now I am an Ace Poirot Truther, because I think it’s more interesting if he watches the sort of grand passionate dramas that play out before him through the lens of an observer to whom that doesn’t happen, so he can have compassion for all involved but stay objective because he doesn’t relate

Ocean sprays, coughs, and sneezes are just a few of the ways that droplets full of bacteria and salt can get aloft on a breeze. How do these bacteria stay viable even as their droplet evaporates? That's the question in today's post. https://fyfluiddynamics.com/?p=30332

CFS published 5 papers last week outlining their "early 2030s" fusion power plant & physics Researchers say it's great they're publishing & plans are promising. But the papers far from "confirm" the plant will deliver net electricity Lots of engineering Qs remain ⚛️🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The day before the EHRC Code dropped, Victoria Richards in the Independent Women newsletter, asked what makes us angry. She published my reply in the newsletter yesterday.

"In the event of a nuclear holocaust, the only life remaining on Earth may be cockroaches, Keith Richards and physicists arguing about philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics." physicsworld.com/a/experiment... 🧪⚛️

I'm delighted to share that my deep dive into the early history of the physics Nobel Prize has been named as a finalist in the 2026 Association of British Science Writers @absw.bsky.social awards. It's such an honour to be in the list with so many great writers! 🧪⚛️ www.absw.org.uk/pages/meet-t...

Fantastic news: the artist who illustrated my little BlueSky thread about the probably-traumatized-but-highly-effective gophers of Mt St Helens has won an award for his comic! Go check it out, it’s lovely!

Every crime in which an ethnic or cultural minority is the perpetrator used to justify repression or worse of minorities. Every crime in which a minority is the victim used to argue for the idea that ethnic diversity is inherently unstable and should be reduced or eradicated.

NCAR just won in court! A US district judge in Colorado has prohibited NSF from taking #NCAR apart, specifically in spalling off its supercomputing center in Wyoming. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us... Our earlier story on this and why it matters: www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Did you ever play with slap bracelets as a child? If so, did you ever contemplate using the "curled up" and "flattened out" bracelet states as the 0's and 1's of a mechanical memory device? Because these guys did, and now they've been published in Science. 🧪⚛️ Story by @annademming.bsky.social

As someone with a borderline phobia of wasps who is absolutely fine with bees, this is technology I would like to deploy at my next picnic.

From my da #Spéirghorm

It's so hot in the UK that my gel-filled keyboard wrist rest has started oozing gel out of holes I didn't know it had. I've had to bin it and half my desk is a sticky mess. Worse, my internal soundtrack is now singing "It's oozing GEL! Hallelujah, it's oozing GEL!" #ClimateChangeProblems

The proton is having its very own Sunset Boulevard moment: Physicists: "You used to be big!" The proton, ready for its close-up: "I *am* big. It's my *charge radius* that got small." physicsworld.com/a/physicists... ⚛️🧪

File under “Many people like to use AI, but no-one likes to have AI used *on them.*”

AI-generated podcasts mimic the style of intimacy and sense of community of real podcasts, but it's all performance, simulation. Cultural context is stripped. Anything can be translated, so the natural audience limitations of language and obscurity are broken - but the translation is flawed, fake.

“It takes years of dedication to build up a world-class reputation. I worry that it can be destroyed much more quickly.” - Antonio Padilla on proposed cuts to the physics department at @uniofnottingham.bsky.social. Story by my colleague @michaelbanks.bsky.social 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/nottingham...

Why is rubber so resilient? USF engineer David Simmons calls this "a deep fundamental scientific question that has resisted resolution for so long that much of the field has moved on to different problems." Now, he and his colleagues think they've answered it. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/why-is-rub...

May 18, 1980 | 8:32 a.m. The ground shudders. A M5.1 quake hits beneath Mount St. Helens. Weakened critically, the north face bulge collapses outward. Within seconds, a pyroclastic density surge bursts through the disintegrating slope. The clock strikes zero.

Thanks to a post-covid illness, I went through a period of only being able to eat boring food. The one thing I continue to eat, post-recovery is the mozzarella-apple-rocket toastie. The creamy saltiness of the mozzarella. The crunchy sweetness of the apple. The slight bitterness of the rocket. Yum.

I think Labour doesn't understand that while people like me - pretty moderate - really like some of what they've done, the extremist pandering on trans rights and immigration is not just a minus point, it's entirely alienating and unacceptable. And for every me they lose, they've won 0 reformers.

If you remember the "omg scientists made a see-through mouse" optical biophysics story from a couple of years ago, you'll enjoy this story about what those folks are up to now. 🧪⚛️ 💡 physicsworld.com/a/ultrasound...

If you are yelling "Pluto is a planet!" you are wrong. If you are yelling "Pluto isn't a planet!" you are wrong. www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-p... 🔭 🧪

How can anyone expect me to vote Labour if Labour misrepresents me, a naturalised immigrant, as a problem that needs solving.

Shirley Meng explains why her passion for decarbonizing the global economy required her to relocate. https://scim.ag/42L4Uqp

How it started How it's going

Bohr would be extremely frustrating because all his skeets would be extremely profound physical insights couched in completely gnomic and unintelligible phrasing.

For context, the temperature range for molten lava starts at about 700 °C. Also, the researchers who created this device think it may continue to function at even higher temps. 700 °C is merely the highest they could read with the instruments they had available. 🔥🧪⚛️

People who are critical of Zack Polanski (and I’m increasingly one of them) need to be able to recognise that, even if you think he’s handling antisemitism within his party really badly, he is himself a victim of antisemitism.

I've spent yesterday and today talking to researchers across the globe trying to understand the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius. My story in @science.org is here (and some threaded thoughts coming): www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪 #IDsky

A richly deserved honour. Drop what you’re doing and go read this story. It’s linked in the post below.

These guys have been my favourite animal for like a decade and a half. So glad to see others catching up to the wonders of their nose wobbles.

it’s worth reading every word of this brilliant, excoriating column by Fraser Nelson

A fourth incredible thing: the people who got shot during this turkey hunt were basically dressed up as turkeys at the time (they were using a turkey feather fan as camouflage). This is apparently regarded as standard practice rather than an extremely stupid thing to do.

Feeling a bit bereft now that @titanic1912.bsky.social has finished his annual real-time narration of the Titanic’s last voyage and its aftermath. Fortunately @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social is just getting started, but are there any other real-time history accounts I should follow on here?

Everything else aside, I’m too much of a control freak to write with AI, and too arrogant to let my name appear on an article that AI wrote. My weaknesses become my strengths.

Angela Collier at UCI, making a fascinating point about "crackpot physics" vs "conspiracy physics"

Scientists have confirmed that darkness travels faster than light, and no, this isn't a metaphor for the times we're living in. Instead, it's based on the very real physics of optical singularities in a 2D material, and you can read more about it here: physicsworld.com/a/darkness-c... 🧪⚛️

I used to think thw German Greens transitioning Germany away from nuclear and renewables and back toward coal was the most anti-green Green Party policy I'd see in Europe, but subsidising fossil fuel usage during the best transition opportunity of our lifetimes gives it a run for its money

Every system that was regulated, either explicitly or implicitly, by the fact that they were effortful for humans (letters of recommendation, government filings, essays, or, as this paper finds, lawsuits) will break under a wave of AI.

Not sure how this train booking platform works, or how this happened - AI translated ‘STD’ meaning ‘Stunden’ (hours) into English as ‘Sexually Transmitted Disease’. So it appeared as ‘Geschlechtskrankheiten’ on ticket. www.krone.at/4109338

They were extremely controversial when they were first installed.

At the closing session of #FusionFest on the geopolitics of fusion energy, an online questioner asks if it’s possible to weaponize fusion technology. Panellist Atte Harjanne, a Finnish Green MP, draws laughter by replying, “I think fusion technology has been weaponized pretty effectively already.” ⚛️

"The Trump administration in the US is doing a great job of helping the fusion community by making hydrocarbons less and less viable." - Jeff Lawson of Inertia Enterprises at the @economist.com's #FusionFest in London today⚛️🧪

It’s US/North America publication day for PHYSICS AROUND THE CLOCK 🥳. Thread incoming!

The Moon: oh wow you guys decided to come back Artemis II crew: earth’s haunted

So on the night that might be the last night for the great civilisation of Iran which might never be brought back, lemme tell you that y’all gonna miss us. We were a great civilisation, we gave you all tahdig and you still thought we are barbarians. Good luck dealing with civilised T-rump and Bibi!

Threatening the destruction of "a whole civilization" is just explicitly a threat of genocide. Even if it is just a bargaining tactic, even if it is just bluster, it is a threat of genocide. Everyone who has furthered, and continues to further, the aims of this regime is morally culpable.

“You could violate copyright law by accident” is an underappreciated reason for avoiding LLMs in published writing. If you’re writing about new things, the plagiarism machines won’t have ingested enough text to make their plagiarism undetectable yet, creating legal risk for you/your publication.