Stephen Royle

Volunteered at Parkrun today which happened to be the 250th at Warwick Racecourse. Only my 2nd time marshalling. I love the happy vibes at Parkrun and seeing people achieving something amazing.

I'm #running Leamington Half Marathon tomorrow so didn't want to run parkrun today (because I always send it) so volunteering is a good option. I reckon more folk like me could step up.

Finally #parkrun is a wonderful thing. Sharron Davies + the transphobes can get lost. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈
https://www.thepinknews.com/2026/04/23/parkrun-trans-policy-2026/

#SilentSunday

Q&A after seminar.

Q: *mentions relevant paper*
A: thanks! I will check it out.
Q: it was published in Nature.
A: well, it might still be true.

It made me laugh anyway.

#LifeOfPI

Fun idea from the Motors and Filaments meeting. Chat to attendees and figure out who you can write in each box.

Paying peer reviewers works! The @Co_Biologists@biologists.social journal Biology Open scaled up their "Fast and Fair" trial where they paid peer reviewers £220 per on-time quality review. One year on and time to first decision is now 5.5 working days (down from 37.7 days). This preprint reports their findings.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.06.02.729548v1

This google scholar page is literally unbelievable. 5.4 M citations, H-index of 1867. Looks to be entirely/mostly driven by self-citation to machine generated content. Impressive hack!

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=fm3iBmgAAAAJ

#Metrics #AcademicChatter

Exam invigilation is so boring... but at least today it was spiced up by an incorrect question!

Occasionally a student will claim a question doesn't make sense, but it's rare that there is actually a problem with an exam question because they're checked many times. The exams are computer-based these days and I guess the offending question couldn’t be corrected live, so someone had to bring in a paper version of the corrected question.

#AcademicChatter

Sumos live at JDI Coventry tonight. New release Luck is just out.

https://sumos.bandcamp.com/album/luck

#music #gig

RE: @nrennie@fosstodon.org

These tips are great. #1 I needed earlier this week! Ended up hacking a solution. #2 and #3 I wish i'd known last week when faffing around with font sizes.

For any #DataViz people into #Procycling

(Posted by ‪ammattipyöräily on bsky)

#Giro

RE: @steveroyle@biologists.social

Just a reminder of my COI as a the Director of The Company of Biologists. I always post in a personal capacity and my opinions are not representative of any organisation I am associated with.

Just helped someone in my lab with a coding problem. Ended up writing the commands out by hand on a piece of paper. I feel like some kind of yesteryear LLM.

#LifeOfPI

Interesting piece about how writing fiction can enhance communicating your scientist. An interview with Frances Brodsky - cell biologist, clathrin aficionado and crime author

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01392-0

Oh no! Scientific poster-making, the rite of passage for all researchers - has fallen to AI.

https://flowingdata.com/2026/04/21/openai-is-coming-for-your-presentation-poster-with-images-2-0-model/

I was totally out-nerded yesterday by a colleague who has the same #Garmin watch as me and had coded up his own watch face. It showed a rolling weather report from OpenWeather API which was nice but the pièce de résistance was the data from his wife's car (mileage, fuel consumption) displayed at the bottom. Ultimate nerd points of being cool but useless.

New Value: increasing cost of UKRI research grants

https://quantixed.org/2026/04/22/new-value-increasing-cost-of-ukri-research-grants/

#funding #funding #GtR #research #Rstats #UKRI

It’s day one of the J Cell Sci meeting: Imaging Cell Dynamics here in Catalonia. Fantastic location and great organisation as always by @Co_Biologists@biologists.social

Writing is thinking.

But also…

Making figures is thinking.

At least it helps me to write by clarifying what we're trying to say and then go back to writing.

#LifeOfPI

After enjoying 4K77 a while back, I tried to watch 4K80 this Star Wars day. Sadly the copy I had didn’t play properly so I had to watch the Special Edition version… again.

New from UKRI: a change in policy around OA.

"Funding will continue to support transitional agreements, but from 2028/29 UKRI funding will focus on fully OA publishing and will no longer be available for hybrid OA.

We will also work in partnership to make targeted investments that strengthen Green OA and repository infrastructure.” ... "more details in the coming months”

Caution: this is a LinkedIn link.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7454463005188210688/

This long read about the state of UK Higher Education is well worth your time. Caution: it’s depressing and only worth reading if you’re in a good state of mind.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n10/stefan-collini/squadrons-of-pigs

AZ + UK. On/off relationship… it’s complicated.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/29/astrazeneca-makes-surprise-u-turn-with-300m-pharma-investment

It's time for the answers to #FridayMusicQuiz

1. Bing Bong
2. The Peth
3. Joining the Periphery
4. Franck Fontaine
5. Ernesto Guevara (he is mentioned on Hermann ♥'s Pauline which is on Radiator).

The others are mentioned in songs on Fuzzy Logic and they are in the CD booklet. Siân Lloyd - For Now and Ever Howard Marks - Hangin' with Howard Marks George Foreman - Something 4 The Weekend

The Beatles - The Beatles, a.k.a. The White Album. Always thought it was Helvetica on the sleeve. I stand corrected. https://fontsinuse.com/uses/77714/the-beatles-the-beatles-album-art

Predatory conference madness in my Junk folder just now.

#LifeOfPI

RE: @steveroyle@biologists.social

UPDATE: I now have a playable version of 4K80 (and 4K83).