Ötzi and a 45,000-year-old Siberian were both infected with a cancer-causing strain of HPV. This is fascinating, and a reminder that we have a vaccine that *prevents cancer* and everyone eligible should get it.

i know i post this a lot, but these are truly some of the most beautiful words ever spoken about our planet. thank you, carl sagan, we miss you 🌎✨

14 two-year postdocs for academics of any nationality who cannot continue their research due to US politics. Do share if you know of such.

The anti-Semitic mass shooting in Australia will cause a national conversation and policy change. We know this because the 1996 Port Arthur massacre led to significant restrictions on guns. The shooting at Brown will do nothing. We know this because it occurred on the anniversary of Sandy Hook.

Hi #planetaryScience folks, we have an open position for a *Professor in Planetary Sciences* at the Space Research & Planetary Sciences Division of the @unibe.ch. Application deadline: *Jan 31, 2026* Full ad: ohws.prospective.ch/public/v1/jo... Reach out to me if you have any questions! 🧵 1/5

Stuff like this makes me miss Tucson. The lights in my neighborhood are on the far left.

This is my first time seeing aurora, it's just as lovely as I imagined, but next time I'll put on socks and shoes instead of just running outside in flip flops. (Middle TN)

Rest In Peace Lia Smith. You deserved a whole, full, beautiful life.

#nasa is shuttering the Goddard #space #flight center in a move that may not be entirely legal, according to critics. For months, our #staff #writer @joshdinner.bsky.social interviewed NASA #employees, read #senate reports and more to give you the deepest dive yet. www.space.com/space-explor...

"doch" seems to be a word you season a sentence with like chili flakes

30 September 1928 | Elie Wiesel was born in Romania. A Jewish writer, Auschwitz & Buchenwald survivor, Peace Nobel Prize laureate. "Indifference is the epitome of evil." / „We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."

OMG. They cannot have NOT known the literal most famous headline from The Onion.

In a new paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Marketing, we uncovered a surprising pattern: The more knowledge people have about lead poisoning, the less likely they are eat paint chips for a snack.

Ok everyone, am I reading this right? From NASA Roses 2025 - Solar System Science section, it looks like the Scientific Technical Management section is now limited to a 5 page proposal? nspires.nasaprs.com/external/sol... Thank goodness I didn't write the full thing yet.

Eek

"I asked them what costume I was supposed to wear, as there are rules around how much fabric can be on your body," Coombes told the Reading Chronicle. "They confirmed that I need to wear a female swimming costume despite having to compete with the men." www.advocate.com/news/trans-w...

Yet again, Adeene manages to encapsulate my thoughts in a more coherent and clear way than I could probably have done myself. Thank you for writing this, Adeene, and everyone else please read!

I got tired of having the "should we colonize Mars" argument, so I wrote something that makes my feelings, and reasoning, extremely clear: medium.com/@adeene.dent...

met a neuroscientist who trained an LLM on thousands of parables and was stunned by its capacity to interpret. no human could have done it, they said. a lot of ai amazement is people brushing against the humanities, being unable to imagine the scope of our work, the time it takes, the skills we have

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺

“The Democratic controlled cities of Salt Lake City and Boise adopted new city flags this week showing support for LGBTQ+ people in defiance of their states’ Republican-controlled Legislatures, which have banned traditional rainbow pride flags at schools and government buildings.“

I do love David Tennant and his response to this question in the Guardian today.

Most celebrities: can't be damned to even talk about defending trans people David Tennant: turns a question that doesn't mention trans folks once into a clear, decisive message of support and explaining the true machine behind our current oppression

I can’t fathom how someone thought this was a good idea. LPI received *no* direction to remove these abstracts/reports; they preemptively complied. Then LPI audaciously claims they didn’t delete content; they just hid it. In a digital world, what’s the difference? Shameful.

“And I’m like, what do you mean, you ‘do your own research’? You running a double-blind study in your living room, dawg?” - A guy walking ahead of me with his friends on a NYC sidewalk in 2021, also my favorite overheard dialogue of the entire pandemic

The US science community relies on a massive network of post-bacs, graduate students, and post-docs, many of whom are foreign nationals. We train these students and in return we get a ginormous scientific output that makes us a stronger nation - BUT this system is now under attack. (1)

two new poems up with Lunch Ticket's Amuse-Bouche today! both these poems emerged as part of two months I spent living in Poland, and are near to my heart. gratitude to Lunch Ticket's editors—I'm so glad these poems have found a home 💙 lunchticket.org/two-poems-by...

I like paying taxes. Genuinely. Not grudgingly. I can’t pave a road, I can’t build and staff a hospital. $200 in my pocket won’t pay for my kid’s daycare but if we all pool our money it might. I really wish someone on the left would be brave enough to be like, “Taxes are good, actually.”

"You have to throw trans people under the bus to win elections as a Democrat, trans political ads work, the public is reacting to trans people poorly" Meanwhile in Wisconsin after tens of millions in anti-trans ads against WI-SC candidate who did not flinch:

Planet Definitions xkcd.com/3063

Just as a small candle can dispel darkness, positive stories remind us of what bonds us together. Beth from Vermont in this story, who — though she didn't know me — found a human connection across many levels of borders with her handmade quilt. Gurdeep.org

Reminds me of this 10/10 geology meme

i often think about how eons before cookie monster was conceived, or indeed before there were minds capable of conceiving, cookie monster was already there, waiting

Working at NASA is a dream for many around the country and even the world. Positions don't just get created. They are extremely rare and highly competitive. The folks that get them are _the_ best at what they do. What do they do? 1/6

This is Wesley. He wants to know if you will accept this rose. Because he grabbed it thinking it was a stick, and now doesn't want it anymore. 12/10

If you follow the accounts of planetary scientists here, you may have heard about the suspension of the Here to Observe program. I'd like to take a few minutes of story time to tell you about it, if you're interested. (1/n)

He knows he’s succeeding at this too, BTW. And everyone is letting him because they’ve decided it’s just his mental health and that somehow makes this not real. But mental illness does not make you a hateful monster.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

Shannon seems to have captured exactly my experiences with science, rocks, and NASA. And not because I'm special or anything, but because it's so common among scientists and among people. I love the science I do because of the people I get to share the universe with.

Remember that our tax dollars paid for this data. It is our data. The government is the people. Every dataset removed is theft. #gischat

Pardon the interruption, I would like to share this A+ headline. "Megaberg" and "penguin-packed island" seem like specific word choices that make me 100x more likely to open the article. Well done.

You had different dreams for yourself than having to meet this shit historical moment. I did too. I did too.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “lmao" said Gandalf, “well it has.”

Any action you can take, no matter how small it is or how unglamorous, matters. If just one person ends up in a better situation because of it, you've made a difference and it's worth it.

Good day for remember Carl Sagan 🔭: "every corrupt politician... every 'supreme leader'"

Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.” Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Instead of listing my publications, as the year draws to an end, I want to shine the spotlight on the commonplace assumption that productivity must always increase. Good research is disruptive and thinking time is central to high quality scholarship and necessary for disruptive research.

Mantra for the week, year, eternity: "Organization is respect." (Quote from @kateclancy.bsky.social, of course)

Looking right at you, AGU and Wiley. This is absolutely not okay, authors don't want it, and if we had the power to rescind permission for our already-published papers we would do it. Open access doesn't mean steal-our-stuff.

It's all fun and games until a tiny little olivine grain goes flying out of the tweezers in an unknown direction. Be safe little one, don't get eaten by a cockroach