4.5 out of 5 stare to “On The Calculation Of Volume” (books 1 & 2) by Solvej Balle. Yes, it’s a 24-hour time loop, but this is not the fun version of Groundhog Day or the second chances take of Palm Springs, but of descents into madness. Recommended. www.goodreads.com/book/show/21...

This is amazing news! 🎉 🎊 Michele's science contributions 🔭🧪 include space missions llike NASA's Cassini, and being astronomer royal places her in an ideal position to educate and inspire the public about astronomy!

One of the greatest scientist communicators of all time has passed on. The Science Division at UCSC was so fortunate to have had Tom Lehrer on our faculty for almost 30 years. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

The Ramans do everything in threes. 👀 arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

4.5 out of 5 stars to “The Mercy of Gods” by James A. Corey. A great story of alien invasion and of timid scientists learning how to fight back. There is clearly lots of action and world building to come. Looking forward to the next instalment!

We started this project 17 years ago, and at last here’s the paper! I’m pleased to present the Polarisation Sky Survey of the Universe’s Magnetism (POSSUM), a total game changer in our understanding of magnetic fields throughout the cosmos. 🧲 🌌📡

So grateful for our amazing staff!

UCSC put on a special “Inspire NYC” event last night in New York, hosted by our Chancellor Cynthia Larive. It was such a privilege to do a deep dive into how the brilliant minds of my @ucscscience.bsky.social colleagues Kristy Kroeker and Heather Tallis work, and I enjoyed meeting many UCSC alums.

Or in plain English: our telescope, which spans the continent, has pinpointed a flash that's 130 million light years away and that lasted for less than a millisecond, to a precision better than the size of a guitar pick viewed from 60 km away. 🤯

The dawn of a new era: the very first sub-arcsecond localization of a fast radio burst using the CHIME telescope and its outriggers. 
 Congratulations to the amazing group of students and postdocs who have led this incredible achievement over the past frenetic 11 days!

It was such an honor to hear former Space Telescope director Bob Williams speak last night about the 30th anniversary of the Hubble Deep Field. And now he has both an asteroid (officially) and a quasar (unofficially) named after him!

World’s largest pistachio!

Our research on fast radio bursts is above the fold! (on my phone) 🧪 🔭

Come to the #AAS245 town hall today to discuss the ethical and other challenges that we face in using AI in astronomy! 12.45pm in National Harbor 2. (Below is what you get from ChatGPT when you ask for an optimistic and then a pessimistic view of astronomy and AI.) 🔭

It’s a thrill to hear the Rossi Prize lecture at #AAS245 this morning. Marty Weisskopf, a giant of X-ray astronomy, is explaining how we can now measure X-ray polarization with the IXPE mission.

#AAS245 with 3654 attendees as of this afternoon, this is the largest AAS meeting ever, beating the previous record set by Honolulu in 2020.

Congratulations to @samayanissanke.bsky.social on winning the AAS HEAD mid-career prize! #AAS245 🔭

Ignore the oversimplified headline. This is a good, nuanced, discussion about the potential problem with Indigenous land acknowledgements (from an American perspective), and why they're harmful unless they're accompanied by action. (1/4)

5 out of 5 stars to “Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang. Everyone in this book is different levels of despicable, delightful awfulness. R.F. Kuang has written a satirical gem; a must-read. Full review: www.goodreads.com/book/show/62...

3.5 out of 5 stars to “The Ministry of Time” by Kaliane Bradley. A sad & moving interpersonal story sits at the centre of what is otherwise a somewhat uneven & confounding book. A lot of what happens doesn’t make much factual sense, but there’s enough of a human element to make the read worthwhile.

5 out of 5 stars to “Singer Distance” by Ethan Chatagnier. An extraordinarily beautiful and poignant story about love, family, and … Martians. It was impossible to see where this was going, but the ending ended up being beyond satisfying. A wonderful gem of a novel.

4.5 out of 5 stars to “This Time Tomorrow“ by Emma Straub. Yes, it’s another time-travel story. Yes, it’s about the road not taken, and regrets, and second chances. But nevertheless, it’s fresh, sweet, sad, funny, and compelling. Full review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

4 out of 5 stars to “Disquiet Gods” by Christopher Ruocchio. I’m 6000 pages into this series, and to be honest I don’t want it to end. Full review: www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

3.5 out of 5 stars to “Lords of Uncreation” by Adrian Tchaikovsky. A decent ending to a solid trilogy. Overall, this series shines in its premise and resolution, but lags a little in its reliance on the usual misfit spaceship crew who save the day. www.goodreads.com/book/show/62...

Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony are all clues, but all four are part of different answers?! The NYT puzzle editor is an evil genius.

Out now in @theconversation.com, I write about our discovery of the first long-period radio transient with an optical counterpart -- our first clue to the progenitors of this mysterious class of objects! theconversation.com/astronomers-...

Germany and India are now official members of #SKAO! 🎉 #radioastronomy Read more: www.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de/announcement... www.skao.int/en/news/590/...

Important advice: how to avoid gender bias when writing recommendation letters.

I want the opening paragraphs of my obituary to contain at least one of the phrases "destroyed everything in the Universe" or "evil twin".

Research is spending 6 hours reading 35 papers, so you can write one sentence containing 2 references.

The AAS Publications Committee (which oversees publication of ApJ, ApJL, ApJS, AJ, PSJ, RNAAS, AAS ebooks, and Sky & Telescope) will be holding its next meeting in early January. If you have questions, concerns or issues that you want the Committee to consider, please let me know! 🔭

Out today in ApJL! Our discovery of the first long-period radio transient with a stellar counterpart: www.icrar.org/binarytransi... At least *some* of these objects might be explicable as binary systems!

Helmut Abt, stellar astronomer, former ApJ editor, and one of the founders of Kitt Peak National Observatory, passed away today at age 99. Helmut played a large role in setting up KPNO, a new concept at the time of a publicly open facility, offering telescope time based solely on scientific merit.

How do I turn science mode on? 😒

👏👏👏

Strongly agree. I am pretty sure that Marlon Brando did not put “Academy Award (declined)” on his CV.

40th anniversary of the SETI Institute. Honoring co-founder Jill Tarter, and with video messages from Brian May and Jodie Foster!

Today is GIVING DAY at University of California, Santa Cruz, your 24-hour opportunity to support the projects that mean the most to you!

There are two amazing opportunities on offer to work in my team at UC Santa Cruz: 1. Executive Director of Development for UCSC Science (initial review date Dec 17): advancement.ucsc.edu/join-our-tea...

A special opportunity to gather together many of Matthew Bailes’ former and current students and postdocs at FRB2024.

7000 Australian academics were sent identical emails, seeming to be from a student, and asking about possible PhD projects. Just like in previous experiments in the USA, the student’s race had a big effect on whether they got a prompt reply, and whether the reply was supportive.

“The rest of the thesis contains careful, reasoned findings and figures, but on this one page, the author-scientist can release all the pent-up emotion they couldn’t express elsewhere.” A beautiful journey through PhD acknowledgements from Tabitha Carvan. science.anu.edu.au/news-events/...

My heart is very full after attending UCSC Science graduation ceremonies this week for Cal Teach, ACE, Global & Community Health, and Coastal Science & Policy. So many amazing people who are poised to change the world. Congratulations, Banana Slugs!

A true giant has passed on. Ron Reynolds redefined our understanding of interstellar gas, and was a wonderful and kind colleague. Rest in peace. www.cressfuneralservice.com/obituaries/r...

It was a very special evening yesterday, where we celebrated our UCSC Science Distinguished Alumni Awards for 2024. Congratulations to 3 extraordinary Banana Slugs who have each given so much back to the community: Dr Maximiliano Cuevas, Prof Jesús González & Dr Chuck Lawson!

The right way to experience an eclipse.

There are vaccine deniers, climate deniers and moon-landing deniers, but strangely there are no eclipse deniers. Here are my thoughts from the last eclipse on why: theconversation.com/eclipse-of-r...

An amazing dinner last night in New York City, hosted by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and friends. A deep discussion of the role of the humanities in our future, and why studying the future is important.

Really fun session today at #SMP2004 on “The Life of Brian(s)” with me & Brian Schmidt, and hosted by Donna Lu. It ended of course with the question: apart from vaccines, computers, wifi, clean air/water, cars, planes, medicine, & manufacturing, what has science ever done for us? (📸: Jas Chambers)

US ambassador Caroline Kennedy closes #SMP2024 by talking about Australian and American joint efforts to eliminate cancer: “We do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”