Toxicology principle that needs to be mainstream: The dose makes the poison. That’s true of everything. Water. Oxygen. Vitamin A. Vitamin D. Aspartame. Formaldehyde. A single pear contains 120 times MORE formaldehyde than what might be in a vaccine. 1/

Mungo crater on asteroid Donaldjohanson is named after Lake Mungo, site of the oldest human fossils in Australia dated circa 42,000 BCE. The lake is the traditional land of the Paakantji, Ngylampaa and Mutthi Mutthi peoples. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1152... medium.com/teatime-hist... #Science

Asteroid Donaldjohanson just got some new names for its various surface features. The names were proposed by the NASA Lucy mission team to the IAU based on various paleoanthropological sites and discoveries. science.nasa.gov/solar-system... #PlanetSci

8 years ago OTD in 2017, the magnificent NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini mission ended with the spacecraft commanded into a fiery plunge into Saturn's atmosphere. www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrGA... More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1152... #PlanetSci

Yes comets, including interstellar ones like 3I/ATLAS, grow tails as they get closer to the Sun. ☄️ Alien spaceships, not so much. 👽 Image taken on Aug 27 by the Gemini South Telescope at Cerro Pachón in Chile. 😎 noirlab.edu/public/image... #Astronomy

Where is star cluster PISMIS-24, the subject of the stunning new image by the JWST, located? The following images show the location of PISMIS-24, zooming in from a view of the night sky into the central core of the Lobster Nebula (NGC 6357). 🤩 More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1151... #Astronomy

Our 400+ page comment on the DOE climate working group report is now out. Our conclusion: The merchants of doubt are back, and they're coming for climate science.

Stunning images of a multi-ringed disk around the star WISPIT 2 and its embedded planet WISPIT 2b taken using the SPHERE extreme adaptive optics imager at the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1151... #Astronomy #PlanetSci

Trump’s delusions about winning a Nobel Peace Prize and his and Rubio’s shitty diplomacy have created a huge rift with India www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/u...

JWST zooms into the heart of the beautiful Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302), a bipolar nebula 3,400 ly away. The MIRI instrument and its spectrometer were used at 5–28 µm wavelength to study the intricate structures surrounding its central star. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1151... #Astronomy

JUST IN: Judge Cobb has blocked the Trump administration’s effort to extend rapid-fire deportation procedures to immigrants who have been in the U.S. more than two years — warning that it is a flagrant deprivation of due process that could ensnare anyone. ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show...

SPHEREx and JWST reveal what comet 3I/ATLAS is… and isn’t Wonder what interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is all about? So did scientists working on SPHEREx and JWST. Hello, too much carbon dioxide, no aliens, and very little everything else. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astro #science #notaviloeb

Interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is slowly giving up its secrets. New JWST observations give a great view of its lopsided, dusty coma & show unusually high levels of carbon dioxide billowing off its nucleus. These are clues about how it formed in a star system far away. 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/abs/2508.18209

Erin has one heck of an outer wind max this morning – almost as strong as its inner eyewall, but a whopping 100 miles from its center. Pressures down to 948 mb. Tons of energy in this hurricane and a HUGE wave generator for the western Atlantic.

Using JWST, researchers have discovered the 29th moon of Uranus. A member of the planet's inner moons, the tiny 10 km moon is temporarily designated as S/2025 U1. What is your suggestion for the name of the new moon, knowing how the other moons are named? science.nasa.gov/blogs/webb/2... #PlanetSci

By Steve Desch - ALIENS = Avi Loeb Is Entertaining, Not Sciencing. Might Loeb be next in line for the NASA Administrator post?

Happy Birthday to the Parker Solar Probe, the fastest object ever built on Earth and the record holder for the closest approach to the Sun. PSP was launched OTD on Aug 12, 2018. Next perihelion is on Sept. 10, 2025. parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/... parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu #PlanetSci

Enjoy this well-crafted and thoroughly enjoyable article by Steve Desch cutting pseudo-science and its peddlers down to size using science, humor and a heavy dose of sarcasm. Brilliant! 🤔 🤣 #Astronomy

Happy belated Birthday to Vera Rubin (July 23, 1928 – Dec 25, 2016), whose work revolutionized our understanding of the universe by confirming the existence of dark matter. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1149... #Astronomy 1/n

Hubble Space Telescope images of interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS are out! These were taken 5 hours ago. Plenty of cosmic rays peppering the images, but the comet's coma looks very nice and puffy. Best of luck to the researchers trying to write up papers for this... archive.stsci.edu/proposal_sea... 🔭

In an IEEE conference last week, NASA engineers explained how they fixed the Juno spacecraft’s failing JunoCam imager in late 2023 by heating and slow-cooling (annealing) its electronics. 👏 www.nasa.gov/missions/jun... More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1148... #PlanetSci

As Jay said, many of the #BethesdaDeclaration signers will meet with him on Monday. And oh boy are we prepared! While not every signer was invited, we worked together and with our colleagues across #NIH to bring our concerns—and evidence to back them up. Buckle up, this will be a long thread. 🧵

Happy Birthday to Sir Brian May, born 19 July 1947, virtuoso musician and astrophysicist with a PhD from Imperial College London 😎. Dr. May has collaborated with NASA on the New Horizons, OSIRIS-REx and DART missions, with JAXA on Hayabusa2 and with ESA on the Hera mission. 🎸🪐 🔭 #planetSci

From NOIRLab: Interstellar visitor alert! Gemini North in Hawai‘i captured Comet 3I/ATLAS, only the third known object from outside our solar system. #astronomy Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/K. Meech (IfA/U. Hawaii) Image Processing:Jen Miller & Mahdi Zamani (NSF NOIRLab) 🔗 noirlab.edu/public/news/...

10 years ago OTD at 11:50 UTC, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft made its closest approach to Pluto, passing within 12,500 km at a speed of 13.78 km/s. It provided us with spectacular close-up images in multiple wavelengths and data on its atmosphere and geology. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1148...

Happy Flyby Anniversary, New Horizons! Scientists are gathering in Laurel, MD this week, where @jhuapl.bsky.social is hosting a conference on Progress in Understanding the Pluto System to mark the occasion www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/plu...

"Over 660 million pilgrims gathered at the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj, India, this past February, and I’m now seeing the downstream consequences in my California clinic." New piece I wrote. Big thanks to @thekibosch.bsky.social and @statnews.com. www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/m...

Among all the big bad things happening on our planet, there's one Big Good Thing, the sudden, startling rise of solar energy. It changes the power dynamic, in every sense of the word 'power.' www.newyorker.com/news/annals-...

3I/ATLAS (aka C/2025 N1 (ATLAS) and A11pl3Z) is an interstellar visitor, similar to ʻOumuamua in 2017. The object will not pass close to Earth; perihelion will be around Oct 29, just inside the orbit of Mars. See map below. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1147... #Astronomy #PlanetSci

It’s not easy to navigate the maelstrom of misinformation. Grateful to @megtirrell.bsky.social & @drboulware.bsky.social. This week, slides prepared for ACIP by former CHD leader Lyn Redwood cited a 2008 Neurotoxicology study on thimerosal and “long-term brain harm.” But the study doesn’t exist. 🧵

"In what is now basically a monthly tradition, SpaceX’s Starship once again went up in a glorious, cinematic explosion Wednesday night in Texas, providing another multimillion-dollar fireworks show for Musk’s legion of Twitter/X followers." 🤣 nickanderson.substack.com/p/just-a-scr...

Happy Birthday to M. C. Escher, born OTD in 1898. Like other famous artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Picasso, Escher was left-handed. Escher was forced at school to become ‘double-handed’, which was beneficial for his artform. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1147...

Here are the first test images of the Sun’s Corona taken by the ESA Proba-3 mission. The images were taken by the twin Proba-3 spacecraft, flying 150 m apart to create artificial total solar eclipses using the 1.4 m disc on the Occulter spacecraft. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1146... #Astronomy

RFK Jr. spouted dangerous vaccine falsehoods on national TV. As a parent and infectious diseases doctor, I couldn't stay silent. Here's what the data actually shows. 🧵

Is the Universe doughnut-shaped? Was Homer Simpson right? Happy (belated) National Donut Day 🍩 The universe may have a complex geometry — like a doughnut - www.sciencenews.org/article/univ... Promise of Future Searches for Cosmic Topology - journals.aps.org/prl/abstract... #Astronomy

After the failure of the iscale HAKUTO-R M2 lander yesterday, here is an updated table of lunar landing missions in the 21st century. Of 16 robotic missions, only 6 have succeeded in landing and completing their missions on the moon, 4 of them are from the Chinese Space Agency. #Space #PlanetSci

“Let’s keep the faith that the majority that rejects tyranny will prevail. There are days that it can be hard to see, but there are genuine reasons for optimism as the ideals and principles that built our nation continue to motivate the resistance.” www.americaamerica.news/p/its-not-po...

The Trump administration is engaging on an all-out assault on the institutions, workers and standards that make learning and knowledge production possible, in the hopes of securing political dominance forever. (Gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Another study pours cold water on reports of the "detection" of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and possible life on planet K2-18b. Authors of the study conclude other molecules besides DMS and DMDS such as ethane provide an equally good fit to the data. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1143...

Discovery of new extreme trans-Neptunian (TNO) object 2017 OF201. Large enough at 700 km diameter to qualify as a dwarf planet. Orbit with aphelion of 1,632 AU extends to the inner Oort cloud and covers a region where few extreme TNOs have been detected. arxiv.org/pdf/2505.15806 #Astronomy

A new title holder of the most distant galaxy - MoM-z14, which existed a mere 280 million years after the Big Bang, with a redshift value z = 14.44. The redshift was confirmed with JWST NIRSpec/prism spectroscopy. arxiv.org/pdf/2505.11263 More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1145... #Astronomy

Astronomer Nancy Grace Roman was born #OTD in 1925. After early work in spectral classification and galactic evolution, she became NASA’s first Chief of Astronomy and did foundational work planning and overseeing the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬 Image: NASA

5/11/2025- Family Separation www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/ma...

1/x Our latest TUDAT #reentry forecast for the #Kosmos 482 Descent Craft: 10 May 6:30 +/- 4.1h UTC Link to updated blogpost with details: sattrackcam.blogspot.com/2025/04/kosm...

‪ The Cosmos 482 Venera Venus lander, launched in 1972, is expected to (crash) land tonight .. on earth, not Venus. Here is the trajectory map of 6 orbits from Aerospace Corp. with some added annotations to help make sense of it. ~495 kg, 1 m wide, tough. More at fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/1144...

It's #BlackHoleWeek! Let's marvel at the images and size of these supermassive black holes (SMBH) taken by the Event Horizon Telescope - Sgr A* in our galaxy and the SMBH in galaxy M87. The images of SMBH TON 618 and the Andromeda galaxy are copies of SMBH M87 with scale. eventhorizontelescope.org

I may be the only lawyer targeted by Trump willing to speak on camera, but for me it wasn't a choice. All of us have an obligation to speak out against what Trump is doing. All of us have an obligation to fight for democracy. I am fortunate to be a lawyer and to have a platform -- and I will use it.

Happy Birthday to the fabulous Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993). Besides her memorable film career, Hepburn also worked in some of the poorest communities of Africa, South America and Asia as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. www.unicef.org.au/stories/audr...

During these challenging times, May the 4th be with you. #MayThe4th #MayThe4thBeWithYou #StarWars

Global North is becoming unsafe for #globalhealth meetings! @madhupai.bsky.social Nhial Deng &I highlight how on top of visa inequity, lack of safety is a concern for GH meetings in the GN. Action should include shifting meetings to the Global South! Share&Advocate! www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...