Wednesday, September 30, 2026 — Edition No. 91

← Past Editions · Edition No. 91 · Wednesday, September 30, 2026

Today’s outlook: Sunny outlook with strong tailwinds of synergy

Science

Barra schoolboy finds tiny science boat after 2,000-mile Atlantic crossing

Pie on the Tide was built by pupils in Maine and relaunched from Newfoundland. A chain of island families helped it wash up near Calum Iain MacNeil's home, and now it is bound for Norway.

By Henry Davenport

On a beach near his home on Barra, Calum Iain MacNeil found a visitor that had come a very long way indeed.

The Castlebay Primary pupil and his dad, Donald, recovered a tiny sailing boat fitted with a GPS tracker on 7 September, BBC News reported. It had crossed roughly 2,000 miles of the Atlantic in almost 100 days at sea, the latest leg of a voyage that began 15 months ago on the far side of the ocean.

The little craft is called Pie on the Tide, and its arrival in the Hebrides owed as much to family ties as to wind and water.

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Science

Glasgow physicists read the colour of a laser from a single turning picture

A University of Glasgow-led team has shown that a ring of light passed through rubidium vapour turns like a clock dial as a laser drifts off its target colour. It is a fresh way of keeping lasers in tune, though still some distance from everyday use.

By Henry Davenport

Picture a ring of light on a camera screen, dotted with bright patches like the numerals on a clock face. Nudge the colour of the laser ever so slightly, and the whole pattern turns, as if someone had reached in and twisted the dial.

That, in essence, is what a University of Glasgow-led team of physicists has demonstrated. It may offer a new way of answering one of the most basic questions in laser science: exactly what colour is this beam, and is it staying put?

The work, led by Professor Sonja Franke-Arnold of the university's School of Physics & Astronomy, is published in the journal Optica, the university announced on 29 September.

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Science

Two tiny snails with door-like shells are new to science, and their canyon home is under threat

Citizen-science expeditions in Montenegro have found two unknown species in Komarnica Canyon and Durmitor National Park, where a proposed dam could flood one of their habitats

By Helen Cooper

It is not every day that a discovery is this small, or this tidy. In the limestone mountains of northern Montenegro, scientists have found two new snail species that can pull up the drawbridge behind them: each carries a small circular disc on its tail that seals the shell opening like a door when the animal retreats inside.

The snails, named Cochlostoma komarnica and Cochlostoma dobrido, have shells about 6 millimetres long, according to the release from the publisher Pensoft. That is small enough to sit on a fingernail. Their shells are cone-shaped, and they live on limestone rocks, where they feed on algae and lichens.

They have another party trick. Unlike most land snails, their eyes sit along the sides of the head rather than on the tips of eye stalks. It is a fine look for an animal that, until now, nobody had noticed.

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What's On Glasgow

Free BUCKFEST returns to Bar Bloc for its 15th year of fuzzed-out punk

No tickets, no charge: The Bucky Rage host a Saturday all-dayer on Bath Street with seven bands and a DJ spinning all day

By Damien Day

Glasgow's garage punk faithful have a date on Saturday. BUCKFEST, the Fuzz Factory's annual all-dayer, returns to Bar Bloc for its 15th year. True to tradition, it won't cost you a penny.

The essentials: Saturday 3 October, from 3.30pm until late, at Bar Bloc, 117 Bath Street, Glasgow city centre. Entry is free and there are no tickets. You just turn up.

The organisers put it more colourfully in their own listing: "Such a shindig must cost millions you say?! Nuh huh!!! all for zilch, nada, free!" They add: "Just turn up, get correct, and let the noise wash over you."

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What's On Glasgow

Free harvest party at Civic House serves up a MasterChef chef, singing costermongers and veg costume prizes

Glasgow Food Policy Partnership's Going for Gold celebration lands on Halloween: Saturday 31 October, 11am to 3pm, and it won't cost a penny

By Damien Day

Dig out the carrot costume. On Saturday 31 October, Civic House is throwing a free harvest celebration with a cookery demo from a MasterChef chef, a band of singing fruit-and-veg sellers, and prizes for the best vegetable-themed outfit.

Organisers describe it as "a fun event for families and anyone interested in seasonal food".

The headline act is Rohan Wadke, who has appeared on MasterChef and Great British Menu and will lead a seasonal cookery demonstration. According to the event listing, the Pune-born chef has more than 20 years' experience in the UK hospitality industry.

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What's On Glasgow

Sonica's final days: your guide to the best shows still to come

From a Bowie symphony to Suzanne Ciani's Scottish debut, here is what to book before Glasgow's festival of sound and light closes on Sunday

By Helen Cooper

Robot loudhailers roaming a shopping centre. A Tesla coil played like a musical instrument. An 18th-century mansion filled with mechanical birds and suspended bells. Sonica's opening weekend was not short of surprises, and the good news is that there are still five days to catch the rest.

Sonica Glasgow is an 11-day festival of audiovisual art and experimental music, bringing together more than 170 artists from 22 countries. It runs until Sunday 4 October.

At the heart of the festival is The Listening House. Pollok House is currently closed for major refurbishment, but it has been opened especially for Sonica. According to What's On Glasgow, visitors have explored mechanical birds, suspended bells, moving image and interactive sculpture across three floors and out into the gardens.

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Science

Tiny 245-million-year-old sea reptile fossil preserves its stomach, liver and intestines

Austronaga minuta is the oldest known reptile with a largely complete digestive system, and a National Museums Scotland scientist helped describe it

By Helen Cooper

Stomachs, livers and intestines are soft, and soft things rot. That is why fossils are nearly always bones, teeth and shells, and why a preserved gut is such a rare treat for palaeontologists.

So imagine the surprise when researchers noticed a dark patch between the ribs of a tiny reptile from China and realised they were looking at the remains of its digestive system, still there after about 245 million years.

The animal is Austronaga minuta, and according to a study published in July in the journal Science Advances, it is the oldest known reptile with a largely complete digestive system.

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