Gonna make a prediction. This will be yet another case of: "it was always here we're just actually recognizing it exists now" + "who'd have thought kids with this so-called childhood disorder grow up into adults who also have it" -shocked pikachu face-

I am so fucking exhausted of women's full and equal humanity being up for fucking debate. Exhausted. I promise that fun science content will resume shortly but ~all this~ is seriously taking something out of me.

Did men ruin the New York Times?

50 "gnomes" — I'm unsure if I'm happy or sad there's no edit function

*taps mic* Women have no genetic blueprint 🧪

so you're telling me other people can hear a bird make a sound and not try to make the sound themselves

Don't mind if I don't

Journalists, writers, and co! @weischoice.bsky.social is setting up peer support groups for media folks. If you, like me, could use some more regular contact with colleagues, take a look. There's a linked survey form for giving feedback/ideas on how to make the groups as useful as possible.

Trying to figure out how to mount a bird pole on my balcony without drilling any holes (renting, yay) is a good way to cure myself of the coulda-woulda-shouldas about choosing science over engineering in college lol.

Another casualty of the LLM revolution. In "arXiv’s CS category, review articles and position papers must now be accepted at a journal or a conference and complete successful peer review."

I student AI use a kind of "bad equilibrium?" Even if most students would prefer to not use AI, if you start off in a state where most students do use it, individuals who stop are "punished" or disadvantaged if they decide not to. Everyone gets trapped in a situation almost nobody wants.

Eldritch cutie

comet is comet

Is this a false impression, or is complexity science/complexity-adjacent world actually pretty male-dominated? As in, more skewed male than related scientific domains like physics?

Who are your favorite content creators who show you how to do boring everyday stuff you should have been taught as a teenager but weren't? I'm talking skills like: - cleaning - cooking - basic accounting - taxes Etc.

Happy spooky day

This month's paper roundup is out! There was weirdly a *lot* of origins of life stuff this month. Enough that I had to get picky about what to list. It's funny how things ebb and flow like that. www.reviewertoo.com/paper-roundu...

Next time someone pokes fun at your lame skeleton costume for Halloween, tell them you're dressed as the great and terrible space skull

@catfishing.net catfishing.net #494 - 6/10 🐈🐟🐈🐈🐟 🐈🐈🐟🐟🐈 This is so fun hahaha. It's like geoguesser but instead of the world it's wikipedia

If it's an ophiolite, grind and spread If it's quartzy, throw instead

Literally what even

“Conflating intelligence & technology is an assumption worth challenging. True intelligence may know not to use the technologies we so dearly cling to as we plumb our planet’s riches to exhaustion.” — @miquai.bsky.social

The preprint names continue to be out of control today arxiv.org/abs/2510.23708

"Black Hole Cold Brew" Who comes up with these titles arxiv.org/abs/2510.24565

I finally got halfway intelligent filters set up to sift through the 1000s of papers and preprints that come into my RSS feeder every day and... Topics include: Exoplanets Astrobiology Complexity Cosmology ... Birds Cats ok

I do like checking in on the K2-18b habitability saga every once in a while. Judging on this paper, it looks like the argument that everyone's favorite sub-Neptune could reflect enough sunlight to keep temperatures clement might not hold up.🔭🧪 doi.org/10.3847/1538...

Birbs also get old man voice 🥹 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I published a new post on my rarely updated personal blog! It's a sequel of sorts to my Quanta coverage of the Busy Beaver game, focusing on a particularly fearsome Turing machine known by the awesome name Antihydra.

Someone needs to publish new English edition of Biedermann und die Brandstifter Preferably with a shiny cover with flames on it and flashy design that will entice people read it

is being into birds just having a dinosaur phase but for grown-ups

Seeing what genuine human passion and craftsmanship can create is just something else in this AI age. (also the film features lots of birds and is set in fantasy Portland Oregon??? I feel personally marketed at)

Feeling like you need to ease into this half-term week? Start your day by listening to us discuss recent astronomy papers! Our latest episode is live, check it out wherever you get your podcasts! 🧪🔭☄️

smart glasses:🔥 smart bird feeder: ❤️‍🔥

The state of science on women's bodies is still ~so bad~ that a study about figuring out how to line up mouse ovarian aging with human ovarian aging made it into Science in 2025.

If you missed our great discussion with Anil Seth @anilseth.bsky.social on consciousness and its potential biological basis, check it out here! Very thought provoking, including nuanced discussions on AI consciousness. Neuroscience & Philosophy Salon: youtu.be/wZE4_Oa3YA0

I need someone to write an over-analysis of the symbolic meaning of Trump destroying the part of the White House that has historically hosted the First Lady's office

Can someone please invent a word that means exactly what "cognition" does... but only in living things Sincerely, someone very tired of having to dodge the AI paper avalanche any time I set up search queries for new papers related to thinking

We live in a time when scientists can talk seriously about figuring out what's going on deep inside exoplanets by studying their atmospheres. To me this sounds about as wild as figuring out what's going on at the bottom of the ocean by studying sea foam from an observatory on the Moon.

OK, so a magnitude 33 earthquake would release about 2×10^54 joules. That's (plus or minus) about ten billion times more energetic than a Type Ia supernova. Aside from being physically impossible, it's enough energy to vapourise the entire Solar System.

Dinosaur mummies. That's the post. 🧪

I do love when a paper title gets straight to the punchline arxiv.org/abs/2510.13247

I had some Thoughts about chance in biology and why it's real+important even if the universe is 100% deterministic Secretly it's also about RFK Jr., health as morality, and why it's hard to accept that bad things can happen for no good reason. Thanks to @wiringthebrain.bsky.social for his input!

Does biology play dice? by @elisecutts.bsky.social Some thoughts on nature, nurture, and chance in development www.reviewertoo.com/does-biology... Yes it sure does, is the answer! 🎲🎲👋

Absolutely incredible work here from @hankgreen.bsky.social:

It's one of those days in which it take me literally one and a half hours to write an email

When two wave systems collide, they can form square patterns, like the ones shown here. Researchers want to understand the math underlying the strange phenomena that ripple through ocean waters. www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-m...

My amazing sister edited this new memoir by Jenn M. Choi called "Enough to Rise: A Journey of Reclaiming Self-Worth & Breaking the Cycle of Generational Trauma." Check it out!

Videos from the Natural Philosophy Symposium are coming online at last! We start with the opening plenary by David Chalmers @davidchalmers.bsky.social: Can There Be a Mathematical Theory of Consciousness? Commentary by Ryan Smith. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zsve...

The knot-tying around defining AGI described here reminds me of the knot-tying around defining life — which despite many competing definitions is still basically "know it when you see it" category.