C-17 inbound to Joint Base Andrews. Hereabouts, Andrews traffic is always at more or less right angles to DCA traffic, in or out.

Finnish chocolate bar Karl Fazer. I’m a fan!

Sóla has stuck to me all day like “white on rice”. She even roused me this morning at 6 AM!

Denver by night after close of #ARVO2026: 2) cool architecture.

Denver by night after close of #ARVO2026: 1) point:counterpoint

Starting a snowy morning right at #ARVO2026 with breakfast at Sam’s No. 3!

Lost my head seeing the great vision research being presented in Denver CO at #ARVO2026!

My fellow Dr. Gleysin Cabrera-Herrera stayed by her “Hot Topic” poster for 5+ hours at #ARVO2026 fielding questions!

A major snowstorm is beginning in Denver on May 5! Attendees at #ARVO2026 prepare to head out into the storm!

I encountered this family of 2+ 11 goslings beside where I park my bike!

Let summer begin: today we saw our foy Gray Catbird in the yard. Right on time! House Wrens are about, too. There may be a frost in the next couple of weeks but the summer residents have arrived!

In honor of #NationalGarlicDay2026, April 19, 2026, here is one of our garlic beds growing away. The cold winter had us worried but the garlic stalks finally appeared early in March!

Apropos of nothing and the times we live in: “…And on the pedestal these words appear: "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains: round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

F-86 Sabre jet aircraft memorial for Major Rudolf Anderson, the only US casualty of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, in Greenville, SC. His U-2 plane was shot down while surveilling the missile sites. He and his family were friends/neighbors of my wife’s mother’s family in Greenville.

The victory of the opposition in Hungary yesterday, like the Polish election in 2023, is a victory for democracy, not just in Europe but around the world.

This is good

This is a great piece by a Stanford undergrad. He wrote it after lecture last week. What a privilege it is to teach. “The President calls birthright citizenship stupid…America is not foolish for honoring birthright citizenship. America is America because of it.” stanforddaily.com/2026/04/07/a...

On this day, April 6 in 1520, the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael died at the young age of 37. The Madonna della Seggiola, in Pitti Palace, Florence, depicts a Tuscan peasant woman and her children as the Madonna and children. One my most favorite paintings I have ever seen!

We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in US history. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions for a coup attempt in which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator. snyder.substack.com/p/the-next-c...

Our go-to Trout Lily bank did not disappoint again this year

This isn’t a “could face” situation. It’s a “are facing” situation. And brain drain will continue to happen as long as we undermine science in the US. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/b...

wow, Trump looking really rough in this one...

Excellent speeches today at the #NoKings Vigil outside the NIH campus. @michaeldgreen.phd gave us hope in these troubled times. It was a pleasure to meet him and to see so many of my other friends there. We're Stronger! Together!

We’ve had more Raven activity in our neighborhood this past winter than I remember ever. The Raven(s) has been hanging around within earshot of our house for the past week. (Turn up sound!)

I finally got to meet the truly delightful @blockintheback.bsky.social today! What great science and what enthusiasm!

What popped up in my timeline. Very apropos to a recent thread on Greenland Sharks. 10 years ago we were in Stykkisholmur, West Iceland where we sampled Hakarl, the fermented flesh of the Greenland Shark. A delicacy in Iceland.

The falcons on the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning (where all my MFA classes were held) laid their first egg of the season yesterday! Let's gooooo! 🧪🦉

my god this is amazing

Speaking/attending the Washington, DC, Stand up for Science event today, among many others, were George Conway, Dr. Jenna Norton, US Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Beaker.

Attended Rare Disease Day today. Some truly amazing and wonderful work being done throughout the country. Viva NIH and the research and therapies it makes possible!

The #BirdOfTheDay theme chosen by Alan @alan678.bsky.social for today is #WideOpenWings. Here we have a Turkey Vulture grabbing some rays to warm up so that it can fly on a cold day; Elliott Island, Dorchester Co., Maryland.

This piece by @jeneeninterlandi.bsky.social is one for the ages. The damage Donald Trump (under the guidance of Russell Vought) has done to biomedical research is profound and will be long-lasting. It is a national tragedy to be measured in the sick and the dead. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/23/o...

@alan678.bsky.social #BirdOfTheDay theme today is #BirdsInTheirElement. Here we have a nicely backlit Red-tailed Hawk at home in its element; Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Surely, this can’t be right! A most unfortunate weather radar image.

MoCo, as more winter weather heads our way, get those shovels out and let’s prepare for snow and icy conditions from Sunday evening through Monday. Please be safe and hang tough!

I’m not even Catholic and I know big a deal this is

Rob @robcrank68.bsky.social ‘s #BirdOfTheDay theme is #WaterDroplets, birds with water droplets on them: here we have a water droplets-palooza! 4 different species of ducks in a feeding frenzy at Cambridge, Maryland.

In 1963 the US govt spent 2.5% GDP on research in America. This was on top of what business spent on research, and was not conflated with business "spending" on research by bundling in expenses like advertising into their research budgets. That spike in 1963 has driven our economy for decades.

Real actual croci seen today, Feb 21, in a down-the-street neighbor’s front yard! The 4-week snowcrete is finally almost gone except for the piles remaining in parking lots. However, a little more is expected tomorrow.

Just in case the Epstein enablers, participants and those blocking investigations into the same want to see what might await them on the other side - an Italian vision of judgement, painted on the walls of the Scrovegni Chapel, 1303, by Giotto, Padua, Italy. Scary stuff!

Watching “Riot Women” on Britbox, about a group of women who set up a punk band in Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire, England. Funny but quite triggering in parts. From the pen of Sally Wainwright who did “Happy Valley”, another gem.

For today’s #BirdOfTheDay theme of #WingsOverWater (with thanks to @alan678.bsky.social ), we have a nice Northern Fulmar gliding over the sea in West Iceland.

I don’t know how many baby monkeys or snail darters I indirectly killed this week doing performance plans on ChatGPT. But render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s…

Found this newsletter that belonged to my father, an “Island hopping” veteran of WWII. The newsletter offered interesting advice to the soldiers upon returning home. Believe it was meant to be taken lightly. My dad talked a lot about this voyage home, none of it good.

Now this is a movie plot!!! Someone understands grad school.

In 1983, James Watt, Reagan’s Interior Sec, canned the expected usual July 4th Beach Boys concert and replaced it with Wayne Newton, a “washed up” Las Vegas lounge lizard. DC welcomed Wayne with a trademark summer gullywasher!

From first principles, cancers would do great as organoids since they are usually less differentiated. Retinas or brains not so much, as they require more time to achieve full differentiation. Animal models rule here and organoids CANNOT fully replicate. This is a hill I will die on!

Freeman Hrabowski is a genius. UMBC is one of the finest small universities out there!