Some news: Harvard is the 8th institution to receive a gift for theoretical physics from the Leinweber Foundation. We're excited to have a new, stable source of support for PhD students and postdocs, at a time when young researchers have been especially anxious about careers in science in the US.

Interesting to see Jeffrey Wigand's name in the discourse. To me, he was the 9th grade science teacher who took a class full of kids excited about science and did his best to make us hate it. Gave us challenging assignments with no explanation and refused to even point us to a book. 1/

European particle physics strategy update summary 😅

Computer Modern ftw

Love when we order delivery from a restaurant, our food never arrives, the restaurant tells us we have to ask the delivery service for a refund, and the delivery service tells us we have to ask the restaurant for a refund, so we accept the loss and cobble together a quick meal ourselves like chumps.

Congestion pricing in NYC has worked and has become popular. Cities like Boston should follow. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/12/05/o...

The Nobel Committee, seeking nominations: "We encourage you to take a wide perspective, including e.g. inventions and female candidates." 🤨

The DOE's new "Genesis Mission"? Every time I see it mentioned I can't help but think "rich, Corinthian leather."

As I keep telling people, no, large gauge transformations aren't physical.

Beam Dump xkcd.com/3168/

Kind of charmed by all the people on here who think Harvard would fire a famous, senior professor for being a terrible person who is wrong all the time, or even for serial misconduct. That’s not the Harvard I know, unfortunately.

Remembering this for some reason

The American people aren't interested in boring process stories like "was the world's most notorious sex trafficker providing underage girls to the President?", they wanted to know more about whether Claudine Gay followed best citation practices for her dissertation.

Oo! Interesting #GravitationalWave candidate #S251112cm potentially from a *subsolar* mass source If real, the source is probably has chirp mass ~0.1–0.87 solar masses False alarm rate 1 in 6.2 yr GraceDB gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/... GCN gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/42... Rating 📏🍬 [🧪🔭⚛️]

Somehow simultaneously thinking "Larry Summers sent this email in *2017*? incredible" and "this isn't surprising at all."

Reading this Harvard Gazette article about how our new Dean of Science is co-teaching a class partly premised on how deep expertise doesn't matter now because students can talk to ChatGPT instead of to professors. Thanks, I hate it.

Whenever some sanctimonious Dem announces that America needs a functioning Republican Party, I always think “I’d settle for a functioning Democratic Party.”

This. MA's senators are generally among the best but I will vote for Ayanna Pressley @pressley.house.gov in a primary without any hesitation.

A shameful choice from Cornell.

Judge McConnell basically walked them through the math, called all their arguments bullshit, and entered the order that the gov't stop playing games with the money while kids go hungry. Didn't even give the gov't the chance to respond.

[Exit Clown.]

I'm happy that Mamdani won. But I won't let that get in the way of my celebrating Cuomo losing.

Residents, businesses, food pantries to try to ensure nobody starves because of President Golden Ballroom (tried to list some resources; if you know of others, let me know) www.universalhub.com/2025/residen... #Boston #SNAP

No child should go to bed hungry and no family should have to choose between paying for medicine or putting food on the table. But under this Republican government shutdown, that’s becoming a reality for many. Here are two food bank resources for folks in the MA-7th:

Picture of the East Wing demolition of the White House taken on my flight out of DCA.

Readers of Richard Scarry know how the Louvre thief will be caught.

Wondering when people who talk about “theta vacua” will realize it’s equally well-motivated to make any parameter into a space of “vacua.” Electron mass vacua! Top Yukawa vacua! Higgs mass vacua! Go wild, folks. Can’t wait to see what wacky insights you come up with.

Hoping this planned "Zhu Restaurant" is actually named 猪.

The rules have tightened, but it's true: students would tell me they were taking another class meeting at the same time as mine, or that they would be in Europe for months training for an athletic competition, and when I objected, would tell me it wasn't up to me. Deans let them do it.

It just keeps going. As if Harvard hadn’t already betrayed its principles over and over to placate them.

Something I’ve heard that isn’t in the Crimson article: some grants received reinstatement notices after the court decision, but then received new termination notices giving different reasons for termination than the original notices. They are not planning to pay Harvard what they legally owe.

Melissa Hortman practiced politics the right way.

Get out and vote TODAY, Boston! 🗳️ Check where you vote at wheredoivotema.com and find more voting info at michelleforboston.com/vote.

accurate depiction of yudkowsky in case anyone is confused

How can anyone write this without mentioning one of Steve Ditko's most famous creations? This is the article visible in an early scene of a movie to foreshadow the horror that awaits, right?

Not the first time in the last ten years or so I’ve felt like we’re living in a Paul Verhoeven movie, but one of the most over the top.

Looking at my ballot, options for #Boston city councillor are the incumbent who wants to undo vital safety improvements on Tremont St by my home, someone who worked on the Trump campaign, and someone I can find literally no information about online. Leave it blank? Write in Keytar Bear? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Absolutely appalling. I didn’t think I had a very rosy view of our institutions before, but they are all proving to be much more craven and willing to hurt vulnerable people than I thought possible.

I wanted to object but then I remembered a big conference in Madrid that served a different preparation of gazpacho at lunch every day and I have to admit that was pretty exciting.

Perhaps merit-based decisions will finally let us stop having to hear from Larry Summers

🔥 ⚖️ 🌐HAPPENING NOW: Historic #ClimateJustice Ruling being delivered by the 🇺🇳 🧑‍⚖️ International Court of Justice. 🚨This ruling could signal a new dawn for climate law & accountability 📝 🧵 Live thread below with context, summary & analysis 👇 #ClimateJusticeAO #AOLetsGo

"federal agencies were... exercising their right... to redirect funds away from projects whose goals no longer align with government priorities" I'd like to see in detail how hundreds of projects at Harvard, but nowhere else, all simultaneously became misaligned with government priorities. Amazing.

🧪 For those following indirect rates (not normally an issue with so much drama!): Senate bill, out today, seeks to block the admin from making abrupt changes to indirect rates at NSF, NASA, and NOAA: www.appropriations.senate.gov/imo/media/do...

Merrick Garland you dumb bitch

"I never wrote a picture" reminds me of my 2-year-old walking into the room holding a broken object and announcing "I didn't broke it."

NASA science friends, ROSES-25 just dropped. It's slim pickings. Here are *all* the program being solicited for the next seven months. Link: nspires.nasaprs.com/external/sol...

NASA finally posted their annual ROSES call for proposals, five months late. I was hoping to apply for the Astrophysics Theory program, which is offered every other year. This should be an on year, but it’s not there. Of course, Harvard isn’t currently eligible for federal grants anyway.

Confused by news reports saying that the government is threatening to cut federal funding to Harvard, because I didn't think there was anything they hadn't already cut.