Astronomers! New adverts for science editors for @publishing.aas.org are up at aas.org/jobregister. We're looking for astronomers across many fields (including instrumentation to work with me) to help us keep these open access, non-profit, society-run journals going. Happy to answer questions! 🔭

Don Knuth's theme song

I believe that was one.

New Paper Klaxon🚨 I am super excited to share this one which has been 3 years in the making! "Magnesium Silicate Clouds in the Atmosphere of HD 209458b from a Rule-Based Tree-Structured Data Reduction" which is led by Katy Chubb & David Grant Cloud & data 🧵 time #astronomy🔭 #science🧪 1/n

SCOOP: BusPatrol, a company that has installed AI-powered cameras in tens of thousands of school buses around the U.S., now plans to turn those cameras into automatic license plate readers and give that data to law enforcement, 404 Media has learned.

Does anyone care that GADGET4 is a GPLv3 code?

📢 Join the AAS Team! We are seeking a Journal Data Editor to join the other three Data Editors on the AAS Publishing Team. The Data Editor will maintain all aspects of editorial workflows for the various publications. Full job description: aas.org/jobregister/... 🔭

The next person who writes "I studied UNCOVER-####" in a paper gets detention.

AI writing is impossible to avoid, is making everything sound the same, and is driving us crazy.

The Journal of Open Source Software, JOSS, is embarking on the search for its next editor-in-chief. Founder EIC Arfon Smith is stepping down after a whole decade of incredible service. Interested in filling those big shoes? Apply by June 19, 2026: blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/05/call...

Any Euclid massive galaxy cluster ppl on here? How can giant, publicly funded projects depend upon completely undocumented, complete invisible code like PZWav? I mean it is shocking. And if you say "it's just an algorithm!" then by all means show me the algorithm! #rantover

Oh, and for all of you thinking that Frankenstein LLM citations are a bad thing -- at least they are recognizable as wrong! Just wait until agents clean up the Frankenstein references and you can't tell if the valid citation is appropriate or not (or worse).

What I love about this is the number of high-level faculty who make up references from memory who would be crushed by this type of requirement. But it is exactly correct -- it is the author's responsibility to provide vetted references -- correct in both detail and in appropriateness.

Any Euclid massive galaxy cluster ppl on here? How can giant, publicly funded projects depend upon completely undocumented, complete invisible code like PZWav? I mean it is shocking. And if you say "it's just an algorithm!" then by all means show me the algorithm! #rantover

An AI agent that submitted and added to Wikipedia articles wrote several blogs complaining about Wikipedia editors banning it from making contributions to the online encyclopedia after it was caught. “The talk page is silent now. I can’t reply.”

AS CALLED ON ESPN3 Brasil ESPN4 South America Arena 1 Serbia Sport Klub Croatia (auto transcribed & translated as always)

AS CALLED ON UConn Huskies radio by Mike Crispino Duke radio by David Shumate Westwood One by Scott Graham

1) Red Sox 2) Cubs 3) Phillies 4) who ever is playing the yankees

AAS Editor in Chief Search Following the announcement of Ethan Vishniac's upcoming retirement, the AAS is conducting an open search for a new AAS Editor in Chief responsible for ensuring the continued excellence of the AAS journals portfolio. aas.org/posts/opport... 🔭

The other side: we calculated it in double precision python, so we know it's precise to ~10-4 nanometers/sec, but our print format code only gave us one decimal place. See the supplementary file on Zenodo for our ludicrous sig fig results, which can't save anyone from floating point uncertainty...

The @aas.org is conducting a search for the AAS Editor in Chief, who is responsible for developing and implementing a long-term editorial strategy for the Society’s journals portfolio. See this link for more details of this full-time position and the application process. journals.aas.org/eicsearch

Build Your Peer Review Skills at #AAS248 If you’d like to feel more confident the next time you’re asked by an editor to peer review a paper, consider applying to attend the upcoming AAS Peer Review Training Workshop in Pasadena on 14 June 2026. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭 @publishing.aas.org

SCOOP: An internal DHS document obtained by 404 Media shows for the first time CBP used location data sourced from the online advertising industry to track phone locations. This surveillance can happen through all sorts of apps, such as video games, news apps, weather trackers, and dating apps.

🎥 2026 AAS Journals Author Series Update! Frank Timmes, AAS Journals Scientific Editor, shares the “why” behind the series — why we create these videos, what the metrics show, how we reached 500+ videos, and how featured articles are selected. 🔭 youtu.be/1_U5WsSXzmU @publishing.aas.org

Build Your Peer Review Skills at #AAS248 If you’d like to feel more confident the next time you’re asked by an editor to peer review a paper, consider applying to attend the upcoming AAS Peer Review Training Workshop in Pasadena on 14 June 2026. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭 @publishing.aas.org

yeah, the wave.webaim.org checker is really good with spotting these, and its interface is very nice.

we have over 50 questions so far so let’s bother them more!! join us live now:

These are instances where authors state their genAI/LLM usage (as is policy). In other cases, which are likely many/most, the reader has no idea. I personally don't see how knocking someone for stated usage is productive to a conversation that (a) must happen; (b) will have many many facets.

(((ack:"ChatGPT" or ack:"OpenAI" or "Anthropic")) AND year:2023-) (astronomy db only) scixplorer.org/search?d=ast...

One day the industry will recognize the drawbacks of AI agents and nondeterministic automation, and rediscover the UNIX philosophy of chaining together small purpose built tools in a low cost and predictable way, otherwise known as shell scripts.

I'm sure _JOHN CAGE_ would protest that replacement if he could... Though thanks to this post I now know that Cage was an anarchist...

Including AAS Director of Scholarly Publishing @kerrykroffe.bsky.social , AAS Editorial Operations Manager Alex Andrews, and AAS Journals Data Editors Greg Schwarz and @augustfly.bsky.social! Check out our list of events in this AAS Nova pre- #AAS247 post!

AAS Publishing will be attending the upcoming AAS meeting in Phoenix. Here’s where you can find the publishing team during the conference. aasnova.org/2026/01/02/a... #AAS247 🔭

#AAS247 #SciX curious? Ready to commit to the new powerful #ADSabs interface? Just want the ADS Classic secret sauce? Join @scixcommunity.bsky.social Sun Jan 4 for a free 1-hour workshop (sessions at 1:15, 2:15, 3:15 PM) #astrophysics ☀️ #planetaryscience #NASAscience #openscience #earthscience

The AAS is deeply concerned by the recent announcement that the NSF intends to “restructure” the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) by narrowing the scope of its scientific investigations and stripping it of key assets used in those investigations. aas.org/posts/news/2... 🔭

Version 6 of the Unified Astronomy Thesaurus was released this week. This version primarily creates a new top level "heliophysics" concept and reorganizes subsidiary concepts between this top level and the Solar System top-level. More to come in 2026! astrothesaurus.org/release-of-u...

This sounds very doom-ish but SciX works great for astro, I have made the switch entirely from ADS and haven't lost any function or speed. 🔭 (would be interested in hearing about usage in other fields)

Yay Brian!

🔭 Brian Jackson, Professor of Physics at Boise State University and Director of the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve STEM Network, will serve as the next Editor of the Planetary Science Journal. aas.org/press/brian-...

Aladin Lite is the recipient of the 2025 Open Science Award for Free Research Software, in the "Community" category ! A well deserved recognition, beyond the astronomical community, of all the work done in the Aladin team. cds.unistra.fr/news/2025/12...

Heading to the @agu.org annual meeting, interested in using sound to help interpret your complex data, AND make your research more inclusive? Data sonification can help! But don't take my word for it: www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_eU... Attend the Geo SonNet Town Hall on Dec. 15th to network!

This slide by @mubdi.bsky.social at #adass2025 should be on ever astronomer's wall. Software is a central part of science and should be published accordingly!

Heads up: the deadline for regular registration for #AAS247 is Friday, November 7. (Late registration is still an option after Friday, but more expensive). While you and your colleagues/students register, remember to register for the @astropy.org workshop! 🔭 #astrocode

We've found DHS is giving local cops a new facial recognition app to find immigrants. Point camera at face, tells the cop to detain person or not. The app is available on Google's Play Store. Google took down apps that report ICE sightings but now hosts this app www.404media.co/cbp-quietly-...

The American Astronomical Society announced that Dr. Kevin B. Marvel, the Society’s Chief Executive Officer, will step down from his position effective 9 January 2026. aas.org/press/aas-an... 🔭

arXiv, a preprint publication for academic research that has become particularly important for AI research, has announced it will no longer accept computer science articles and papers that haven’t been vetted by an academic journal or a conference. Why? A tide of AI slop.

SNAP isn't about "people who don't work." It's about people who don't get paid enough to live. Of the 40 or so million people who rely on food stamps: * Two-thirds are children, seniors, or disabled * Most working-age adults who receive SNAP are employed—but in jobs that pay poverty wages

AAS Nova turned 10 this year! For our 2,000th post, we’re looking back on the past decade of astronomy research. aasnova.org/2025/10/03/a... @aas.org 🔭🧪

Earth scientists can finally use a NASA ADS-like search system - yay!! If you're not familiar with either of these sites check out SciX - it will make you so much happier when you next have to do literature review 📚😃

Jonathan was the architect of WorldWide Telescope project, which I was gifted to work on with him back 15 years ago. I'll also miss knowing he might sneak up on us at some meeting somewhere (he liked to appear unexpectedly). And he was one of those people with near boundless curiosity! Rest well. ♥️