside: the article mentions Aldiss' grudge against Ian, something that one long-weekend I was thrust between over the European SF Society's 1999 Eurocon. That year's German organisers had enthusiastically invited eight authors as Guests of Honour including – not known to each other at the time of invitation acceptance – both Ian and Brian.  And so it was that when I arrived in Dortmund, Harry Harrison took me aside and explained the situation... And so it was that over the long-weekend Harry kept Brian out of Ian's way while I kept Ian out of Harry's... And, of course, it was Harry's book Make Room, Make Room and its film Soylent Green that was the final prompt for my deciding to read environmental science at college. Anyway, you can read all about Ian's work with Kubrick inspired by Brian in Watto’s Wisdom.)

          In addition to the Concatenation name-check, the book contains a fictional account of the 2006 Eurocon in Kyiv portrayed as a gathering of the European Poetry Association and a thinly disguised version of Roberto Quaglia (as Ricardo Evangelisti) and myself (Sebastian Dugdale), and yes, I foolishly had a pickpocket get my wallet from out of my jacket and no, I got my currency issues all sorted on the morning of the next day after arrival.  Other characters in this story were: Peter Michaleczky (as Attila), Imants Belogrivs (as Imants) and Kurt Batey was the 'amiable American'. (Permission sought, of course, and given by these kind souls for my mentioning them here.)  To my knowledge, this is the third time (so far) this story has appeared in print.

          Other Watto's Wisdom contents of interest to SF book reader include two tributes to John Brunner: one is obvious and the other is titled 'A Truly Generous Chap'.  Sadly, I saw John the day before he passed at the annual World SF Convention (Worldcon) which in 1995 was making a rare visit to Britain. John and I were walking past each other going the opposite way on either sides of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre's wide, main concourse. We waved to each other before we continued in our quest to meet our resepective overseas friends who only infrequently make it this side of the Pond, or North Sea. (Conversely, John and I would meet a few times a year in addition to phone conversations: he used to ring me at work...)  John had a stroke early in the morning of the next day and passed shortly after.

          Also in the mix is an introduction to Europe's largest SF bookshop (Gigamesh in Barcelona since you asked), run by Alejo Cuervo (“Alex Crow”). It is also sprinkled with interesting oddities such as a look at Andrew Uffindell's book Napoleon’s Chicken Marengo: Creating the Myth of the Emperor’s Favourite Dish (2011) uncovering Napoleon's propaganda which included the creation of Chicken Marengo...

          This is a delightful collection which should tickle most British SF fans as well as readers of Ian Watson's fiction both at home and abroad.

Watto’s Wisdom: Zine & Con Writing by Ian Watson compiled by David Langford, Ansible Editions, trdpbk, ISBN 978-1-916-50832-3.

Winter 2025  Protecting creatives from unsolicited Artificial Intelligence (AI) training mass campaign.  Something I have never before seen, a campaign wrap around UK newspapers across the political spectrum: from The Sun to The Mirror and that's the nationals: some local papers are in on this too as I found out as a semi-regular visitor to Cambridge (see picture left).  A couple of years ago it was brought to my attention that both Concatenation Science-Com and SF² Concatenation had been data scraped for AI training without our permission.  But it is not just us, creatives from writers to musicians are up in arms, and that includes journalists.
          The UK Government's policy is just plain daft on a number of levels in addition to that of stealing of the creative professionals' intellectual property (as if the moral argument for that alone was not palpably obvious). At the moment a good number (most?) of those training AIs are just indiscriminately hoovering up as much as they can from the internet, and that includes the rubbish as well as the good stuff.  This is an excellent way to facilitate AI hallucination!  By ensuring that creatives are paid and that AI trainers have to request permission and 'opt in' to allow a creator's property to be used for training, trainers will have to think carefully as to what material they use to train AIs. Furthermore, the Government's proposed system requires creatives to actively 'opt out' of training which is just a plain obsfuscation palliative: how are creators to know who and when AI trainers are scraping their data?
          The Make It Fair newspaper campaign is organised by the News Media Association (NMA) and backed by the Society of Editors (SOE).
          If the Government gets its way, let's hope that there is an all-party joint Lords and Commons Science, Innovation & Technology Select Committees enquiry into this issue. That the current UK government is meant to be socially aware (as opposed to the current opposition who are traditionally against regulation) makes this all the more disturbing.
          Baroness Beeban Kidron, who has been lobbying in the House of Lords against the Government's proposals, reportedly puts the value of UK creatives' intellectual property at £126bn-a-year (US$1.54bn)! (Bookseller, 21st February, 2025.)

Stop Press (March 2025): The Atlantic magazine has an article with a free online AI training search tool for those who are registered (give them their e-mail) for content.  You can enter an author's name (or yours) and see if their works (or yours) have been used for AI training.

See also Society of Authors guidance.

New Year 2025  2024 sees the Earth top 1.5°C warming while wildfires rage in California.  We are not even two weeks into 2025 and there is news of a report from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) that 2024 was the warmest year on record of global temperature, going back to 1850, at 1.6°C warmer than the pre-industrial level, making it the first calendar year to exceed 1.5°C above that level: 1.5°C above pre-industrial is the limit set by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord.

          Now, while this is not unexpected, it is not completely bad news in terms of the 2015 Paris Accord as that calls for the long-term temperature to be below 1.5°C above pre-industrial.  In reality, this decade we may expect the occasional year to be below 1.5°C before we move into a time when all years are above 1.5°C above pre-industrial, so feel free to grasp at that straw if it makes you happy.  Meanwhile, those who have visited this site before will be aware of my view going back decades and even my now one-and-a-half decade old essay 'Can We Beat The Climate Crunch' (2009).

          This news comes as wildfires rage through California (USA) causing literally billions of dollars worth of damage.  While it is difficult to say, in terms of percent, how much of a specific event such as this is attributable to climate change but these fires come after three months of exceptional drought in that area making the woodland prone to wildfires.  That in a warmer world there are expected to be more extreme events (temperature, drought and heavy rainfall) has long been known, and the 2007 IPCC Assessment Report (AR4) has a simple, excellent, explanatory graphic as to why (see left – © IPCC used here non-commercially).  And indeed that extreme events increase in a warmer world has also been covered by the key news media.  For those into the actual science, the peer-reviewed literature is awash with research.  To take just two examples from just last year (2024): longer-than-expected dry spells anticipated with warming and drought triggers and sustains overnight fires in North America.

          The fires have impacted many including members of two of the broader communities to which I belong: science and, its counterpart in the arts, that of the speculative fiction world.  Sadly, some folk have lost literally all their belongings, save what they could pack at short notice into a car or even carry by hand.  Fortunately, so far, nobody I personally know has lost everything, but I do know folk affected by potential evacuation warnings and air quality, and all of these friends do know someone whose house was destroyed!

          All of which makes it deeply concerning that some in the political class seek to use this for perceived political leverage.  The expression 'fiddling while Rome burns' springs to mind...

          Perhaps the most unfortunate arts loss, at least in terms of sheer timing, was that of the writer, the late Gary Indiana's, personal library. He had passed in his New York apartment three months earlier.  It was decided to archive his personal library in Altadena, Los Angeles, California, at a resident for artists for them to use as a resource.  It arrived there just a day before the fires reached that street and completely destroyed the house and the library.

Stop Press: And hot on the heels of all of this comes news from Hawaii that 2024 saw the greatest annual rise in a carbon dioxide levels, the principal, anthropogenic (human-generated) greenhouse gas driving global warming.  Now, do not make the mistake of thinking that this increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is commensurate with a similar increase in human emissions of the gas: more of a factor is a decrease in carbon dioxide sinks.  Both oceans and forests (among a number of other sinks) absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.  On one hand there is a limit to the amount the oceans will absorb – there will be a point when an equilibrium is achieved – and factors such as deforestation and wildfires prevent absorption by forests: both these factors are most likely involved in the 2024 surge in atmospheric carbon dioxide.  This is yet another reason as to why reducing emissions of this gas is so important!

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