Epic paper!!

The rocks you're breaking might be breaking along fractures, cleavage or foliation planes if metamorphic rock, or original layering/bedding planes for sedimentary (or really low grade metamorphic) rocks.

And depending on how deep the dike goes, the deeper end might be gabbro: same minerals as basalt but bigger crystals because it cooled more slowly & they had time to grow.

Gabbro forms for more than about 2 km of overburden pressure (at least going by oceanic crust). That's within the range that cracks in rock open from decompression (so most basalt won't have had enough overburden to have decompression fractures).

Nope, columns form in thick basalt flows as they cool. They're a function of the rock shrinking. Dikes are usually conduits through which basalt gets to the surface.

I think that's likely why, fractures need stress concentrated in a narrow area. Not sure I've seen a test/model of that though....

Recent posts have prompted me to think about really basic info related to a field that people outside it have no reason to know. Like longitude running from 0 to 360 degrees (or 180 if East and West is specified) while latitude only ever goes from 0 to 90. What are some other examples?

NASA's newly released images of interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS come from across the solar system: Mars surface, Mars orbit, and the L1 point. They are dividends from investing in exploration & pushing the bounds of knowledge. 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/solar-system...

NASA presser for 3I/ATLAS starting now: www.youtube.com/live/A55SUq2...

published in 2018 and meanwhile seven years old(!), but still a highlight: wiggling 𝘝𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘦 competence pilus catching DNA for uptake/transformation. found during the repair of our archive. written by @racheldiner.bsky.social . #MicroSky

This is wonderful, and shows where curiosity can take you and others (including professionals!) even if you're 8 years old. It helps too that the Astronomer Royal is aces.

✨ A study in nature.com from our Faculty at @unikarlova.cuni.cz reveals Solarion arienae, a rare #protist forming a newly identified eukaryotic supersroup Disparia. A unique window into early #eukaryotic cell #evolution. 🌍🔬👏 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A couple of really nice stories about the intriguing subsolar mass candidate #S251112cm www.science.org/content/arti... by Adrian Cho www.iflscience.com/candidate-gr... by @drcarpineti.bsky.social A groundbreaking discovery, or just a false alarm? Time (and more analysis) may tell 🔭🧪☄️⚛️

@teddykareta.bsky.social "They planned this for 50 years. Those furry things in Star Wars were called ewoks. And now everyone's furry and woke. And woke is ewok spelled backwards."

A new mini-documentary by our colleagues at @uofgravity.bsky.social celebrating the 10th anniversary of our first detection and the progress in #GravitationalWave astronomy youtu.be/SqhFtkQ4f2c #GW10Years 🔭🧪⚛️🎢

Anyone in the feed fluent in Arabic (literary)? I need a bit of input on a small thing.

Fun fact: Apache jumping spiders (Phidippus apacheanus) are completely harmless, but evolved to mimic velvet ants from the genus Dasymutilla so predators wouldn't mess with them.

ok once i had to meet a legislator in Albany NY and i get to the state legisltive building and they search my bag and won't let me in with my dinky plastic sopranino recorder, claiming it is a nuisance instrument. they wldnt hold it at th desk either. i had to hide it outside..

Astronomers, question! If you have a dedicated astronomy major, what upper level *physics* classes do you require your students to take? We are getting our Astro major together at Oregon, and while I think a class of classical+E&M, we’re wondering if a class in QM is actually useful 👀

Jamaica more or less out of the news entirely just a few weeks after Melissa hit. It shouldn't be. "Hurricane Melissa changed the life of every Jamaican in less than 24 hours."

Our work on Naegleria Myosin 2 is out! Naegleria encodes 3 Myo2s which contract its actin network—the first evidence of contractile Myo2 outside of Amorphea. Myo2 is actually widespread in Naegleria's relatives and correlates with fast cell crawling. Read more: www.cell.com/current-biol...

Oxychlorine Species On Mars: A Review astrobiology.com/2025/11/oxyc... #astrobiology #mars #astrogeology

Well, here's some very exciting news! I've been wanting to share this for a few months, but had to wait for the pre-print to drop. A NEW GLITCH ON A MILLISECOND PULSAR HAS BEEN OBSERVED! These events are extremely rare - only two others since MSPs discovered. 🔭🧪📡

I've written a post about a tiny monster, a copepod which is monstrous by name and by nature. It has no mouth and it must mate. As a juvenile, it lives in the body of a worm, and when it reaches adulthood, it pops out like a tiny xenomorph. #Invertebrate 🧪 dailyparasite.blogspot.com/2025/11/cymb...

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT, has a new exhibit: Ants - Tiny Creatures, Big Lives. We went today, and here are some impressions. It’s not a massive exhibit, but well done and certainly worth checking out if you’re in the area. The exhibit runs through May 17.

The Science Teachers Association of New York State (STANYS), who have had PRI as a long time educational partner (most recently last week for a program "Finding Climate Change Solutions From Across the Sciences") have made a statement of support for saving the Paleontological Research Institution ⚒️

"It's most noted for the patches of prairie that are still there that haven't been changed in millennia," Smiley said, adding that Michigan has lost 99% of its lakeplain prairie, a species-rich prairie community... www.msn.com/en-us/news/u...

A moment of relief: Sponges have been restored at the root of the evolutionary tree -- and not the comb jellies, those hot freaks.

I canNOT believe I saw this sneaky-peeky bird. No wonder it’s rare to see American bitterns! #Bittern #Birds #Ridgefield #PNW #Wildlife #Nature #Photography #GoOutside #Breathe #Notice #KeepGoing

I am so excited to share new work on a TE insertion that regulates iridescence in swordtails, led by fantastic grad student @nadiahaghani.bsky.social and with help from many coauthors! In a time that has been so difficult to navigate, this & other projects have kept my spirits up: shorturl.at/NE65A

I, too, find it surprising that I remain intact after the close passages of 2025 I must not be a comet Bummer

A wonderful collaboration between my lab and Andy Ellington and Edward Marcotte here at UT. We obtained lots of thermal stable plastic degrading enzymes from the deep sea (Guaymas Basin, Gulf of California)

I’ve seen this shared several times with the header and footer not visible, so you can’t see the artists’s name. Credit: Leo the Alien — alienyrox on redbubble and other platforms.

Love Fulgorids! The butt fireworks are wax lines along which honeydew waste can drip away from the body. They also serve as a defense.

55 years ago today the thing with the whale happened. Happy exploding whale day to all who celebrate. youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?...

Is exploding rotting whale a metaphor for the internet?

50 years ago, today, a whale exploded on an Oregon beach. 20 years later, before social media or video sharing sights or smartphones, it would become the first viral Internet video. We sent it to each other in the mail. The History of Exploding Whales Is the History of the Internet Itself

The findings come more than 30 years after the last cases of wild polio virus infections in people were registered in Germany and mark the first wild virus detection from environmental sampling in the country since this type of routine monitoring began in 2021.

🏺 Look at this gorgeous Iron Age jug from Cyprus whose spout is formed by another jug held by a tiny woman! #Matriarcha

Flowers, gouache

That's good. Migratory animals have evolved to use milky way... I wonder how various animals DO interact w araura? There must be studies!

🧠🌟🐭 Excited to share some of my postdoc work on the evolution of dexterity! We compared deer mice evolved in forest vs prairie habitats. We found that forest mice have: (1) more corticospinal neurons (CSNs) (2) better hand dexterity (3) more dexterous climbing, which is linked to CSN number🧵

Get outside into a dark place if you can tonight - no guarantees, but a possible brilliant display of the northern lights.

🚨HAPPY EXPLODING WHALE DAY🚨 1/n www.oregonlive.com/travel/2024/...

Everyone's auroraposting but my tropical sky is severely lacking any, so here's Utaurora comosa from Cambrian Utah. #Art #SciArt

More 4 seasons landscaping level shit from th vermine taking over th government.

Wish I'd a imagined it wasn't cloudy I'd a gone out earlier to look but I dud find finally a patch of clear sky and big faint red swath that didnt belong there. Araura!

Weird that we have a planet-wide magnetic defense system that self activates when the sun decides to attack but it is very pretty

Hints of the aurora in Boston tonight, even with the city lights (best captured by phone camera)