Anyone else working their way through the Hugo packet?

AutomataCon, a biennial convention for automata enthusiasts, returns this weekend to the Morris Museum in New Jersey. It’s organized by Brett King, a well-known #steampunk maker. We’ve posted a preview. steampunk-explorer.com/news/automat...

They destroy mountains to get limestone for concrete, the second most used building material in the world, so being able to recycle it is amazing news. #sharegoodnewstoo techxplore.com/news/2026-05...

Looks like the shade from the solar panels helped, but it’s by no means perfect yet. Sounds like the engineering requirements doc needs to be updated to say “and don’t forget the tomato’s”. 🍅

I love biochemistry around fermentation, so this paper was fun for me. They did a Genome Wide Association with 143 plants, 2 species of coffee to look for flavor genes, and the core of their study found that more sugar makes coffee taste better. ❤️❤️❤️

Saw someone express disbelief that people who vote for the Hugos actually did the reading and I'm like my sibling in Christ these are nerds and reading is their actual hyperfocus, they'll complete the whole assignment with weeks to spare

I worked in a lab that looked at using protists for hydrogen production, so this is really cool for me: "hydrogen-producing organelle called the hydrogenobody (HB), ... [with[ a single membrane, distinguishing it from canonical hydrogenosomes [...] which are mitochondrion-derived organelles."

🧪🩺

Very interesting move towards off the grid water condensation from the air itself. 🧪 #sharegoodnewstoo

Standard town housing in my villages look a lot like this: “New housing designs that reduce indoor temperatures and improve ventilation can help cut infectious disease and improve health outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa, according to new Oxford-led research.” www.globalhealth.ox.ac.uk/news/innovat...

Chimeric autoantibody receptor (CAAR) T cells are showing promise in treating autoimmune disorders. Basically, the patient's T-cells are genetically modified to attack the disease causing B cells which are attacking the healthy body tissues - 'resetting/calming' the immune system. #sharegoodnewstoo

🧪 #sharegoodnewstoo The number of scientists running for office has tripled in the USA!

The fact that cable bacteria make wires from mud and then pass electrons along them is just infinitely cool to me.

Looking into Thermodiffusive Desalination - it’s literally a temperature gradient where you split the hot from cold water. Salt concentrates in cold water.

🧪 #sharegoodnewstoo

Plant‐microbial fuel cells (PMFCs) are a cool concept - harnessing the transferal of electrons that all organisms do at some level. The plants help provide the sugar (and other metabolic products) while the battery harnesses the energy bacteria produce breaking the products down.

Not sure how I feel about current subsurface water retention technology (SWRT). Interesting for sustainable farming but installing subsoil sheets of polyethylene (plastic) seems messy for future generations to have to clean up.

One of the fun things about plants is their chemicals. For instance pelargonic acid was IDed in Pelargonium. It’s a medium chain, saturated fatty acid used as a mild herbicide because it can disrupt cell membranes (like soap) but like most fatty acids, it breaks down quickly in the environment.

Huh. Oenothera rosea (Pink Evening Primrose) is a PFAS hyperaccumulator. So you could grow it, harvest and dispose of the leaves to reduce PFAs in your soil.

Alex Pretti’s last words were “Are you ok?”

Editing a book where my protag is struggling with being chosen as the avatar for a god of vengeful justice is… still going slow. 😞

Genuinely, I've forgotten how search results used to function and what finding articles easily was like. I installed the DuckDuckGo browser after that vote thing the other day and turned off all the AI and oh my gosh, search results ✨ work ✨

Need a #scifi #book for the weekend? How about a science fiction book for the next 13 weekends the Underground Aliens bargain bundle is live with amazing books by #indiescifi #indieauthors including Peter Cawdron, Joshua James and many more. storybundle.com/aliens 💙🪐📚

Made it through 17/35 chapter edits. Onward we plod.

HELLO! I WOULD LIKE TO CONNECT WITH INDIE/SELF PUB BOOK FOLKS - CALLING ALL READERS, WRITERS, REVIEWERS! I'm judging for an indie book contest called #SPFBO and I'm looking to get the widest audience possible for this year's contest. Follow back if you want me to chuck recommendations your way!

Check out the end of the year #SciFi Bundle with 41 books for only $25! All human created books from indie creators. Last day of sale! itch.io/b/3450/the-e... #writingcommunity #booksky #Books #readingcommunity #bookcommunity #readers #readersofbluesky #booksonbluesky #readersky #queersky

1/3 the way through editing this manuscript. ! I have got to figure out how to do this faster. XD I have 2.3333 more novels and a novella waiting in the queue!!! 😅

This printing it out on paper thing really worked. It’s slow because of main job, but I’m making some major paragraph level edits.

If you see this, can you please repost it? I'm thrilled to bits that my little scifi book has been nominated for an award, and if people would be so kind to vote for it, that would mean the world to me. #BookSky #WritingCommunity #scifi #dystopian #lgbtqia #lgbtbooks #bookrecs

Yasss! Made it through several 8.5x11 inch narrow margin single spaced pages!!11!11 XD Holy Moly, I forgot how much I liked editing on paper.

Just say “I’m not dead yet!” Took a break from editing. Printed the manuscript out. It’s Rawr-vember writers!!!

Reading about the baldachin (canopy of state) on canopy beds when I come across this gem: The British state where monarchs slept the night before their coronation was sold to a couple at an auction for 100 pounds during WWII. They slept on it unaware for 30 years.

Any writers out there trying this with their blogs to sell their books yet? Just curious. "Chris Andrew is CEO and cofounder of Scrunch AI. Scrunch tries to help customers' websites get noticed by AI bots so that their name or products appear in AI answers." www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n... #writersky

Finally feel like I broke through the funk of editing! Been hitting my ~500 words per day stride again lately instead of the carving three sentences out of silicon with a block of soft tofu that I have been managing. 😆

Writer Tangents.... Learned today that some Pre-Columbian Indigenous Americans would pluck their beards with shell tweezers. web.prm.ox.ac.uk/bodyarts/ind...

*spends half an hour trying to find photos of the soles of pre-industrial Igusa (Rush Grass) sandals* ... I think I'll just make her barefoot in this scene.

Definitely hit that point in editing where I feel like just open mouthed screeching at the manuscript would be more productive than watching the cursor blink. 🤷‍♀️😅

Piliosaur diorama made as a gift and delivered at the amazing Lyme Regis Fossil Festival!

Let's do a different type of art share... With so much going on with LGBTQ+ & corporate America, why don't we keep the queer dollar in the queer community? 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ In this thread, share your Pride merch, or your friend's Pride merch. Let's buy from each other rather than the corporations this year.

This was just the sort of dystopian hopefulness I needed right now.

Tennessee Coneflower

Working my way through the Hugo novel nominee list! Made it through Someone You Can Build a Nest In, A Sorceress Comes to Call, and The Tainted Cup. Almost done with The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley and still have both Adrian Tchaikovsky novels, “Alien Clay” and “Service Model”, to go.

So, I did a raw quail egg shot the other day. Not sure why I did that.

Whew. Day job craziness is almost over for now. Looking forward to some chiller work hours over the next few months.

Whelp, got a developmental edit back that kind of bummed me out for a while. Circles has a twist ending and I apparently did not lead up to it well. BUT, finally have some ideas on how to ‘darken’ its pages and now to find the time to edit! #amediting #WIP #thinkingishard

Whelp, picked up my WIP again after some major hacking because of a sensitivity edit. Got a lot of re-smoothing to do… #writesky #wip #fantasy #sciencefantasy

Finally read Gideon the Ninth. Everyone was right. 📚 #booksky

Just finished Kingfisher by Patricia A. McKillip and could use some recommendations for some more soft magic fantasy. ❤️ #booksky

Don’t forget to support indie authors even if you’re boycotting Amazon!! #writingcommunity let’s start a thread of places your books are available outside of the Zon!! there are so many ways to support indie (especially marginalized) authors!! #writesky #booksky

A brand new Dystopian StoryBundle includes my Science Fantasy novel, They Left Magic in Their Wake: storybundle.com/dystopian This bundle of books is perfect for fans of 1984, Brave New World, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent, or The Matrix. Check it out here: storybundle.com/dystopian