One of my students, Jingqui Liu, has been reported missing (she also goes by Nunnally - like Natalie but with an N instead of a T). She's an international student and hasn't been seen since Sept. 17/18. Please call UMD police with leads: Non emergency line: 301-405-3555 Emergency line: 301-405-3333

Please take a break from today’s doomscrolling. MY ROBOT IS GOING TO THE MOON!!!! MISSION UNCANCELLED!!!!! @hankgreen.bsky.social Optimists finally get a win!

Hiding from society behind a bunch of rocks and craft cider

This loop of the surface rupture is absolutely mesmerizing. I’ve spent the entire week so far watching the whole video repeatedly, and each time I discover something new. ⚒️ 🧪

I would like to live in a timeline when I don’t feel the need to answer the phone with “what sweet Hell do you have for me today?”

MY LITTLE COUSIN WON MARCH MADNESS!!! I’m so proud of him! (He’s one of the coaches- second from the bottom left corner) (And thus ends my sportsball attention span)

The kind of story we need right now:

Trump's antisemitism agenda isn't about the Jews. I wrote about how the president and his allies are using the pretext of protecting Jews to protect their policies from criticism, while advancing an agenda that most American Jews oppose. Gift link:

@ahrensscience.bsky.social relevant to the Colloquium discussion… (GIA = guano islands act)

Well, then. I guess my burnout weeks curled in my bed full of overwhelm were well spent?

I cannot understate how appalling and helpless it feels as a Jew that this is being done under the guise of fighting antisemitism.

I made a critical mistake. I am the only one of my advisor’s students here. My advisor is doing the commentary. I’m sure I don’t need to elaborate why this was a mistake 🫠

Time for our semi-annual “bad geology” movie night, brought to you by the UMD Department of Geology with commentary by Dr. Nick Schmerr! Honestly, given *gestures at everything*, we should do this more often…

Still waiting on my “Apollo core rope memory” knitting pattern for a scarf

I recently stumbled into the “are sharks fish” debate that I didn’t know existed

Well, we have reached the “I have used this watershed monitoring site from the EPA as of 2pm but I would get that part of your assignment done first because we don’t know when it’ll get taken down” stage of teaching an environmental geology class

I can’t argue with that

I am responding to repeated public calls to get more scientists to run for office. It sounds like you are having a different conversation. But lots of politicians absolutely listen to their science advisors. We should support those that do and elect new ones.

@whysharksmatter.bsky.social I disagree. my first degree is in political science. I went back to school for a science PhD to become an advisors. The general public doesn’t understand the scientific process well and thus a lot of science policy isn’t politically expedient when trying to get elected

I hope all seismologists talk to their students about how the political unrest in Myanmar worsens the earthquake’s fallout. No central control, no trust in first responders/NGOs, justification for ethnic cleansing. We need big quakes for science, but we stay siloed in seismology at our own peril.

I show this video to my students every year. Mostly so I can laugh. And pick out the ones I have a shot at converting to a geology major 🤣

I resent that. We have “On the Rheology of Cats”, thank you very much.

The Constitution was never designed to be a static document. The founding fathers knew that as more land got eaten and the population grew, new amendments would be needed. But also the big vs. small government fight started literally at the document’s signing so 🤷🏻‍♀️

A key thing to realize is that the government DIDN’T function. There were armed rebellions and nonsense all over the place, so the government created new offices and roles to actually handle the realities of running a geographically massive and ethnically diverse nation.

Oh man these were so popular with kiddos

EVERYONE NEEDS A HAPPY STORY: I correctly (MD confirmed) diagnosed one of my undergrads with Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Most people I know with POTS suffer for 5-10 years (or more) undiagnosed, many have had to totally drop out of their lives for long periods while waiting 1/3

Jeremy Boyce low-key had my favorite talk at #LPSC2025 because of the impeccable vibes. Excuse the red scribble from my fat finger.

All moons are good moons. Unless it’s Mimas, then it’s the Death Star and it’s a FUN moon

I was deeply insulted by an EDM cover of “Sound of Silence” played the other day, though. #LPSC2025

Me too. Last night’s #LPSC2025 poster session was wildly successful but absolutely wrecked me

My friend Janette Levin starts us off this morning at #LPSC2025 with looking at lunar crustal thickness in the Procellarum basin. Abstract here: www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lps...

Super excited for the shallow lunar crust session this morning at #LPSC2025. I have reached the “I need coffee even though it’s yucky” part of this conference.

Ok it’s time for my #LPSC2025 poster recommendations:

@roguenasa.altgov.info you might want to check out the JPL substack for the YouTube video from LPSC’s HQ town hall.

Ceri Nunn is talking about the Far Side Seismic Suite at #LPSC2025! My favorite CLPS mission now that VIPER may or may not actually launch. FSS could be part of a possible seismic suite! Including Artemis III and Chang’e 7 and 8. Woo more seismology! FSS is a cute little cube perched on its lander.

Paul Niles is up to talk about the future of scientific lunar exploration at #LPSC2025. Over the last few decades, science missions are getting more expensive (inflation adjusted) and taking longer to develop. Is this risk aversion? Increased complexity? Not sure, but that’s not the point.

The Moon talks are now going through a few corporate programs…I’m here for science, not private companies advertising their toys… #LPSC2025

Interlune time! Elizabeth Frank claiming that Helium-3 is the most valuable resource on the Moon with lots of uses in a huge number of fields. It’s made during solar wind interactions with regolith. The idea here is to extract He3 and mine it #LPSC2025

John Baker from JPL is at #LPSC2025 now to talk about progress on the Endurance mission concept! One of the most exciting aspects of Endurance is the goal of traveling something like 2000 km across SPA. How do we drive faster (10x faster than Percy)? More autonomous navigation and control?

@jtuttlekeane.bsky.social, our resident artist, up next at #LPSC2025 talking about all the missions heading to South Pole Aiken (SPA) Basin! SPA is so big that it dug all the way into the Moon’s mantle and is so old that it is older than Earth’s oceans- it can maybe tell us a bit about early Earth!

Lauren Egan is talking about some super cool test EVAs (extra-vehicular activities) in analog lunar sites here on Earth at #LPsC2025. The more I get into the Moon, the more I learn how we don’t have good analogs here-the Moon is in a vacuum (air does weird stuff with data and tools),

Something that I’ve never seen at a previous LPSC- at #LPSC2025, there are a ton of virtual talks and cancelled talks. NASA civil servants weren’t allowed to come and our ability to network and learn is really damaged by these executive decisions that happen on whims and have no grace period/warning

Super pumped to hear from Lauren Edgar about JETT5 Mission Simulations preparing for Artemis science! #LPSC2025

Hey folks- started a casual dine-around at #LPSC2025 on Wednesday to talk about how you can advocate for yourself and your science in a tough political environment. Sign up for Baja cantina here- m.signupgenius.com#!/showSignUp...

After a quick break to highlight some great #DisabledExcellence, back to your scheduled content: K. J. Kim is now presenting ShadowCam results from Shackleton Crater on the lunar South Pole! This is very important work because Shackleton is close to Artemis III candidate landing sites #LPSC2025

Taking a quick break from lunar volatiles at #LPSC2025 to highlight some important talks in Ballroom 1: Beyond Accessibility: Making Meetings Inclusive [#2340] by James Roberts (coauthored by a friend and mentor Jen Piatek) at 10am #Disability #Accessibility #Visibility

Conclusion: the findings show the first in-situ measured time-of-day variation of water content on the Moon

Y. Liu following up with more on solar-wind-derived water as studied using the lunar mineralogical spectrometer (LMS) on Chang’e 5 and 6 #LPSC2025 www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lps...