Worth a read. PhD programs are meant to produce scientists, not papers. 🔭

Introducing over 11,000 new members of the Solar System...and our main survey hasn't quite started yet! ☄️ Using pre-survey observations from 2025, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory scientists have reported more than 11,000 new asteroids and comets! 🔭🧪 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/11000-n...

Wondering what you shouldn't say in a proposal? Call your program officer. Wondering what happened in panel? Call your program officer. Wondering how the latest federal stuff may affect your proposal? Call your program officer. Call your PO. 🧪 scienceforeveryone.science/call-your-pr...

It was a great meeting with lots of exciting progress on alerts from ZTF, @vrubinobs.bsky.social, and @nancyromansci.bsky.social! 🔭

Yours truly on @scifri.bsky.social! Starting about 6:15. www.sciencefriday.com/segments/new...

@dirac-institute.bsky.social enjoying a hack/sprint day working with alerts from @vrubinobs.bsky.social! 🔭

With your advanced degree you have the opportunity to train the AI in your specialized skills. Astronomy 🔭 may be economically worthless but xAI wants you to train it anyway: www.remotech.ai/jobs/space-s...

Oh hi, @vrubinobs.bsky.social! Looking good! 🔭

Words fail me.

knee deep in the hoopla

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers. The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

Rubin Observatory has started paging astronomers 800,000 times a night www.scientificamerican.com/article/rubi...

Now that's an evocative way to describe the start of @vrubinobs.bsky.social alerts! blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/26/t...

NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory has officially started releasing world-public alerts! 🎉 Here's what you need to know about these first alerts and what's coming up for Rubin ➡️ 🔭🧪☄️

Hunting down supernovae in near real time! Last night, the UK data broker Lasair ingested and rapidly processed 800,000 alerts as the @vrubinobs.bsky.social public alerts stream began! Now anyone can observe astronomical events as they unfold thanks to Rubin’s data brokers. What a milestone! 🔭

Who needs doomscrolling when you can have Rubin alerts going off 10x a second all night long?

SO excited to see the first alerts from @vrubinobs.bsky.social being broadcast to the world last night. A huge congratulations to @ebellm.bsky.social and the Alert Pipeline + Data Management teams here at @dirac-institute.bsky.social for their years of hard work! www.washington.edu/news/2026/02...

Here we go…the marvellous Vera Rubin Observatory has started scanning the sky, telling us about things that change and move. In there there are untold wonders and undoubtedly a few surprises. Let’s go!

The largest spot-the-difference effort EVER has begun!🚨 On the night of Feb 24, NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory officially released its first ~800,000 public alerts of detected changes in the night sky!🔍 A new era of discovery is here✨ 🔭🧪☄️ 🔗: rubinobservatory.org/news/first-a...

The guys who created Dark Sky and later sold it to Apple are back and have a new weather app out! apps.apple.com/us/app/acme-we...

🔭 I was disappointed to learn that NASA won't archive @ojastro.bsky.social publications on PubSpace because the journal is not listed in Sherpa Romeo (openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk)

🔭 I've defaulted to skepticism about the utility of LLMs for new science results. But particle theorists used GPT-5.2 to conjecture and then prove a general formula for gluon scattering amplitudes: arxiv.org/pdf/2602.12176 More from OpenAI here: openai.com/index/new-re...

Tell me five classes you took in college: Justice Human Sexuality Classics of Christian Literature Self and Identity Reason and Religion

🔭 Congrats to the Scialog awardees! Looking forward to seeing some exciting @vrubinobs.bsky.social science very soon1

7. Troublemaker, by El Lissitzky, 1913

Back from a quick but lovely visit to the UCSD astronomy department!

“I have asked the clergy of the diocese to make sure their affairs are in order and they have written their wills.,not the time for statements. It is time to put our bodies between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable”. Rob Hirschfeld, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire

✨ Andy Tzanidakis (Univ of Washington) chats about his article on stars with irregular, aperiodic luminosity dimming events & where the science goes next: youtu.be/z0th9YvNgCo 🔭 The AAS Journal Author Series connects authors w/their research, their human stories & the broader astronomy community.

Spot the cosmic imposters! 🔍 Help fine-tune NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory’s alert system and figure out which detected changes in the sky are cosmic events vs. imposters with Rubin Difference Detectives on Zooniverse🧐 Join now: zooniverse.org/rubin 🔭🧪

Hrg over. Cruz and Cantwell both said they hope the nomination will clear the Senate by the end of the year. Markey honed in again on Isaacman's relationship w/Musk. Several stressed need to support science and aero. Isaacman said sci, aero, tech just as impt as human spcflt.

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

My family policy of "no Roblox, ever, under any circumstance" is looking pretty solid.

I had to add pelvic floor stretches to my "getting older" regimen a few years ago, so this was very interesting to read.

Some false reports are circulating that Mt. Rainier is suddenly showing seismic tremor activity — this is not true. The signal being referenced is actually radio interference, most likely due to rime ice buildup on the antenna of one of our seismic stations.

Something’s a little sus… 👀 Flares, flashes, and fakes — not every change in the night sky is what it seems 💥✨ Test your skills with Rubin Difference Detectives on Zooniverse! Help Rubin scientists spot cosmic events (and catch the imposters). 🌌🔍 👉 zooniverse.org/rubin

AAG submitted to sponsored research! This one has gone through the rock tumbler several times and is certainly polished; let's hope it's exciting enough to get over the hump this time.

Well, instead of going to San Diego to give a nice talk I'm going to stay in rainy Seattle and have COVID in the basement 😑

I'm still watching this four days later, it's weirdly compelling. 14 people have been doing a lap an hour every hour for the last 89 hours. Every X:55 they stagger in, grab a drink, and line up again... www.youtube.com/@backyardult...

Because, look. Print order is a choice. No one obliges you to print a guy going “I like Bartletts for this” and then immediately, no space in between, have two other cooks going “if you don’t use Bosc pears you might as well piss in it”. You choose to do that. And I’m very glad for it.

There's a livestream! www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx7S...

~ 1000 astro bachelors degrees given out last year, a new record, while most grad programs are planning to admit fewer students this year (due to reduced or uncertain federal funding).

Wrapping up a very nice visit to the Yale Astronomy Department. Lots of lovely discussions about Rubin, ZTF, compact binaries, and much more!

Really stoked that dear family friend Steve Joo has been named one of @foodandwine.com's Best New Chefs for 2025. If you are in the Bay Area, check out www.joodooboo.co! www.foodandwine.com/2025-best-ne...

Yes but I, personally, was young then

ZTF 🔭 is now shadowing the @vrubinobs.bsky.social Science Validation survey footprint with a daily cadence in gri! www.wis-tns.org/astronotes/a... I made a "watchmap" for the Lasair broker that for all ZTF alerts falling in this region: lasair-ztf.lsst.ac.uk/watchmaps/568/

So the Grand Canyon is on fire...

Trump’s ‘Gold Standard’ for Science Manufactures Doubt - The Atlantic www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Yesterday, astrophysicist Eric Bellm told us about his involvement with the groundbreaking Vera Rubin Observatory, as well as the astonishing things this #telescope could achieve in the coming years. 🔭 Watch at buff.ly/RcmRZEy