It somewhat reminds me of Dr. Seuss’s quick trick block stack.
Hi! I write about #science for Smithsonian, Discover, Quanta, Nautilus, Undark, National Geographic, CBC Radio, & many other outlets. Books include The Science of Shakespeare and In Search of Time. Co-host of BookLab podcast. 🔭🪐⭐️⚛️
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It somewhat reminds me of Dr. Seuss’s quick trick block stack.
😳 www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/02/1...
🚨We're hiring!🚨 The Dept of Psychology at Rutgers is hiring an Assistant Professor in Social Psychology. Review of applications begin on Oct 18. Details here: jobs.rutgers.edu/postings/259... I'm chairing the search committee and am happy to field questions about the position. 🧵
Something henge-y?
"If spacetime is emergent in this way, entanglement doesn't happen *in* spacetime; entanglement *creates* spacetime." Let physicist Vijay Balasubramanian (U Penn) blow your mind in this 20-min video from @quantamagazine.bsky.social: youtu.be/RIqVnFtOSr4?... #physics #science
Renoir -- Luncheon of the Boating Party -- 1881 (in The Phillips Collection, Washington DC, this spring) 🎨🖌️
Not surprising — but this is really bad:
“Dirty clothes get shipped home”? The person who wrote the original article is wealthier than me.
This one is challenging — but I think I see what’s going on, and can deduce what the fourth item will be. 🙂
Postdoc job! I expect to have an opening at Johns Hopkins for a postdoctoral researcher working somewhere in the broad realms of physics, philosophy, and complexity. Apply at Academic Jobs Online: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30496
And I'm delighted that my Snuffleupagus analogy (the first time I've mentioned Snuffleupagus in print) survived the editing process -- I think the analogy quite apt!
When the Red Planet drove Earthlings to distraction: Here's my review of @dhbaron.bsky.social's excellent new book on the Mars-mania that gripped turn-of-the-century America, in @undark.org: undark.org/2025/09/05/b... #Mars #science #books
New Taiwan edition of In Search of Time: 📗📘 🙂 #science #books
"Budweiser," d'oh
Yes, they're old (Roger's 81, Pete's 80); whatever. Had a great time at Budwider Stage in #Toronto last night seeing The Who for the 10th (!!) time. :) (It's not much of a pic; that's ok. The music was grand.)
Accident on the "Elevador da Gloria" funicular in #Lisbon leaves 15 dead and 18 injured. :( www.ctvnews.ca/world/articl...
But, kudos to the reviewer for correctly referring to Victor as a scientist (not a doctor).
Four more egret pix from yesterday: #birds #photography
Great Egret, earlier today: #birds #egret #greategret #birdwatching #toronto
Random thought: Could a chatbot like ChatGPT generate a crossword puzzle -- with reasonable clues and everything? My thinking is that it *should* be able to that... but I suspect it can't. Anyway, just putting it out there.
Some butterflies, flowers, and a bee. Yesterday.
UC Berkeley Depart of History tenure-track asst prof job in Global History of Technology. History of technological artifacts & infrastructures through a global & transnational lens. All fields, areas, & periods of #HistTech considered For more info: aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05065 #HPS 🗃️
It's that time of year again -- it's late summer, and the moon is near first quarter -- which means the moon is suspiciously low in the sky! Here's my video where I explain why the first-quarter moon *never* gets very high, at this time of year. Enjoy! youtu.be/UlWiIuJlqOQ?... #astronomy
Exclusive: Meta has appropriated the names and likenesses of celebrities — including Taylor Swift, Scarlett Johansson, Anne Hathaway and Selena Gomez — to create dozens of flirty social-media chatbots without their permission, Reuters has found reut.rs/3JWb00R
I’ve given this a *lot* of thought, over the years.
Some entities that one might imagine would have (official) BlueSky accounts, but don’t: The BBC; the CBC; MIT; the Beatles.
Bluesky now platform of choice for science community - Ars Technica | Media coverage of our new paper
Physicist Rainer Weiss, who shared a Nobel Prize for his role in developing the LIGO observatory and detecting gravitational waves, died this week at 92. news.mit.edu/2025/profess... @ligo.org #physics #science
Sorta hoping that Taylor will wear an ambiguously blue-and-black or white-and-gold wedding dress. :)
On the left is a rabbit. On the right is an elephant. But guess what: They’re the *same image*, rotated 90°! In @currentbiology.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show how these images—known as “visual anagrams”—can help solve a longstanding problem in cognitive science. bit.ly/45BVnCZ
4/3 Or was it, haha. Correction: “moiré” does not require a capital. It’s just a French word for a type of textile.
3/3 (Turns out two skeets was enough :) )
2/3 “The Moiré effect [occurs] whenever a repetitive structure, such as a mesh, is overlaid with another such structure. The two structures need not be identical. There is evidence that the effect was noted in ancient times.”
1/3 A-plus Moiré effect, on the stairwell side-thingies (which have teeny ~1cm holes); the illusion makes it seem like there are much larger holes. The Internet defines the Moiré effect thus: (cont’d) #physics #science
I don't wanna make everyone depressed, but more and more this is how I think of our relationship with social media:
Researchers have filmed thousands of climbing catfish scaling waterfalls, providing a rare insight into the daring migration of an enigmatic fish. Learn more: https://scim.ag/4lDlFux
New expanded edition of the Beatles "Anthology" project coming in November; new "Anthology 4" disc; updated book; new version of the video documentary to stream on Disney+, etc: www.rollingstone.com/music/music-... #Beatles #TheBeatles
Voyager 2 was launched 48 years ago today. Amazingly, the little spacecraft -- now some 20 billion km distant -- still phones home. Recently I visited the Parkes radio telescope ("the Dish") in #Australia as the call came in, and wrote about it for @wired.com: #space www.wired.com/story/nasa-v...
Seeking science journalists: @quantamagazine.bsky.social is hiring a physics editor! A rare opportunity to join this great team and lead coverage of this foundational vertical. Please reach out with any questions and share widely simonsfoundation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/simons...
As the planet heats up, the atmosphere is holding more moisture – and this is resulting in more days with weather conditions close to the limits of survivability
While they may not be active on this platform, I do want to thank Jessica Turner (@durham-university.bsky.social), Shirley Li (@ucirvine.bsky.social), & Pedro Machado (Fermilab). I asked them *a lot* of questions, which they patiently answered, for this #physics story for @knowablemag.bsky.social:
Hi @tomzellerjr.com -- just heard you on @wbur.org -- great interview! And congrats on the book!
Re-posting with the magazine's tag: @knowablemag.bsky.social
Hear me out: new series called “Columbo & Order” — sequels to each of the original episodes; now we see how the charges played out in court. (Or Colawmbo & Order — but that looks ridiculous. :) )
How a puzzling particle -- the neutrino -- could help explain the mystery of the missing antimatter. My latest for Knowable magazine: #physics #science knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...
Entirely New Species of Human Ancestor Discovered Ancient teeth found in Ethiopia belong to a never-before-seen species in the Australopithecus genus of human ancestors www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...
And when he says "I forget," don't believe him!
I feel like texting would come as a surprise, too.
I’m embarrassed to admit, that took me a few seconds. :)
The countdown is on.... the total solar #eclipse of August 12, 2026 is just one year from today! (And yep many folks have already made their plans for #Iceland or #Spain) #solareclipse #2026solareclipse www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse/2026...
Happy 103rd birthday to Gus the Tortoise of #halifax #novascotia ! 🐢🎂🥳 www.cbc.ca/player/play/...
An in-depth look at the pros and cons of the "digital nomad" phenomenon, via the @theguardian.com's "Today in Focus" podcast: #digitalnomad www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2...
Jim Lovell, who flew on both Apollo 8 in 1968 (the first mission to send humans beyond Earth’s orbit) and the famous “successful failure,” Apollo 13 in 1970, has died at 97. www.cbsnews.com/news/jim-lov...
New from Nature: “I had to take a moment of silence to appreciate what I was seeing.” Astronomers reveal what could be the first ever image of a planet in its star’s habitable zone—and in the same star system as Avatar, no less www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Cool!
This would be more appealing if the air wasn’t filled with smoke (but otherwise, I’m on board)
RIP Loni Anderson, best know for her role as Jennifer on WKRP www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/l...
Lovely first quarter moon in the south ( “ D “ )
Watched it for the first time a couple of months ago.
BREAKING: Tsunami alerts issued for Alaska, Hawaii and all of the US West Coast after a major earthquake struck Russia's remote Far East. Follow live updates.
I said this in the 90s, but no one would listen. ;) Anyway, it's not that there was anything wrong with the X-Files per se -- at it's best, it was very entertaining. But it did kinda promote a certain way of seeing the world......
Musical satirist Tom Lehrer has died at 97 variety.com/2025/music/o...
😳
My best "star trails" photo from June, from South Milford, NS, looking northeast. (Pentax K1 w. 24mm lens; "interval composite" mode.) I like the reflections in the lake. :-) (I purposely shrunk the image to make it harder to see the little gaps in the trails.) ✨ #photography #astrophotography
Between 1920 and 2020, the average human life span doubled because of the development & widespread use of vaccines, germ theory, & antibiotics. www.nytimes.com/2021/04/27/m... But life expectancy is declining in the USA: www.npr.org/sections/hea... If vaccine use drops further, it will get worse.
Now on @sciam.bsky.social, by @nadiadrake.bsky.social: The U.S. has axed CMB-S4, its boldest cosmology experiment in generations. Tight budgets and crumbling infrastructure helped doom the project, which was meant to test cosmic inflation. RIP. www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-...
This was about a month ago; Jupiter was too close to the sun to be visible.
(Also somewhat interesting that our go-to clip is from a 57-year-old movie.)
Here's something that very difficult to envision: Imagine a radio feature on the perils of AI where they *don't* use a brief clip from 2001. 😳 (And yes it's always the pod bay doors clip.)
We lost physicist Steven Weinberg four years ago. Weinberg was an outspoken atheist -- yet he very much understood the appeal of religion, especially in the context of coming to grips with our mortality, as I wrote in @sciam.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/lear... #science #religion
The night sky in summer never lets me down -- especially when viewing from the Annapolis Valley in #NovaScotia. :) This view is facing northeast, with the Milky Way running through Cygnus (the swan), near the top. (Pentax K1, 24mm lens, single exposure, ISO was either 800 or 1600.) #astrophotography
Epstein files? A "false flag." Texas floods? A "false flag." Welcome to the era of the "false flag," where every single major news event is now being labeled as fake. What could possibly go wrong...
Ozzy Osbourne has died at 76 www.bbc.com/news/live/cn...
Got up early for this one. :) The waning crescent moon -- and Venus -- and their reflections -- at Geier Lake, NS, June 2025: ( #photography #nightphotography #novascotia )
People sometimes ask me if I took each particular pic that I post -- I need to be more clear in spelling out that, yes, I did. :)
It's rare to capture a meteor in a short exposure -- it comes down to luck -- but, in this photo of the stars above Geier Lake, NS, from June, a meteor can be seen near the top of the frame (Delphinus [the dolphin] is at right): #photography #astrophotography #starryskies #meteor #novascotia
Yeah -- "All I Want to Do" (Sheryl Crow) and probably "Santa Monica" by Everclear are the ones I'm thinking of. (But according to google there's a bunch more!)
Are there actually a lot of songs that mention Santa Monica? Or are there basically two of them, and Q107 plays them a lot?
And today marks the 100th anniversary of the verdict: After eight days of testimony, the jury took less than ten minutes to find Scopes guilty. The judge ordered him to pay a $100 fine. The Butler Act was finally repealed in 1967, making it legal for evolution to be taught in Tennessee's schools:
Re-upping this one. Today is the 100th anniversary of the conclusion of the Scopes "monkey trial." Earlier this year @danfalk.bsky.social took a look back at the trial and its impact. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...
The Liverpool 4 at the Beaches Jazz Fest, just now 🎶
I’ve always been a Colbert fan but this …. This is just brilliance and humanity distilled.
Summer events are increasingly at risk as heatwaves intensify thanks to climate change. Kids sports, professional races and games… and now this!
I had to google the aspect ratio — 65 mm widescreen — 2.76:1.
The CBC looks at the perplexing case of Lilly and Jack Sullivan, ages 6 and 4, who went missing ten weeks ago in rural Nova Scotia. So far, no trace of them has been found. (Starts at 1:54) www.cbc.ca/listen/live-...
"The world is now installing one gigawatt worth of solar energy infrastructure every 15 hours — or about the output of a new coal plant." futurism.com/electricity-...
Trivia: "Hey Jude" dropped the same day that the the now-infamous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago started -- August 26, 1968.
Folks in Australia can hear it on the radio this weekend. Or, just click and listen any time. :)
You beat me by an hour -- I shoulda gotten up earlier! ;) At any rate, thanks for organizing an excellent conference, and letting me be a part of it!
Is it time to bring back natural philosophy? For ABC (Australia)'s "The Philosopher's Zone", I spoke with @seanmcarroll.bsky.social , @sandradmitchell.bsky.social @melaniemitchell.bsky.social , @anilseth.bsky.social , David Albert, and Alan Guth: www.abc.net.au/listen/progr... #science #philosophy
He used to be a naval intelligence officer???
Good point. (Though I’ve seen some good [very mildly risqué] astronomy themed bumper stickers, over the years.)
So apparently everyone except me knew there was a company called Astronomer. (Somewhat disappointed that it seems to have nothing to do with astronomy, oh well.)
tranquil waters (Blue Rocks, NS, June 2025) ( #novascotia #canada #photography )
A few scenes from Lunenburg NS (June 2025) ( #Lunenburg #novascotia #photography )
The amazing Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who turned 100 this week, survived Auschwitz because she could play the cello (the guards wanted her for their orchestra). This BBC story is from January: www.bbc.com/culture/arti...
I deduced he would be amongst the authors, from the title 😐
(Sort of the reverse of the person who got an LLM to help with their essay for a writing contest or something -- the LLM gave them lots of "help" -- except, there was no essay...)
I'm sure by now it's all been said, but: Yeah -- because LLMs can't create files and store them anywhere. (But they can tell you they've done it!)
^^ I'll just add: Kudos to the SciFri team for taking callers over the air on such a tricky subject. However strong the urge might be, they never say, "Caller, your question doesn't make sense. Let's go to whoever's next in the queue." Instead, they handle 'em gracefully. Same for the two guests.