Dr Urska Demsar

My keynote from #LBS2021 conference on how we are studying geomagnetic bird navigation with spatial data science is now available online: youtube.com/watch?v=zsvsVl…

@UndisScot St Andrews castle

WHERE IN SCOTLAND? Where is this? This is part of an image that appears somewhere on Undiscovered Scotland. Please reply with your answers. We'll award kudos to the first correct response before posting the next in the series tomorrow.

The River Tay was written by Ptolemy in the 2nd century as Taoua, showing that its core form was already well established 2,000 years ago. Linguistically, it looks older still. One proposal links it to an early Indo-European root tā- meaning “to melt” or “dissolve,” a word often applied to flowing water. This well describes the Tay’s broad, steady movement through the heart of Scotland. Also, as the country’s longest river, it would have been named early and remembered continuously. Its genesis most likely lies in the late Bronze Age, perhaps around 1000 BCE or even earlier. 2/4

ESA is closely monitoring a notable space weather event, first detected at 18:09 UTC on 18 January 2026. Aurora were observed over Europe last night and continued high levels of space weather activity are anticipated over the coming days. esa.int/Space_Safety/S…

Now greens showing too.

Aurora in Slovenia, over Triglav 2864m in Julian Alps @TamithaSkov @JAtanackov @Vincent_Ledvina skiresort.info/ski-resort/vog…

Greens!!! Slovenia, 46N!

@JAtanackov Aurora zdaj nad Triglavom skiresort.info/ski-resort/vog…

G4 STORM level reached!

(3/3) "The sky literally began to rain shooting stars. Everywhere we turned we saw them. ... By 4.30 there were several hundred per minute. At 4.45 the meteors were so intense we guessed how many were seen ba a sweep of the head in one second. The fantastic rate of about 40 per second was reached 4.54. It was indeed difficult to gauge sch a rate, but this is the consensus of the observers." "Since the meteors were falling all over the sky, even on the horizon, the foreshortening of the paths near the radiant was especiall noted. Jack Silentic commented that looking directly at the radiant gave the effect of depth of the Earth moving through space. ... The view was so spectacular we just didn't know where to look! ... Different parts of the sky would light up, and we would glance here and there. Everyone was yelling and laughing at the incredible, dazzling sight, and at our luck seeing it." "The rate was over 100 per minute for an hour, from 4.30 to 5.30. It was over 1000 per minute for 40 minutes, 4:35 to 5:15. The peak of perhaps 2400 per minute was centered at 4:55. ... By 5.40 the shower was back to 30 per minute." Images: AURA/NOAO/NSF.

. @ESA_Smile will address three fundamental questions: 1️⃣ What happens where the solar wind meets Earth’s magnetic shield? 2️⃣ What causes magnetic glitches on the dark side of Earth? 3️⃣ How can we predict the most dangerous space weather threats? 3/ #CM25

. @ESA_Smile will be the first mission to take X-ray images of Earth’s magnetosphere, revealing exactly when, where and how the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic environment. To complement this, Smile will continuously image the northern & southern lights in ultraviolet light. 2/ #CM25

📣 Looking for a creative postdoc with strong computational skills! Be our go-to person for building simple but powerful simulations that test wild ideas on biological rhythms: from daily cycles of mussel groups at deep sea, to firefly flash synchronization! More info👇

Our new paper about possibilities of Open GPS data platform led by @MiladMzdh is out :)

@moragduncan @UndisScot No, it's not St Andrews. No idea where.

WHERE IN SCOTLAND? Where is this? This is a detail from an image that appears somewhere on Undiscovered Scotland. Please reply with your answers. We'll award kudos to the first correct response before posting the next in the series tomorrow. A sign has been obscured.

An article published in Movement Ecology proposes a data-driven approach, using data mining, machine learning and artificial intelligence methods to identify unexpected patterns during avian migration. …ementecologyjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

A new paper with @BeateZein & @jedalong: ⭐A new data-driven paradigm for the study of avian migratory navigation⭐ We propose how the multi-modal multi-scale nature of navigation could be studied w/ data mining, machine learning & AI. …ementecologyjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.11…

ICARUS BIRDS Where, how, and why do birds die? We are launching the ICARUS BIRDS project to find out! Join us in tracking common birds across Europe to uncover the factors behind their decline. Learn more on our website ab.mpg.de/669445/icarus-… @animaltracking