Prof Rachel Oliver
@profrachelgan.bsky.social
Materials scientist, mum, mountain-biker.
I tried to write in as many places as possible on the survey that immigrants enrich the UK and we should make it easier for people from overseas to come and stay and show them more appreciation!
December 11, 2025 at 7:03 PM
I tried to write in as many places as possible on the survey that immigrants enrich the UK and we should make it easier for people from overseas to come and stay and show them more appreciation!
Looks fab! Congratulations on your book! I ordered a signed copy!!
December 10, 2025 at 6:04 PM
Looks fab! Congratulations on your book! I ordered a signed copy!!
Do not let anyone tell you that you don't need those extra calories when breastfeeding. When my son was doing the growth spurt thing, I was eating 5 meals every day and still losing a kilo per week.
December 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Do not let anyone tell you that you don't need those extra calories when breastfeeding. When my son was doing the growth spurt thing, I was eating 5 meals every day and still losing a kilo per week.
Although, as ever, it's difficult to make much impact at a personal level, this feels like something where if there's a more sustainable alternative and a lot of people change to that alternative, we both make a meaningful cumulative difference together and send a useful message to the big tech bros
December 8, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Although, as ever, it's difficult to make much impact at a personal level, this feels like something where if there's a more sustainable alternative and a lot of people change to that alternative, we both make a meaningful cumulative difference together and send a useful message to the big tech bros
It's not the search element that I am necessarily worried about. It's the LLM generating an "answer" to my search which is the same thing ChatGPT does. And which is the first thing in my list of results and is often absolute nonsense.
December 8, 2025 at 12:50 PM
It's not the search element that I am necessarily worried about. It's the LLM generating an "answer" to my search which is the same thing ChatGPT does. And which is the first thing in my list of results and is often absolute nonsense.
Based on advice my group recently received from the LEAF project, energy and water usage is higher with the AI. But I don't have references I'm afraid.
December 8, 2025 at 10:27 AM
Based on advice my group recently received from the LEAF project, energy and water usage is higher with the AI. But I don't have references I'm afraid.
Hi Chris! Thanks for the useful tip! Do you know whether this just stops the AI summaries displaying or actually prevents the AI search from happening? I'm more interested in preventing the pointless energy usage than anything else!
December 8, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Hi Chris! Thanks for the useful tip! Do you know whether this just stops the AI summaries displaying or actually prevents the AI search from happening? I'm more interested in preventing the pointless energy usage than anything else!
There are no easy answers, but there are some obviously wrong ones.
December 5, 2025 at 9:17 PM
There are no easy answers, but there are some obviously wrong ones.
Very good point. And it's already really difficult to figure out what the implications are if you put patentable content in a proposal for example...
December 5, 2025 at 5:18 PM
Very good point. And it's already really difficult to figure out what the implications are if you put patentable content in a proposal for example...
which doesn't work - because if they are there, people will look at them and think about them...
December 5, 2025 at 5:16 PM
which doesn't work - because if they are there, people will look at them and think about them...
Which is unfortunate, given that the definitions of those scores used by the research councils are rather obviously flawed.
December 5, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Which is unfortunate, given that the definitions of those scores used by the research councils are rather obviously flawed.
And these are the people we are meant to trust to think about AI in the funding system??
December 5, 2025 at 8:40 AM
And these are the people we are meant to trust to think about AI in the funding system??
New research from the RSS on barriers to diversity in research grant funding
rss.org.uk
December 4, 2025 at 10:54 PM
December 4, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Some reports from within ukri illustrating the biases in the system...
Gender....
www.ukri.org/publications...
Gender....
www.ukri.org/publications...
Understanding our portfolio: a gender perspective
Results of research carried out by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) into gender disparity across its grants portfolio.
www.ukri.org
December 4, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Some reports from within ukri illustrating the biases in the system...
Gender....
www.ukri.org/publications...
Gender....
www.ukri.org/publications...
I knew I was letting myself in for it when I typed it. But I found it very funny!
December 4, 2025 at 11:38 AM
I knew I was letting myself in for it when I typed it. But I found it very funny!