Fun fact: many of the prettiest photos taken by robotic spacecraft were similarly framed ahead of time by humans using simulators of view geometry to pick when the spacecraft should shoot the photo. Case in point: this photo of Europa over Jupiter from New Horizons science.nasa.gov/image-detail...

"self-defeating toxic masculinity prevents men from seeking important jobs in growth fields" FIFY

Something I recently learned that's very important for interpreting this: If we could wave a wand to make every 14-year-old who was about to get pregnant wait instead until age 24, that would be GREAT. But it would make "fertility rate" look lower for 10 years, even if total kids ended up the same.

I'm telling you, the solution to many problems in education is to hire school librarians (at a liveable wage, with administrative support, and adequate resources). Your students don't need an LLM, they need a librarian.

It might be all the criminal charges against them that lawyers like me are STILL defending pro bono as they can't get housing or jobs or healthcare because everyone smeared them as terrorism supporters. Or maybe that the ones who do try protesting are immediately arrested too. Might be that.

The FY 2027 NASA budget request hides its science cuts by omitting mission names instead of explicitly zeroing them out. We did the work and found 54 missions cancelled in this proposal. This is another extinction-level event for NASA science. Full list: planetary.org/save-nasa-science

This is such a good idea. We should do this in NYC. "All Chicago Public Schools students now have access to nearly everything the city’s libraries have to offer — including physical items like books as well as extensive digital resources." blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/08/c...

I couldn't breathe because I was laughing so hard. That bird's an asshole! 😂😂😂😂😂 Best with volume up.

*mutter* That annoying discovery that one of your own character would be tapping his foot and looking down his mask at you.

Not that I'm expert in any of this, but I haven't read Trump's threat against Iranian civilization to necessarily be a nuclear one. As I understand it, an awful lot of Iran is heavily dependent on electricity for things like "drinking water". If we destroy their power plants, whole cities will die.

The thing that's been haunting me about this all along but especially in moments like today, is that our elected leaders could check him, any time. It's just that every. single. Republican. has chosen to support all this. There could be legislation right now stripping war powers, or impeaching him.

A friend described doing an exercise w/ a group of students from around the world, asking them to write down the best & worst thing about a bunch of different countries. Answers varied a lot for all countries except for one: every single person said the best thing about the USA is NASA.

Yeah, well it's not so great down here either, ABC News.

Because the Moon is tidally locked to the Earth, if you build your habitat on some plot of near-side regolith you can put the little Earth anywhere in the sky you want & it’ll stay there, lazily meandering around just a little as the Moon wobbles in its orbit. A view of Earthset from #Artemis II.

#Artemis II lunar flyby images are showing up! 😍 A crescent Earth setting behind the Moon.

This is a long thread, but one worth reading and thinking about. It provides a helpful way of thinking about where we are, but most importantly, how to get to somewhere better.

HORATIO: Look, my lord, it comes. HAMLET’S DAD’S GHOST: (rockets past at inconceivable speed) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Mexico’s overwintering monarch population grew 64% this winter, with butterflies covering their largest area of forest since 2018. The recovery remains fragile, but suggests there’s been a positive impact from conservation efforts in the butterflies’ core habitat. buff.ly/XoPKQ9d #ShareGoodNewsToo

I was talking to a student about grad school just yesterday, and boy, I'm talking about international possibilities a LOT more than I ever have before. It's really tough to have to say that our nation is deliberately on the verge of ending science as a viable career for most people.

Going beyond the spherical cow approximation. The paper we all needed. 🎢 ⚛️ 🧪 ♾️ 🐄

Imagine two towns. One has a public library on Main Street. The other has an expensive bookstore in the rich neighborhood, and a library in the poor neighborhood that requires proof of low income. Just intuitively, as a thought experiment: which library below would you expect to find in each town?

“go back to the moon but this time we have really good cameras” was a fantastic idea

moby-dick, his eyes enormous: from hell's heart you STAB at moby? for hate's sake you spit your last BREATH at moby? oh! oh! the great shroud of the sea for ahab! the great shroud of the sea rolling on as it rolled five thousand years ago!!!!

with follow up (this was a rewrite of the first attempted follow up)

I almost forgot about this one

I went back to capture what the astronauts said in full when the clock was stopped at T-10 minutes and they were asked if they were go for launch: This is Victor. We are going for our families. This is Christina. We are going for our teammates. This is Jeremy. We are going for all humanity.

guys this is so nice :') I love that we're all online watching a thing that's good instead of bad :')

Shout-out to every other Gen Xer that was holding their breath the entire time for the first five mintues of the launch For r e a s o n s

I don’t think anyone else in this hotel bar has any idea there is a moon launch happening right now. Human spaceflight really has only one purpose and that’s inspiring people to accomplish formerly impossible things. We are not doing this right if no one knows about it.

Our account @bellesaco, with a community of 700k followers and 10+ years of content dedicated to women’s sexual health, was permanently deleted by Instagram this past weekend. Four days after Meta lost a $375M child safety lawsuit. Our violation? Using the word “clitoris.”

If all goes according to plan, in a few hours, a crew of astronauts will begin a journey that will take them on a loop around the moon. Here's a video that NASA put together to help people visualize the journey through space, first orbiting the earth before looping around the moon and flying home 🔭

In honor of (hopefully) today's launch of NASA's Artemis II mission, the first crewed mission to orbit the Moon in more than 50 years, here is a to-scale graphic of exactly how far away the Moon actually is. (Click image to expand.) You could fit about 30 Earths between the Earth and the Moon!

Yessssssss 🙌🙌🙌🙌 Jewish belief in right to abortion for the WINNNNN

One indication of congressional atrophy is that people turn to SCOTUS for the thing we should but don't get from Congress: an actual public debate on an important policy issue. Which of course isn't supposed to be a legislative debate, but we've stopped having any actual legislative debates.

Officials at an Omaha-area high school ordered the student newspaper to remove this editorial cartoon criticizing ICE, then demanded prior review of articles about their censorship. Via @splc.org, which is advocating for the students: splc.org/2026/03/nebr...

This looks like a fun idea: publicly demonstrate that you have no memory of how to win Zork! To quote the bot's profile: Instructions at lexibrium.com/zorkbot/ or just dive in by posting "@zorkbot.bsky.social start game"

the archaeological record can't prove grown egyptian men WEREN'T taking their model horsies and engaging in turn-based tactical miniature wargames on the weekends

My Flourishing book is on sale at Amazon today, lowest I've ever seen it, so I bought some too, to give away. amzn.to/47qhVZs

The medical shit on this timeline, at least, is pretty incredible

I have just had a *lovely* week away from everything, spending time with friends and family and immersing myself in art and community. It's a little terrifying to consider trying to figure out what new horrors have happened since I last looked at the news.

hey if "the economy" is completely decoupled from the welfare of the people, WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT OF THE ECONOMY

This is fascinating science! And the anecdote at the end about inspiration coming during a conversation over dinner with a non-scientist spouse is lovely. ("Did you check?")

March 20th is Fred Rogers' birthday. Be a beautiful neighbor, or maybe even just spend some time figuring out how and planning to be the best neighbor you can.

A number of Jewish organizations are shrilly insisting that any criticism of Israeli genocide and warmongering is an illegitimate attack on Jews. At the same time, an increasing number of non-Jewish people are insisting that any attack on Jews is a legitimate attack on Israel. This sucks, man

I have a joke about [you do not have access to this joke through your institution] Buy this joke Purchase on SpringerLink Instant access to the full joke PDF. USD 39.95

I'm not linking to today's "Drive" comic by @davekellett.bsky.social: it's a great climactic and surprising moment, with spoilers you shouldn't even glimpse. But boy, this story's worth reading: consistent humor, characters you care about, a fascinating sci-fi setting, and an engaging plot. So good!

We got a DM the other day with a fun request from a local family: Could we find this nice BART train operator who always waved and beeped at this special little rider? And if we found him, could we deliver him a thank you card!?  So we got to work …