This is hands down my favourite #SolarFlare in recent years, an event from September 2024. The flare persisted for several hours, giving us a jaw-dropping view of ‘coronal rain’ (seen in the yellow structure) and ‘supra-arcade downflows’ (seen in the cyan structure). A beauty!

As a solar astrophysicist, I spent a lot of time looking at solar flares this year. Out of them all, this X1.9-class #SolarFlare from December 1st was my favourite! The plasma motions are simply mesmerising.

Excellent piece illustrating the fallacy of RFKJr and Hoeg making accusations the USA over vaccinate & conflicts with other countries. This is not the case - it’s brutally similar to many and each country vaccine policy reflects its health infrastructure, population and budget constraints.

🌟OPEN ACCESS🌟Fiber‐Optic Sensing for Earthquake Hazards Research, Monitoring, and Early Warning #SRL ⚒️ What are the potential applications and obstacles facing fiber-optic sensing in seismology? pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ssa/srl/arti...

Turning the moon into a junkyard? I suppose it's step one in terraforming 21stC style.

Scientists are supposed to be happy when their predictions are skillful, right? Why do I not feel happy?

The New York Times knows this is disinformative fossil fuel industry propaganda but published it anyway. This (via @amywestervelt.bsky.social) might have something to do with it: drilled.media/news/drilled...

New AMS Statement: Dismantling NSF’s National Center for Atmospheric Research would weaken U.S. leadership in weather, water, and climate science, putting public safety at risk. For more than 60 years, NSF NCAR has improved forecasts and early warnings that save lives. More: https://bit.ly/4q6eChn

My feelings, but on powerful steroids.

When Denmark finds itself aligned with the administration that wants to take over Greenland, maybe it should rethink it's vaccine policy. www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Disgusting. Going on a fishing trip into confidential material because he can't fault the science.

Really?

*Waves hi* 👋 *Waves bye* 👋 Back in July, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory captured this view of Comet 3I/ATLAS: the third interstellar object ever spotted in our Solar System. 3I/ATLAS is still zipping through our Solar System, coming closest to Earth today, 19 December! 🌎 🔭🧪

A little tantalised by this vast ?New-Deal-Era? factory across the way from AGU25 - the Federal Fibre Mills. Not just the idea of federal involvement in something so commercial - but also "fibre" is spelt the European way.

Signs of the time at #AGU25. Learning that the US's great National Renewable Energy Labs NREL were just rebranded as National Lab of the Rockies. We're there difficult words in the old title? (Rhetorical question)

“high coverage with a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine followed by at least two more doses will prevent 710,000 deaths in the cohort of children born between 2020 and 2030 alone, 78% of them in African countries” www.gavi.org/vaccineswork...

Here is what I think the research team to whom RFK Jr. just gave $1.6 million to do a randomized controlled trial of HepB vaccine in Guinea-Bissau is going to do. Although the WHO recommendation is to administer the HepB vaccine at birth, infants in G-B usually get it at 6 weeks, not at birth.

Repost rather than like if you want followers to see this message and help.

Looking for climate experts at #AGU25 right now who can comment on these administration plans to break up UCAR. DMs open.

This is an important article by @katherinejwu.com on the destruction of infectious disease research - and the man behind it. As someone in the ID field reliant on US federal funding for our research, know that once the next pandemic happens, we won't be around. www.theatlantic.com/health/2025/...

This looks utterly disgusting: an RFK-funded project to use babies in Guinea-Bissau as experimental toys in pursuit of his anti-vax delusions.

⚒️ 🧪 A paper in Science today highlighted a "progressive eastward rupture of the Main Marmara fault toward Istanbul." My thoughts on what a damaging Istanbul earthquake might look like, and whether recent earthquakes tell us something new, are in this article in the NYTimes:

Very excited to see that CRICK has been shortlisted for the Hatchards First Biography Prize. Here are all five books!

How it's done.

ICYMI: Important Context broke a story this week. Liam Neeson narrated an anti-vax, pro-RFK documentary. A spox for Neeson, tried to distance him from it, saying he’s not anti-vax, citing his work as a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, and noting he didn’t have anything to do with the editorial content

Hoog-pathogene vogelgriep veroorzaakt niet alleen sterfte in honderden kraanvogels in Spanje, maar nu ook in honderden ooievaars in het gebied rond Madrid. www.reuters.com/business/hea...

Just imagine how mind-boggling it must have been for Galileo to see these unexpected points of light, and then to realise that their change in position over subsequent days could be explained in terms of orbiting Jupiter.

As I noted a few weeks ago, my colleagues and I identified the area of Arizona where the measles outbreak has exploded as a region of low vaccination coverage a decade ago. There is no question that undervaccinated areas are dangerous, and we can predict where outbreaks will grow.

The winning streak for the shingles vaccine continues...I'm starting to get optimistic on this one 🤞🙏: jenndowd.substack.com/p/more-good-... #episky #medsky #idsky #econsky #publichealth #dementia

The data is in and Tehran just had its driest fall in more than 75 years, occurring on top of warming-induced drying and severe water management issues. Unfortunately, the odds of making up the rain over the next few months are very low, based on current state of the ocean. 1/3

A close up of a section of the seaside cliffs at my home town in Newfoundland, Canada. For scale, the layers are mostly one to two inches thick. #geology #rock

Our whole debate on immigration starts and ends in the wrong places and we are all the poorer for it.

The folks doing this used to get funded for predicting quakes, but admitted they can’t 8 yrs ago. They now have to pretend to do something else to get funding so every time they issue a ‘boy who cried quake’ warning that there might be a bigger quake. Yes, but less than one chance in 100. 1/

Presumably the "trapped polar ship" he's talking about is the MOSAIC mission of the German PolarStern which deliberately drifted in Arctic winter ice in a yearlong exploration, and was frequently resupplied by helicopter: his "rescue mission" is imaginary. But I guess details are hard for some folk.

Some epic VLT observations of 3I/ATLAS underway. Creating a beautiful sequence on this comet ☄️ all the way through its perihelion passage

Noted.

Maybe the NHS, given the generally low uptake, should be making free flu (and COVID) shots much more widely available. It's almost like no-one had ever mentioned "spoiling a ship for a ha'porth of tar". Losses in economic activity or days in school, anyone?

As ever, full of insights. And a 3D model to play with.

New results from the International Gemini Observatory 🔭 on interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS, in which it continues to do fun cometary things! The new spectrum confirms 3I/ATLAS is actively emitting CN, C3, and C2 gases, plus a visible dust fan. www.astronomerstelegram.org?read=17503

Looking into a paper about beetles reminds me of Bob May's firm riposte to his account in Nature about God's famous inordinate fondness for beetles.

It's really quite tragic.

A long long time since I've seen this image of fluid dynamics on a cosmic scale, shown to me by an astronomer at Lancs Poly. It did a lot to open my eyes to the world of astrophysics (I'd been all atoms n molecules till then). Is the explanation of post-collision survivors still accepted?

The latest WMO regional climate report warns of a deadly climate future for northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula ... insideclimatenews.org/news/0412202...

The latest Eruptions newsletter is out! This week I talk about the Hayli Gubbi eruption, new activity at Puracé in Colombia, some candidates for volcanoes that may have started the cascades of events leading to the Black Death and Bob & Doug McKenzie: eruptions.beehiiv.com/p/eruptions-...

Something I could look at for the BeeBeeC.

He’s back there right now!

If only there was some sort of science show on some sort of major news outlet that could take up this topic for discussion. Yeah, I know, wishful thinking - it's 2025 after all 🙃😩

Looks interesting, esp the potential early-life angle.

Agreed.

Good reply: