At the end of the day, this visualization shows what's driving the rising risk of these dangerous heat waves. It's the human-caused burning of fossil fuels and the resulting increase in greenhouse gases. That's it. More climate change indicators: zacklabe.com/climate-chan...

Sarah Rugheimer is the bee's knees when it comes to explaining the realities, prospects, hopes and dreams of searching for life out there in the cosmos. This one will be worth a watch for sure. #FellowEdinburghFaculty 🔭👩‍🔬

New #CoolWorldsPodcast episode just dropped with Dr Sarah Rugheimer! youtu.be/J6UcWbdnHuE?...

Happy Friday!!

Despite being much smaller than the Earth, this newly discovered exoplanet has approximately the same surface gravity (94%) as our home planet thanks to its extraordinary high density. A solid ball of iron.

Finding it hard to sleep in since I changed my alarm… youtu.be/enYdAxVcNZA?...

The paper: arxiv.org/abs/2606.04044

A calculation that shook to me my bones… youtu.be/sT7V4gE4ZIc?...

Ask Claude literally any question… “That is an excellent and sharp question.”

Summary of Key Changes in OMB’s Proposed Federal Financial Assistance Rule. Russell Vought is going destroy American Science. elizabethginexi.substack.com/p/summary-of...

A bizarre thing I’ve noticed being back in the UK this year is that drivers are quite happy to turn into a sideroad at full speed when a pedestrian is halfway through crossing it & fully expect that pedestrian to stop in their tracks to avoid being run over. NY drivers are way more pedestrian aware.

🧵 Public science in the US has taken some heavy hits over the last year, but the White House OMB is proposing a series of changes that will result in a TKO for science as we know it unless we fight back. Here's what's happening, and why it matters. 1/n

Feels like we’re heading into civilization burn out

Economically, do we have any evidence AI is increasing GDP? It seems the only thing it’s achieved is inflationary, on energy prices and RAM especially.

I feel like each week I’m getting disturbed by another crisis or imminent one. Wars, famines, housing, energy, health care, inflation, government debt, nukes, jobs - do a deep dive on any of these and it’s bloody awful.

What do you consider to be the best acting moment in the history of Star Trek? I’ll start.

coward

The staggering size of the Universe is in itself perplexing. It’s outrageously large, indeed it almost feels unnecessarily large.

Przybylski’s Star may be the strangest object we've yet observed. Is it a technosignature? Very short-lived ultra-heavy elements like actinium, plutonium show up here. How? What is making these reactions on a stellar surface? Sagan had a thought on this. www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/05/15/p...

I think my greatest flaw as a science communicator is that I’m simply more interested in research. There’s a ton of stuff I know I should do, optimizing thumbnails, hiring producers, diving into YT analytics and just churning out more content, but I’m constantly called to research…

This is incredible. The new NASA image release from #Artemis includes a sequence of 'Hello World' still photographs. I've been processing / animating them and here's what the original didn't show us: Satellites, including their solar arrays, lightning storms and dancing aurora!

New paper arxiv.org/abs/2605.02969

With the two-hour marathon now broken, I wondered: how fast could humans ultimately run a marathon? Between a simple exponential and a stretched exponential model, the latter is favored implying humans could run 1h47m (!) one day (assuming same rules/no cheating).

I have a big new research paper on an epidemic problem we don’t discuss enough in astrobiology. Currently in review but I couldn’t wait to share so here is the video, paper should land on the arXiv next few days. youtu.be/u3HLrDkMRXY

Fund NASA science or we’re demoting it again to comet.

Trump fires the entire National Science Board

The latest Science Counterpunch just landed! 👊 This week we chatted to Prof "Cool Worlds" @davidkipping.bsky.social about engaging sceptical audiences, how to better communicate physics and how scientists should engage massive influencers. Don't miss it! Link: youtube.com/watch?v=aT3S... ⚛️🧪

“Allan variance”

Don't miss my new op-ed on how space science is getting demoted to hitchhiker status at NASA: spacenews.com/put-science-...

Possibly my favorite part of my recent interview with @chrislintott.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/tdL65...

#CoolWorlds Podcast Episode 32 is now live! @chrislintott.bsky.social on Technosignatures, Citizen Science, Scicomm youtu.be/qI3DAXM0-do

Love will always win

I love all the astronauts but is it ok to have favorites in Glover and Koch?

NASA Flew by the Moon, but Behind the Scenes, Its Science Is a Chaotic Mess www.nytimes.com/2026/04/08/o...

Let’s goooooo!

Reflect Orbital finally have some numbers for their underwhelming service. 50 Watts per square metre for 20 minutes* in 2030 if they launch 5000+ satellites. This requires 750 satellites and if they charge $5000 per satellite per hour then this will cost just $750,000. www.reflectorbital.com

“There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below.”

A new solar system in the making? For the second time ever, two planets have been directly observed forming around a host star. Our VLT and VLTI have helped astronomers confirm the presence of a second gas giant orbiting the star WISPIT 2.  More: https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2604/ 🔭 🧪

Are Wormholes Actually Possible? youtu.be/z90spjws6z8

You have to feel sorry for folks who study the Epstein regime... arxiv.org/abs/2603.15810

The RAS is alarmed by the threat to ground-based astronomy posed by proposals put forward by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Reflect Orbital. We have opposed the plans with @eso.org and the International Astronomical Union. Find out more at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

The additional cost of ONE fossil fuel price spike on the scale of 2022 = the ENTIRE COST of Net Zero by 2050. We get precisely nothing in return for the first cost, and a whole new, more secure and cheaper energy system from the second one. #NoBrainer www.theccc.org.uk/2026/03/11/c...

6/10

For #WomensHistoryMonth: Let us celebrate the life and accomplishments of Sally Ride (1951-2012), Ph.D. physicist, educator, and the first U.S. woman in space. As a member of the Rogers Commission, she helped bring to light the O-ring failure that led to the Challenger disaster. 🎢⚛️⭐️🔭🧪🪐 1/3

let it be known that my achilles heel is cadbury mini eggs

One thing I’m seeing is that AI appears to be perceived by many as an increasingly political topic, whereas a decade ago it was largely one of technology alone. Both statements of critique and praise for such systems are becoming seen as latently partisan, much like climate science experienced.