Incredible achievement. The Chinese spacecraft Tianwen-2 has arrived in close proximity to the asteroid Kamo'oalewa, a 'quasi-satellite' of Earth. It will collect samples from this asteroid and return with them to Earth next year. Kamo'oalewa was once part of our Moon.

This month is history books my friends & colleagues have written with good covers & you should want to read them. First, Lisa Kirschenbaum, the author of a gazillion really good works on the USSR. Why I'm unforgiving of ppl who occupy a research university position & have only published one book.

👇👇👇

NY Times on death of Abdul Ahad Momand, Only Afghan to Fly in Space (I'm briefly quoted in this). (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2026/06/29/w...

From @kyamawebb.bsky.social over on Threads. Now I'm going to read every NY Post headline in a JK Simmons voice

Come be my colleague! American University's History Department is searching for a tenure-track assistant professor of science, tech and society. I am chair of the search and pleased to answer any questions either on here or email (grao at american) american.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/AU/job/Main-...

An economist and a public policy scholar weigh in: "SpaceX is the New East India Company": www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/s...

Check out @pjharvey.net's new song "Voyager," sung from the perspective of NASA's Voyager 2 probe

40 years ago, I bought 'Standing on a Beach' at a record store in Columbus, Ohio & was introduced to 'In Between Days,' still the greatest song by the Cure. That frenetic flurry of guitar-strum & drum rolls that introduces the song still--after 40 years--levitates me: www.youtube.com/watch?v=scif...

I don't know if 'Eric Hague' is a real person but I hope 'Eric' knows that he has brought me a few minutes of joy reading this. Also, chef's kiss to mention the triangle hand gesture.

I co-edit a book series for Boydell & Brewer on "The Urban World in the Middle Ages." Open to *BOOK* proposals c. 800–1600, covering urban life, societies, or cultures in Europe, Mediterranean, or Islamic world. For more info, email me, [email protected]. Happy to hear from 1st-time book authors.

New York City. My city. #theknicks #knicks

My friend’s daughter was abducted from a Birzeit University dorm at 3 am on June 2. She is a US citizen with a health condition that requires regular treatment. Please call your representatives. www.imeupolicyproject.org/release-sama...

What an artist. There can be few comics creators who have had a greater impact than Marjane Satrapi has.

A fabulous show. Well-deserved.

I'm sure the American Historical Association (AHA) will say something about it very soon.

Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes on pad 36 at Cape Canaveral during a routine static test. Possibly the biggest rocket explosion ... ever on US soil?. All pad personnel reported safe. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZiy...

Interested in techbros and outer space? Check out this new piece by Ellie Armstrong, @renny-hahamovitch.bsky.social, @rekapatriciagal.bsky.social , and myself on the 'tech oligarchy in outer space.' Published in @sciasculture.bsky.social . www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Just voted for the Eisner Awards. I confess that most of my votes were for @ssnyder1835.bsky.social or @denizcamp.bsky.social. Brilliant writers! Go check out 'Absolute Batman' or 'Assorted Crisis Events,' the most creative & radical pieces of art in the past year: imagecomics.com/comics/serie...

I remember hearing this without context in '88 and then learning the name of the song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSlt...

Reminder that this is the same person whose brain has been broken for weeks because one actor in a Hollywood movie is not white. The racist-in-chief posted this today on the day of his rocket launch.

Sheep Meadow in Central Park, now

At home making my way through all the weird corners of the MBV discography.

Got hold of some near-mint perfect copies of the Neal Adams run of the X-Men from the late '60s. Psychedelic art hits mainstream comics.

ChatGPT Made Me Do It #RAdminSky #1A #academicSky

From about a year ago, 'Dounana' by Siba & Monkyman: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdFl...

Had the honor of co-authoring this piece in @sciasculture.bsky.social on "Dictators of the Future: The Tech Oligarchy in Outer Space" w/ the brilliant @renny-hahamovitch.bsky.social , @rekapatriciagal.bsky.social and Ellie Armstrong. More ruminations on E__n M__k, Jeff Bezos, and their ilk.

My 15 minutes of nothing. I once played guitar with Lana Del Rey at a show in 2005 or 2006. I can't remember. She was a Fordham student. She was the lead singer of our band for that one gig. I tried to get her to be a history major (failed).

My 15 minutes of nothing. I once played guitar with Lana Del Rey at a show in 2005 or 2006. I can't remember. She was a Fordham student. She was the lead singer of our band for that one gig. I tried to get her to be a history major (failed).

The book that I edited 'Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age' (2025) is on sale (a 40% discount!) by the University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social. The discount code is 29INT40, and the landing page is here: upittpress.org/intersection....

The book that I edited 'Cosmic Fragments: Dislocation and Discontent in the Global Space Age' (2025) is on sale (a 40% discount!) by the University of Pittsburgh Press @upittpress.bsky.social. The discount code is 29INT40, and the landing page is here: upittpress.org/intersection....

Listening to My Bloody Valentine's "Isn't Anything" (w/ the additional 7" with the unbelievable "Instrumental B." That track is insane. www.youtube.com/watch?v=osCS...

I celebrate each and every detention release that I learn about.

Sad to learn of the passing of Gerry Conway, one of the giants of the comics world. He had an incalculable effect on my world w/ his storytelling in the 1970s in comics such as Spider-Man, Ms Marvel, & Fantastic Four, bringing fresh wit & creativity into comics 1/2 tinyurl.com/mpzz4cks

A reminder that you can join our online book talk with John Scanlan on The Idea of Waste: On the Limits of Human Life (Reaktion Books, 2025) tomorrow (Monday 27 Apr 2026), 4pm Central European time / 3pm in the UK / 10 am Eastern Info to join: newnatures.org/greenhouse/e...

Jessica Watkins was assigned the position of Commander on Crew-13 yesterday. Not only will she be the first #NASA astronaut to fly the Dragon capsule twice, but she will be the first woman of colour to command a space mission! (Photo by: Robert Markowitz)

It's the 59th anniversary of the death of Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the first in-flight fatality of the Space Age. I recently got hold of the official Party report on the disaster which confirms what we knew before of the technical reasons for accident, a failure in the parachute system 1/n

Well, they've finally struck home. #ICE has detained my former #umich student, Yousif Azizi, a PhD student in public policy at Virginia Tech w/a valid visa. He was arrested while taking his children to school in Maryland. After multiple transfers, he is in a detention center in Arizona.

Putin signed a decree today renaming the FSB Academy in honor of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the creator of the Cheka, responsible for political terror after the 1917 revolution and a predecessor of the KGB & FSB. The decree hails Dzerzhinsky's "outstanding contribution to state security."

The journal Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (HSNS) is inviting short essays (800-1K words) revisiting "classic" works in the history of the natural sciences. These will be collected in a special issue planned for 2027. If you have an idea, please contact me. (I'm an associate editor)

Excellent piece by @torinmonahan.bsky.social on surveillance and censorship on campus post encampment, covering investigations, crowdsourced "complaint and syllabi-exposing systems" and more that make campuses less safe for most. www.merip.org/2026/04/cens...

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

How the Strokes ended their second Coachella set! #TheStrokes #Coachella

It says something about the skewed nature of discourse on higher ed that there's unending navel-gazing on the closure of Hampshire College but zero attention to dozens of other closed colleges. Most were lower-tier regional schools and not an elite college: www.bestcolleges.com/research/clo...

A book that I missed: Atomic Tunes: The Cold War in American and British Popular Music (which includes sections on folk, punk, new wave, etc.) iupress.org/978025305618...

New Boards of Canada: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bgh...

America is losing a talented researcher today. Rümeysa Öztürk, whose abduction by masked men prompted a search and her eventual release by ICE, has returned to Turkey. She wants to resume a career without "state-imposed violence and hostility." www.bostonglobe.com/2026/04/17/m...

A first look: My take on the history of criminal justice and the procuracy under (and after) Stalin The Disciplined Dictatorship: The Soviet Procuracy from Stalin to Khrushchev, 1938—1956 forthcoming with Oxford University Press Expected September 2026. More soon.