Angela Cassidy
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angecass.bsky.social
Angela Cassidy
@angecass.bsky.social
Undisciplined scholar. Researching science, society+policy; humans-animals-environments; #OneHealth #microbes #STS #HistSTM #scicomm.
Author, 'Vermin, Victims and Disease: British Debates over Badgers and Bovine TB'
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Please please, GIVE ME A SIGN YOU'RE REAL!
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We've written a Researcher's Guide to Bluesky!

It's a bit like all those other useful guides to Bluesky, but with several useful insights from University of York academics about using the platform, and we'd love it if it was reposted far and wide...

>> blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024...

🧵 below
The Researcher’s Guide to Bluesky – The Library, Learning, Archives and Wellbeing Blog
blogs.york.ac.uk
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
I'd have a lot of respect for any cis woman who chose to forgo attending this event, and only participated in trans inclusive spaces.

Trans women to be barred from main Labour women’s conference in 2026 | Labour | The Guardian share.google/dbFngwtr5A5x...
Trans women to be barred from main Labour women’s conference in 2026
All delegates will be able to attend fringe programme as party tries to find compromise while complying with supreme court ruling on gender
share.google
December 7, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
👀 #sts
Just found out that the @royalsociety.org will be publishing a follow-up to the 1985 public understanding of science Bodmer report. It will be called Science for Society and will come out in 2026. I can't wait to see what's in in regarding strategic misinformation and the like ;)
December 7, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
A debate as old as time apparently, or at least since 1974
1974: Is Tourism Destroying Cornwall? | Man Alive | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
1974: Is Tourism Destroying Cornwall? | Man Alive | Voice of the People | BBC Archive
Wish You Weren't Here? "Holidaymakers are money - there can never be too many of them." - Cornish hotelier. "We're busy creating in Cornwall the conditions they are trying to get away from in Birmingham."-Cornish resident. The sinking pound and fuel surcharges mean fewer people going abroad, and the new motorway marching steadily westwards from Bristol makes Cornwall that much more accessible to weekenders from London and the Midlands. The result is ringing cash registers and prosperity for some. Others believe that Cornwall is being destroyed. Jack Pizzey and the Man Alive team have been listening to both sides of the argument in Cornwall - and to the views of the tourists themselves. In Penzance, Desmond Wilcox chairs a debate featuring politicians, hoteliers and residents as the people of Cornwall ask: how much tourism is too much? Clip taken from Man Alive, originally broadcast on BBC Two, 14 June, 1974. 00:00 Jack Pizzey reports from Cornwall 17:38 Penzance studio debate 48:24 End credits You have now entered the BBC Archive, a time machine that will transport you back to the golden age of TV to educate, entertain and enlighten you with classic clips from the BBC vaults. Make sure you subscribe so that you never miss a single stop on our amazing journey through the BBC Archive - https://www.youtube.com/c/BBCArchive?sub_confirmation=1 You can also dive into plenty more BBC Archive on our website - https://www.bbc.co.uk/archive
www.youtube.com
December 6, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Oh the irony - doing renovations at home. Found the Somerset Country Gazette newspaper from July 1967 crumpled up behind a fake wall. And there’s an advert (I think) to Bristol Zoo.
December 6, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
We've been exploring passive acoustics as a method to assess soil health. Dig into the soundscapes beneath our feet 🪱🪱🪱 #WorldSoilDay #Ecoacoustics
December 5, 2025 at 12:06 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
The Museum after closing. Dolly still quietly rotates, you can hear a gentle chatter from the AVs, as if the objects are catching up and comparing notes about the day's events
December 5, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Having now finished the new Frankenstein movie I can reveal that it is, in fact, shit
December 5, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Delighted to see the RI is rerunning the Chemistry of a Candle lecture - Faraday's classic - this Christmas.
For more on the bicentenary, stay posted.
www.rigb.org/whats-on/che...
Chemistry of a candle
Round out the celebrations of 200 years of CHRISTMAS LECTURES with this contemporary take on Michael Faraday's most famous se
www.rigb.org
December 5, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Put some green onions on that today for Steve Cropper, an architect and purveyor of Memphis soul. One of the greats. (gift link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/03/a...
Steve Cropper, Guitarist, Songwriter and Shaper of Memphis Soul Music, Dies at 84
www.nytimes.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:59 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Discussion at end of term suggests i) they don't learn source analysis much across the degree (soc/ant) and are loving it; ii) as per @willpooley.bsky.social observations, rarely taught academic close reading in practical/in-class way. Definitely doing more of in future!
bsky.app/profile/ange...
Have been doing similar stuff with my Biosocieties students this autumn: in-class source analysis (documents, films, images, bread, the campus); shared reading folder for annotating PDFs; setting a reading I know, plus one that's new to me; reading together and sharing vulnerability of uncertainty..
“Scholarly effort is in decline everywhere as never before. Indeed, cleverness is shunned at home and abroad. What does reading offer to pupils except tears?”

this guy has his finger on the pulse amirite

www.history-uk.ac.uk/history-in-p... 🗃️
December 5, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Anyway, a reminder that in the brutal world of higher ed the smallest acts of thanks can lift someone's day. I try to remember this although I'm not good at doing it.
So, I just got an email that a colleague nominated me for an internal "thanks for going over and above" recognition thing for helping them at the start of their job & with a big teaching role and so I have a letter from the senior management team saying 'thank you' and I honestly had a bit of a cry.
December 5, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Last class today. 8 students showed up (out of 19) but all engaged, thoughtful, etc. Theme was 'Making Nature', so had them read start of @desfitzgerald.bsky.social book, went Outside to show them how to analyse campus as a 'source/text' and then shared some mince pies. I'll take that as a win.
December 4, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Last class today. 8 students showed up (out of 19) but all engaged, thoughtful, etc. Theme was 'Making Nature', so had them read start of @desfitzgerald.bsky.social book, went Outside to show them how to analyse campus as a 'source/text' and then shared some mince pies. I'll take that as a win.
December 4, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Three of the five worst harvests on record have now occurred since 2020.

Now, I'm not completely sure, but I think this might be bad.
UK farmers lose £800m after heat and drought cause one of worst harvests on record
Many now concerned about ability to make living in fast-changing climate after one of worst grain harvests recorded
www.theguardian.com
December 4, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
It’s arrived! The new ExCASES biodiversity mission: Cultivating communities who care for urban #trees.

Access resources designed to offer insights, audience-specific guidance, inspiring stories & replicable models for practitioners & community members alike.

renewbiodiversity.org.uk/urban-trees/
December 2, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
One of the best things being an editor for @envhistnow.bsky.social is to have the pleasure (+luck!) to work with texts like this.
I’ve learnt fr and resonated so much with @critical-lycan.bsky.social A beautiful piece meditating on the (exclusionary..) taxonomies of species and sexology. Go read!
December 2, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
As in so many things, the British public is wrong.
December 2, 2025 at 6:49 AM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Congratulations to @crpr-exeter.bsky.social student Maeve Leith, who has been awarded a national ‘Centenary Award’ bursary from the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust to support her work to explore how land use decisions are made
www.nfumutual.co.uk/news-and-sto...
The NFU Mutual Charitable Trust Centenary Award 2025
The Centenary Award is a long-term scheme, run by the NFU Mutual Charitable Trust, and was launched in 2010 to celebrate the 100th birthday of NFU Mutual.
www.nfumutual.co.uk
December 1, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Some of the stray dogs living near Chernobyl have recently turned blue. This confused scientists for weeks, until they realized they had simply been rolling around in chemicals from a nearby set of portable toilets. 14/10 for all
November 10, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
The Observer: Tom Stoppard 1937-2025 #TomorrowsPapersToday
November 29, 2025 at 10:39 PM
Reposted by Angela Cassidy
Farewell, Tom Stoppard. I studied Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead at school, and even though I graffitied the cover of my copy so it read "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Daleks," I very much enjoyed the play.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Sir Tom Stoppard, playwright famed for his wit and depth, dies at 88
The King and Queen pay tribute to a
www.bbc.co.uk
November 29, 2025 at 9:59 PM
RIP Tom Stoppard.
two men are standing in front of a table with pots hanging from the ceiling
ALT: two men are standing in front of a table with pots hanging from the ceiling
media.tenor.com
November 29, 2025 at 7:11 PM
Have been doing similar stuff with my Biosocieties students this autumn: in-class source analysis (documents, films, images, bread, the campus); shared reading folder for annotating PDFs; setting a reading I know, plus one that's new to me; reading together and sharing vulnerability of uncertainty..
“Scholarly effort is in decline everywhere as never before. Indeed, cleverness is shunned at home and abroad. What does reading offer to pupils except tears?”

this guy has his finger on the pulse amirite

www.history-uk.ac.uk/history-in-p... 🗃️
‘Doing the Readings’
Dr Will Pooley (Associate Professor in Modern History), University of Bristol The students, we often grumble, don’t read the secondary readings we set for class. Every year, we find ourselves press…
www.history-uk.ac.uk
November 29, 2025 at 2:16 PM