In a functioning society, this would have been front page news everywhere. In our society, this didn't make the fine print. As @georgemonbiot.bsky.social pointed out once, it's quite depressing to check the headlines when you know what the real headline should be...

Abd ar-Rahman al-Sufi. Book of Fixed Stars, 964 CE. Illustrations from 1417. Manuscript reproduced 1730 The constellation Orion

Interesting to see our white paper on post-detection futures for SETI/technosignatures picked up across the media. This article in the Oklahoman brings out the emphasis on learning from animal communication & emerging research methods for studying whale language. www.oklahoman.com/story/lifest...

on a brown dwarf dozens of light years from us, astronomers have detected trace amounts of a molecule that, on this planet, is made by living things. this discovery is not life. but it will help astronomers on their quest to find it elsewhere in the galaxy: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/s...

Partial Solar Eclipse Taken by Taichi Nakamura on September 22, 2025 @ Dunedin, New Zealand Canon R6 Borg71F+x2converter 1/8000s ISO 100 spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload...

🔭 🧪 🧵 This marvelous Hubble image shows the N44 superbubble complex, a turbulent emission nebula dominated by a vast bubble some 250 ly across: the dark, starry area visible in the upper central region. ➡️ science.nasa.gov/missions/hub... NASA, ESA, V. Ksoll & D. Gouliermis, et al.; Proc: G. Kober

If you're a trans or non-binary scientist, consider appearing on the podcast Assigned Scientist at Bachelor's, the only podcast dedicating to interviewing, and highlighting the research of, trans and non-binary scientists, cohosted by your truly!

Loved Jessica O'Reilly’s panels at #4s Seattle. Carrying with me an expanded sense of ice as a great ecological storyteller - telling of the deep time & ecological futures of Earth, & a wider universe of bodies transforming through the same processes… rai.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Pages from the 1975 dream diary of William S. Burroughs, from the William S. Burroughs Papers (SPEC.CMS.40).

For folk interested in international perspectives on SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence): a presentation from @gabriela-radulescu.bsky.social on Armenia & the former Czechoslovakia combining science, politics & ancient cultural–astronomical traditions. www.youtube.com/watch?v=059T...

Today is publication day! A new edition of Francisco J. Varela's (long hard-to-obtain) 1979 classic Principles of Biological Autonomy in a new annotated edition by Ezequiel Di Paolo and Evan Thompson, with a Foreword by Amy Cohen Varela. mitpress.mit.edu/978026255140...

To celebrate the groundbreaking research of 2025 Drake Award recipients Dr. David Deamer and Dr. John Baross, the SETI Institute commissioned bioartist Dr. Jennifer Willet to create a unique artwork that brings biogenesis, the origin of life, to visual form. Read more: buff.ly/xV1Oj1L 🧪 👩‍🔬 🐡 #sciart

Decoding Ladakh’s Hot Springs Could Help Trace The Origins Of Life On Early Earth And Mars astrobiology.com/2025/07/deco... #astrobiology @ISRO @IndiaDST @BSIP_official #India #Ladakh

The SETI Post-Detection Hub’s NASA DARES White Paper is featured on @universetoday.com. Written by 14 members on behalf of the Hub, it outlines 6 key areas for growing readiness for the discovery of life beyond Earth. www.universetoday.com/articles/sci... #SETI #Readiness #Astrobiology #NASADARES

The Word for World: The Maps of Ursula K. Le Guin @ursulakleguin.com When Le Guin started writing a new story, she would begin by drawing a map. The Word for World presents a selection of these images by the celebrated author, many of which for the first time www.silverpress.org/products/the...

For the past two years, I've been working with a truly fantastic group of philosophers and scientists on pondering ethical issues in astrobiology and space exploration. Our first publication is now out in @nature.com! I'd be so honored if you gave it a read!

June 30 is Asteroid Day to raise awareness of opportunities and risks posed by asteroids, their role in the formation of our solar system, their impact in space resources and importance of protecting Earth from impact. 🧪🐡🔭⚒️June 30, 1908 an approximately 12-megaton explosion that occurred near the 🧵

This looks fascinating! Living Amongst and with Trees: Botanical Agency and the Archaeology of Plant-Human Relationships, by Barry Taylor 🧪 🏺

New paper day! In 'Near-future rocket launches could slow ozone recovery', we show that scaling up use of launch vehicles 🚀 has a point where the healing of the ozone layer is affected 🧪🛰️ Open access, free to read & share

New paper! Amanda Quirk and I just released this article: "Applying the Principles of Universal Design to Make Astronomy More Accessible" on arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2505.23498

Morning light in Chartres, France. Venus blazing before dawn, and sunlight streaming through the “Notre-Dame de la Belle-Verrière" window on the south side of the Cathedral.

Company directors who cause severe or reckless damage to nature could face jail terms or hefty fines under a bill that aims to criminalise environmental destruction in Scotland. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

What is Participatory Sensemaking and Why Should We Care? Interview by Beck Todd @beckety.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/becketto...

Get mad, scientists www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o...

‘Mass death through starvation is the certain outcome of Israel’s continued blockade and ongoing military campaign. The only question is when.’ NEW: Alex de Waal on famine in Gaza. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ma...

This is a photo of a moonlit night. On Mars. With tiny Deimos shining in the Martian night sky. Photographed on 1 March 2025 at 4:27 am local time.

going on a decade of screaming this into the void

Between the Covers by @davidnaimon.bsky.social is a literary/author podcast but I think this episode falls into the ‘informative’ category (or contemplative conversation on current affairs). One of the best conversations I’ve encountered on Gaza tinhouse.com/podcast/omar...

We are excited to announce registration and abstract submission for talks, posters, and breakout sessions are now open for the 2025 SETI Symposium at Penn State, August 18-21, 2025! sites.psu.edu/setisymposiu... Please help us spread the word and we hope to see you in State College! 🔭

5th May 8pm NZ / 10 AM CEST Planetary communication: Listening to animals in the Second Space Age, with zoologist Arik Kershenbaum @arikkershenbaum.bsky.social us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... A fitting coda to a weekend spent listening to the dawn chorus w. Soundcamp Collective's Reveil project.

Listening to the Earth wake up right now on #Reveil12! Reveil travels west on live audio feeds from streamers around the world at daybreak, making a loop over one Earth day. #InternationalDawnChorusDay #DawnChorusDay #DawnChorus soundtent.org/reveil/index...

landed now in NZ with mouthfull radio: Te Wai Õrea (Western Springs Park), Tāmaki Makaurau (Auckland), Aotearoa (New Zealand)

Reveil 12 is now live and broadcasting 🌅 Currently, the stream is crossing the Pacific, listen in for whalesong: soundtent.org/reveil/index... (the soundtent page has a live chat that connects listeners around the world) You can also listen on NZ's Mouthfull radio mouthfull.live

Some more details here: ecologies.fm/Reveil-2025-...

It’s Dawn Chorus Day and there’s a great project called Reveil that’s live streaming it from locations all around the world for 24 hours as dawn moves across the world. There’s a live stream here on Mouthfull radio: mouthfull.live

seeing news & views like this, purporting & pontificating & proselytising the automagical, astronomical productivity boosts of AI, I oft think of this wee passage @doriantaylor.com shared on the other site upward o' 9 yrs ago, from a book called "Software Engineering Economics" published in 1981

As the 12th edition of the Reveil weekend draws near, all welcome to an event hosted by Alistair Alexander and myself on behalf of ATNC network. ATNC Takeover ecological rave: listening to the singing planet Monday 28 April 8am UTC+1 / 29th April 7am UTC+12 Register: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

A massive study of 50,000 households over 1,000 archaeological sites provides ample evidence that inequality is not a "natural" outgrowth of sophistication. Instead, it is a political choice. Which means, kids, that we don't have to choose it. archaeologymag.com/2025/04/stud...

Scientists must push back against the threat of rising white nationalism and the dangerous and pseudoscientific ideas of eugenics https://go.nature.com/4jGqiUc

This is awesome. Just like us, older birds sing hits from when they were young www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

I'm aiming to get some thoughtful biologists together (there's no lack of them!) to discuss what kind of narratives might best reflect the nature of their field in the 21st century. Here's a preview of the goals; I'm excited and optimistic about it. www.marginaliareviewofbooks.com/post/after-t...

Wait, hold on, didn't the maybe-detection of DMS come out *last year*? Why is everyone getting excited about it *now*?

Oh lord. Where to start? Maybe that Le Pen is not “in prison” but was sitting freely on the benches of parliament this week. She is giving a speech at a demo in Paris today

Flyer for my talk/screening at UCSC in May. Really looking forward to being back in Santa Cruz, even if only for a few days.

A Violet Darkness by Najwan Darwish www.divasofverse.com/2025/01/a-vi...