I was thrilled to have played a very small part in this ornithological discovery - back in March I had recorded a fish crow in this park and posted to eBird, which was one of several things that prompted @skwinnicki.bsky.social to realize that they were nesting there. Woo citizen science!

Magnetic fields tend to be the running joke at #exoplanets conferences. You can be sure someone asks „what about magnetic fields?“. This is the answer ⬇️

this is a pride flag made from real nasa imagery happy pride month 🏳️‍🌈✨

Huge congratulations to my first (co)-supervised grad student, Dr. Connor Basinger, who successfully defended his Ph.D. today! 🎉🔭🪐 His research spanned from using stellar models to tackle the Faint Young Sun probably to high-resolution transmission spectroscopy of an ultra hot Jupiter.

My #biggestweek long weekend starts with a bang before I even leave town, 49 species this morning including a golden-winged warbler! 🪶

I feel like we’re willing to make Pluto a planet again, at least provisionally, if they’re willing to fund astrophysics. I’d say $100 billion/year is reasonable But if you keep cutting our budgets, I swear we’ll keep eliminating them. Hope you like a three planet solar system!

We are looking for two new PhD students to join our group at the University of Southern Queensland to work on exoplanet demographics and atmospheres. See AAS ad below. aas.org/jobregister/...

I searched the Epstein files for astronomy and astronomers, and consistent with Sean Carroll's posts about why his name is listed, it seems like Epstein was trying to rope in scientists they perceived as smart, and scientists tried to get financial backing from him. 🔭 Some examples:

Fellow academics and others who have personal websites for their work: what hosting platforms do you use that are user friendly, affordable, and not US-based? EU or Canadian company + servers preferred.

Cartoon by Mike Luckovich

You and your wife drop your 6-year-old off at school. You just moved here. You see ICE terrorizing your new neighbors. You film them, as is your legal right. Your wife complies with orders. She is then shot in the head. You still have to pick up your child later today. This could be you.

I did an impromptu Big Day today to keep my mind off (gestures vaguely at everything) and ended up having a really lucky #birding 🪶 day. Saw a merlin, peregrine falcon, Wilson's snipes, greater white-fronted geese, and short-eared and eastern screech owls, among 45 species total.

It’s 1990, I’m 1 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state It’s 2004, I’m 15 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state It’s 2026, I’m 37 years old, and the republican president of the US is attacking a petrol state

Just woke up even angrier. Impeach, convict, remove. Draft articles now. Either we have a representative government or we don’t. Do not shut up about this until there’s a vote.

Ring out the old and… …that’s it? This is not OK. 🧪🔭

Year-end #birding 🪶 roundup for 2025: 364 species observed, a new record for me! 🎉 60 lifers, the first being the Mexican jay and the last the sage thrasher, ending the year with 569 species on my life list. I don't do much photography, but here's a hairy woodpecker using its beak to get through ice

In not-very-good news, extreme winds (114 mph gusts) on the early morning of the 25th caused significant damage to the 36" Great Refractor at Lick Observatory. Half of the main shutter broke off and landed on the main building.

OSU limiting participation in SACNAS is heartbreaking. I have attended SACNAS since 2003 as an undergrad, & it was the first scientific space where I felt welcome. I always bring students (pic is OSU participants at 2022 SACNAS), & now it is in our city & OSU doesn't want us to go? So disappointing.

Very successful #globalbigday 🪶 today on a short trip to the San Francisco Bay Area -- 48 species including 8 lifers! Particularly proud that 5 of the lifers were notoriously difficult shorebirds (willet, least sandpiper, black oystercatcher, wandering tattler, and black turnstone).

Ohio State just advised all staff and students not to attend the SACNAS (Society for the advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) annual meeting of 6000+ scientists -- which is in Columbus, OH this year! -- saying it may be exclusionary, even though it is open to all.

We *absolutely* should celebrate it. Do your part by enjoying the 200+ page masterpiece in its entirety on ADS! ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1925PhDT... 🔭 Special shoutout to Figure 2, an incredible piece of art that I want on my wall (and suspect could even make an excellent tattoo if executed well?)

Today would have been the 100th birthday of my grandfather, physicist and bioinformatician Walter Goad, who was born #otd in 1925. A 🧵 on his life and work... He was born in Marlow, GA, but by the time he was in high school his family had settled in Kinston, NC. (1/n) 🧪

Today would have been the 100th birthday of my grandfather, physicist and bioinformatician Walter Goad, who was born #otd in 1925. A 🧵 on his life and work... He was born in Marlow, GA, but by the time he was in high school his family had settled in Kinston, NC. (1/n) 🧪

"this is fine" meme but for academia

I miss the old brand #CDC

Hey, uh, what the FUCK

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

Come see my student @toribonidie.bsky.social 's poster at #exoclimesVII to hear about high resolution retrievals and a fantastic ultra hot Jupiter dataset! 🔭🪐

A day late and from a different airport in a different state than intended, but on my way to #eprv6 !

NASA is being told to cancel 19 *active* missions to save $6B, which looks to be less than the ICE *hiring/retention* budget going forward. I need people to let that sentence sink into their bones for a minute.

🔭🧪 Once more for the morning crowd—HUD secretary, like a vulture, is deciding to kick NSF out of its building with NO plan for NSF staff. This is just after forcing staff to be in person at work. The guy is planning on having a private elevator and gym, among other perks, according to AFGE

The dismantling of the research apparatus that made America the science and tech giant it's been over the past century is the greatest own-goal in history. We haven't even begun to calculate or feel the losses

I successfully defended my thesis and am now Dr. Caprice Phillips (its got a nice ring to it!). So thankful for my advisors and mentors including Jackie Faherty and @ohdearz.bsky.social and friends who were here to support me. Im the 2nd Black women to get a PhD from my department. Full of joy.

Want a depressing fact? Google announces they’ve purchased a property near Columbus Ohio for a new data center. That undeveloped business park is one of the only places around here that hosts Grasshopper Sparrows, a rapidly declining state-endangered bird.

From Kaz Gary: For Pride Month, Astrobites is interviewing one transgender astronomer every week. This week we interviewed Joy Bhattacharya, a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University! 🔭✨☄️ astrobites.org/2025/06/13/j...

Following the inspiration of @ohdearz.bsky.social @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social here’s the NASA fleet with the proposed budget cuts. Red X’s will be fully defunded, green X’s will lose all NASA funding but have other funding sources, and exclamation point means >50% cuts

Last week it was my honor to lead the collection of the laboratory first light spectra for the iLocater spectrograph! This is a new near-infrared extreme precision radial velocity instrument for the Large Binocular Telescope. It's been fun to spend time in the lab for the first time in a while. 🪐🔭

It must be a really fucking weird feeling to watch a mountain just... explode. Mount Saint Helens erupted on this day 45 years ago. John "Jack" V. Christianson took these photos from Mt. Adams, 54 km to the east, as his friend reacted to the eruption at 8:32 am on 18 May 1980.

Here is asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson as seen by Lucy’s LORRI camera! It’s a contact binary/bi-lobate asteroid 🎉🎊 Image taken on April 20, 2025 from a range of approximately 1100 km. Credit: NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOIRLab urldefense.com/v3/__https:/... #PlanetSci #SciComm 🧪

So proud of Caprice, a brilliant scientist & a tremendous leader! She is the 2nd Black woman to earn their PhD in the OSU astronomy department; the first was Dr. Kiersten Boley last year. I am excited to see all the great science they will do in their careers! artsandsciences.osu.edu/news/astrono...

An astonishing headline reporting on new observations from a team led to Nikku Madhusudhan claims they’ve found ‘hints of life’ on a planet orbiting a dwarf star some 124 light years away. What’s going on? (1/n) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... 🔭 🧪

First the rumour was a 20% budget cut. Then, 50%. Now the president's NASA budget is out and it's a 68% cut to astrophysics ($1.5B to $487M). Even if this gets reversed in four years, we will *never* recover the missions, partners, people who will be gone. www.washingtonpost.com/science/2025...

New paper day! Today our group has THREE papers up on arXiv! (Two newly posted, one resubmission). These papers were led by three of my wonderful students, who have put a ton of work into data analysis and tools. (1/n) 🔭🪐

This administration is literally destroying US science. The NSF REU program is a foundational pathway for building the next generation science workforce. I say as an REU alum.

Slava Ukraini 🇺🇦

Disgusting - Ohio State University is dissolving its Office of Diversity & Inclusion (ODI) and its Center for Belonging and Social Change (CBSC). OSU President Carter is announcing this at the University Senate meeting happening now but ODI and CBSC employees have already received layoff notices.

This morning, the US National Science Foundation fired 168 employees, approximately 10% of its workforce, for no cause other than they were the agency's most recent hires. 🧪 Co-workers are leaving supportive messages before they have to clear out of the building at 5 p.m. Sent to me by a source ⬇️

Spot the difference.

If you cannot call it what it is when all in a week: a government removes every mention of a group of people, destroys information about them en masse, bans their discussion in schools, restricts their ability to travel and starts seizing and refusing their official identification, when will you?