"The willingness to travel long distances by train has increased dramatically...The Berlin-Paris ICE is a great success, 80%+ occupancy. We thought 50% of passengers would travel the full 8h, but 75% do. Talking to SNCF about a 2nd Berlin-Paris train in 2028." www.berliner-zeitung.de/article/chef...

It's Earth Day! Enjoy Alfred Wegener's 1929 illustrations of Pangaea and continental drift, from the 4th ed. of Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/00200... #histsci #earthday

Speaking of the incredible art, I should mention the artists! Images in the book are by Lisa Monias, who illustrated them from photos taken by Joel Sartore and @brianskerry.bsky.social (both are longtime photogs for National Geographic)

I came across a family of great horned owls in Chicago (at an undisclosed location). They were being harrassed by crows and a Cooper's hawk. I sure hope they don't eat any poisoned rats!

I contributed to this article refuting the claim by German toxicologist Dr. Helmut Sterz — widely amplified by Elon Musk — that COVID vaccines likely killed ~60,000 Germans. www.factcheck.org/2026/04/elon...

It's funny because it's true.

Increasingly I keep being told by normies that they would “love to go to the symphony someday” and it’s starting to drive me crazy because if you want to go, you can just go! It’s not a once-in-a-lifetime thing! It’s not expensive! You don’t have to know anything! Just buy a ticket and go!

the Artemis crew took photography classes so they could take the best photos possible up there 😭

👀

I would like to read an essay a person who knows French History that connects the Vibecession to how the "fin de siècle" and "belle époque" happened at the same time.

The tables at the Original George's Gyros Spot in Chesterton are decorated with comic strips featuring a gyros and a Chicago hot dog who apparently live together.

This reminds me of quite possibly the best review of anything, ever. medium.com/the-hairpin/...

Thread on the South Korean president’s evolving stance on Israel, as he faces increasing economic pressure from the war in Iran:

Most of these kids should just be hired to drive trains — or give officially-sanctioned tours of the subway system! www.nytimes.com/2026/04/10/n...

Chewing gum has enormous social and financial externalities, and should be banned.

A common loon eats crayfish this morning in Belmont Harbor.

Very cool blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/08/c...

Guess who's having cataract surgery tomorrow morning? ME! I get a pretty new lens, but I'm currently freaking out about needles and eyes. 💉👁️ 😱 So here's a sweet pair of bronze, frit, and stone eyes made for a statue, now lost. 🏺 Greek, 5th c. BCE. #MetMuseum 📸 me

this wikipedia editor is orbiting the moon right now!

For comparison, the JCPOA ('Iran Deal') payment that everyone in MAGA excoriates was $1.7bn. The $2m-per-ship toll regime on the Strait would generate at normal traffic something like $40bn *each year* for Iran (120 ships per day at $2m per split 50/50 with Oman).

oh my god oh my god oh my god www.nasa.gov/image-detail... www.nasa.gov/image-detail... www.nasa.gov/image-detail...

Took me a while to track it down but for all the camera nerds asking the same question I did - high res version complete with EXIF data is here: images.nasa.gov/details/art0... It was taken with a Nikon D5 with 14-24mm f2.8 lens, 1/4 sec at f4, ISO 51200

Erfurt! A city in the middle of the German high speed rail network, with renowned sausages, and a very well-restored Altstadt.

All reports in this thread are from the collections of Northwestern University's Transportation Library. Materials we've digitized can generally be found in HathiTrust. Learn more and search our catalog here: www.library.northwestern.edu/libraries-co...

In today's AIP History Weekly Edition @janpotters.bsky.social looks at Tom Kuhn's frustrations interviewing ~100 physicists for the landmark Sources for History of Quantum Physics project. An important lesson in what we want from oral history and what it can give us. 📷Niels Bohr & Homer Dodge #HPS

The funerary stele of User, who lived in Egypt during the 12th Dynasty (c. 1991–1802 BCE), at the apex of the Middle Kingdom. Here he's shown seated before offerings of meat and baked goods, with three kneeling female figures smelling lotus flowers below. *AND* ... 😮 🐕 🏺 1/ #BritishMuseum 📸 me

This is what baby eels looks like. The long trailing tail is its *stomach* (nope, we scientists have no idea why) Eels hold their mysteries close 📽️ by Fan Zhang

While stuck in Boston traffic today, I decided to pass the time by looking for license plates with 3-letter amino acid codes. According to my math it should be about 1 in 879 cars (after excluding vanity plates, etc). Today I saw GLY and ARG.

Visit to “Dangerous books: 500 years of science under fire” exhibition at the Teyler’s museum. Two highlights for me: - I had no idea Gesner’s Historiae Animalium was on the Index of Forbidden Books! - The censured Copernicus De revolutionibus was as redacted as recent email releases. #museums2026

Tucson’s “I have a bridge shaped like a rattlesnake” has big “I sleep in a bed shaped like a race car” energy (complimentary)

Life hack: if your iguana is restless and won’t leave you alone you can put him at the bottom of the stairs and make him climb to wear him out a bit

Unpopular opinion. Nach 3 Tagen Zugchaos in Skandinavien - DSB Ersatzzug und Verspätung, SJ uralt-Fernzug und 70 min Verspätung im Nachtzug, Norrtåg Totalausfall und 150 km Taxi, VR unmöglich Interrail-Reservierungen online zu buchen - mag ich die gute alte unperfekte DB gerne behalten.

So deep underground, the American Cheese Reserves sit in their plastic-wrapped, temperature-controlled glory, awaiting a time when they will be shipped out to feed our appetite for cheese. And I think that's glorious.

Part 242 of 200 in historically interesting things to inspire ttrpg dnd Japanese 'He-Gassen' (The Fart Battle) scrolls from 1641 Edo Period (The most vile alt text I've ever had to write)

There's so much about MacOS 26 Tahoe's interface revamp that I dislike, but at least there are ways to fix a few of them. 512pixels.net/2026/03/hide...

i am, to one degree or another, always thinking about these pictures

The oil industry analyst in this Harvard Business Review interview comes across like wound-like-drum unshaven sleepless Henry Hill checking the rear view mirror every 5 seconds “this is just such a big shock that rather than bending, I fear it will break the system.” hbr.org/2026/03/the-...

New blog post: I read the summative evaluation of the Deep Time hall at NMNH. Here are my takeaways, from the climate message to the allure of T. rex.

none of our trail or process cameras captured the meteor this morning but Nicole did offer this artist rendering.

to take another London example, the Thames is a clean river! do you know how astonishing that would have seemed to our grandparents

Tomorrow at Deutsches Museum Kārin Nicklesen, Tamar Novick and I host Greg Radick, who will reflect on how history & #philsci in framing key concepts through the example of his book Disputing Inheritance. If in Munich, come join this brilliant discussion! www.sts.sot.tum.de/en/sts/home/...

Despite Congressional approval of the NIH and NSF annual budgets, and despite court rulings against the Trump administration's attempt to curtail science grants, the White House is now exploiting loopholes and using the OMB to slow science grants to a crawl.

Das aktuelle, seit dem 1. November 2025 laufende hydrologische Jahr war bisher teils deutlich niederschlagsärmer als üblich. Damit stand weniger Niederschlagswasser zur Auffüllung von Böden und Grundwasserspeichern zur Verfügung. Bodenfeuchteviewer, Niederschlagsanalyse: www.dwd.de/bodenfeuchte....

Otto Warburg's grant application: "I need 10,000 marks".

Und nun zum Thema "Unterschiede, die man kennen sollte". Heute:

This calls for Werner Herzog...

Jürgen Habermas is one of those philosophers whose work I suspect either had or should have had an enormous impact on history of science scholarship. I should revisit it soon. #histsci #philsci www.tagesschau.de/inland/nachr...

Das Kind hat das schnelle Handy Ladegerät als Haipercharger markiert 😬

the ideal amount I would like to think about measles is zero and I resent that I had that once and no longer do

it's not even that big a genus, so you can't just be a weevil taxonomist who goes around saying "I got a new Car today"