Jackie Gower💙

I found my moment of calm today watching the bumblebees enjoying the sage in the vegetable garden. Gardening is a lot about hope. Planting for the future. Believing in a future. Nurturing tiny seedlings and watching them grow into produce that nurtures you back.

In 1937, a nineteen year old woman graduated summa cum laude in chemistry. She applied to fifteen graduate schools. Not one offered her funding. She was told laboratories did not hire women. She never earned a PhD. She later received the Nobel Prize and helped save millions of lives. Her name was Gertrude Belle Elion. Born in New York City in 1918 to immigrant parents, Gertrude was brilliant from childhood. She skipped two grades, graduated high school at fifteen, and entered Hunter College during the Great Depression. Her family could only afford college because Hunter offered free tuition to women. Then tragedy changed her life forever. When Gertrude was fifteen, her beloved grandfather died painfully from stomach cancer. Watching doctors fail to save him gave her a purpose she never abandoned. She decided she wanted to fight disease through science. She graduated from Hunter College in 1937 at just nineteen years old, but the scientific world had little interest in hiring women. Graduate schools rejected her requests for funding. Laboratories turned her away. Some employers openly admitted they did not want female chemists. So she worked wherever she could while studying at night. Everything changed in 1944 when she joined Burroughs Wellcome and began working with scientist George Hitchings. Together, they pioneered a revolutionary method called rational drug design — creating medicines by understanding disease at the molecular level instead of relying on trial and error. Their discoveries transformed medicine. Elion helped develop 6-mercaptopurine, one of the first successful treatments for childhood leukemia. Before it existed, most children diagnosed with leukemia died within months. She later helped create azathioprine, the first major drug that made organ transplantation possible, along with groundbreaking antiviral medications that changed treatment for herpes and helped pave the way for AIDS therapies. In 1988, Gertrude Elion received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She was seventy years old. And she still did not have a PhD. The young woman fifteen schools rejected ended up reshaping modern medicine anyway.

SOUND UP!! Trump fans called Biden Sleepy Joe for years Now I need MAGA to explain this video with a straight face. 💯 Whatever you do, DO NOT share this. Would be a shame if Sleepy Don went viral. 🤣

Today my "boys" turned 21. At diagnosis they were not expected to live past 7. Such a massive cause for celebration. But sad that my dad didn't get to celebrate with us. I know he'd be very proud

Makerfield ‘born and bred’ Reform candidate ‘grew up’ and went to primary school in Merseyside…. It goes from bad to worse for Reform’s by-election candidate wigantoday.net/news/politics/…

If you're not following already, this lovely man inspires me every day. No matter what life throws at him, he keeps getting up, and always remains inspiringly positive, always finding the wonderful in the mundane. He's so lovely. Please give him follow. X

Current summary of right wing UK politics: Conservatives - We've suddenly remembered lots of things we accidentally forgot to do during our 14 YEARS in government that we would definitely do straight away this time, promise Reform - The Conservatives who messed the country up for 14 years were worried you wouldn't vote for them again so have made another party and are hoping you won't notice it's full of the people who messed up the country for 14 years UKIP - We still think it's 1998 Restore - Led by a bore in need of a golf club. Been chucked out of Reform for being racist? We're the party for you!

Edward Fitzalan-Howard, 18th Duke of Norfolk, is hosting lunch for Nigel Farage and Reform UK donors at Arundel Castle this week. Working-class party much?

No we fucking don't, you utter moron. What planet do these bollocks-generators inhabit? Surely this is a "false witness" violation of the Big 10.

I genuinely don’t think people understand how insane this is. In just 50 years, we’ve wiped out around 70% of animal populations on Earth. Not hundreds of years ago. Not ancient history. In one lifetime. Entire species disappearing. Forests going silent. Oceans being emptied. And somehow the world treats it like just another statistic instead of a full-blown emergency. That should scare all of us a lot more than it does.

I am very pleased to announce that my bug colour wheel has been accepted into this year’s Royal Academy summer exhibition. This is my sixth time. Have a look it opens on the 16th of June. @royalacademy

An especially upsetting aspect of the story about illegal swimmers in the Heath boating pond not just disturbing the nesting swans but tipping out its egg during the heatwave is that this pair have been trying for years to have cygnets. I hope the vandals get a criminal record.

Come and listen to the evening birdsong in my corner of Norfolk. The intense heat of the afternoon has gone and the garden is cool again. Bees happily decimate the wisteria (too large to get into the flowers, they bite the ends off! It’s called nectar robbing). Sleep well.

Wildflower fact of the day: a field of poppies can bloom from seeds that have been hidden underground for decades.

People are saying that Nigel Farage has asked Elon Musk to ban people from X for sharing this clip of him attacking his crony Robert Jenrick. Surely free speech champion Nigel Farage isn't that petty? But just in case, THIS is the video that you mustn't download or share

South East Water put up prices 20% last year but can't actually supply water to large chunks of Kent. How's that for 'the superior efficiency of the private sector'?

Nature groups have pleaded with swimmers to give wildlife a wide berth after dozens of people swam in a nature pond on Hampstead Heath among nests of baby birds. Swans and their 12-day-old cygnets were disturbed by hordes of splashing revellers in the north London park on Monday as London reached record 35C temperatures. In one video, a swan was seen poking an unhatched egg with its beak after it fell into the water during the chaos. Conservationists responded with dismay after a video was shared on social media of the scenes, which the City of London called “utterly appalling”. Coots, moorhens and swans were seen guarding their eggs and young as people obliviously splashed around them. There are large signs around the pond urging people not to swim as it is a wildlife conservation area. The unseasonably hot weather has meant that people have been going into water sources en masse to cool off. This has coincided with the nesting season for water birds. London’s outdoor swimming ponds and lidos were busy and booked up during the heatwave, meaning some people went to swim in unauthorised areas. The RSPB said it was “a crucial time of year for breeding birds which just want to nest and care for their young in peace”. The bird charity urged people to swim in authorised, lifeguarded spaces rather than nature reserves. “Along with the dangers of swimming in unauthorised places, there is a significant risk of disturbing wildlife. Many species are already under huge pressure and disturbance can make a parent abandon their nest, putting eggs and chicks at risk. Everyone has a part to play in protecting nature so we’d urge people to be responsible and give birds and other wildlife plenty of space when outdoors this summer,” it said.

Such a beautiful day #Shetland

What if I told you one study in Manchester found that shade from street trees reduced surface temperatures by an average of 12°C, and concrete surfaces shaded permanently by a bank of trees were cooled by up to 20°C during a heatwave? You might not believe me. But it's true…👇

This is priceless Reform MP under fire for helping 'Britain's biggest benefits cheat' who swindled £740,000 secure bungalow in now-deleted video lbc.co.uk/article/reform…