Yawns are weird. You're tired? Why don't you open your mouth really big about it? What's that? You're not tired, but you saw someone else open their mouth big? Well, guess what.

Pareidolia is our brain's weird ability to recognize patterns, like faces. Caricaturist @celestiaward.bsky.social looks at how an alien uses it against us in Fantastic Four #4, by @ryannorth.ca & @ramosland.bsky.social. @tombrevoort.bsky.social @aiptcomics.com @delgaduck.bsky.social

Tapping the XKCD sign again to explain that no, I won't be seeing an aurora tonight. Or at least I really hope not. That would be bad. :)

Livestream on Thursday evening!

What's weirder than UFOs? The history of people seeing and studying UFOs. There's a new trend of studying the sociology of the phenomenon, and we're here to review one of the furthest-reaching entries.

Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age youtu.be/f7kvwp9aIyM

"Planning Miracles by Jon Cohen—a veteran journalist at Science—introduces readers to the world of pandemic preparedness at a chaotic time for the field." Read the #ScienceBooks Review: https://scim.ag/47CczJx

Graphic Medicine International Collective is registered US 501(c)3 nonprofit that seeks to guide and support the use of comics in health. Help make our work possible via a donation today! www.graphicmedicine.org/donate-to-gr...

We have progressed from data collection to data analysis.

It might be comforting to think that prominent public figures are wearing masks, or have somehow been replaced by robots or doubles. Why else would Melania stand for the demolition of the East Wing? Well, life is usually simpler and sadder than science fiction.

Just in time for #MediaLiteracyWeek, we’ve released a brand new DataWISE activity! In this activity, students will learn what the scientific consensus means and how it works. You can find the new activity along with our other DataWISE activities on our website - Check them out! ncse.ngo/datawise

Each year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide similarly fall sick from microbial pathogens lurking in meals. Bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages could offer an unusual solution. @science.org

Fake authors. Fake books. Fake remedies. Detection firm finds 82% of herbal remedy books on Amazon ‘likely written’ by AI www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o... Study finds "AI 'slop' has come for herbalism." "...damning revelation of the sheer scope of unlabelled, unverified, unchecked..."

Sociologist Barry Markovsky joins me to talk about science vs. pseudoscience, the sociology of the paranormal, and how we can find wonder in reality itself! matthewfacciani.substack.com/p/everyday-e...

Education KEY in fight against bunk! 💪 Study: Countering #Misinformation Early. "...respondents were significantly better at discerning true from false information, altered their health preferences, relied more on science, & reduced their dependence on unreliable news..." And effects persisted.

Why do we pay good money to be terrified? The answer lies somewhere within our psychology, a good performance, and the primal thrill of surviving our inner boogeyman, report Isabel Rosales, Jason Morris and Cynthia Salinas Cappellano fo CNN. edition.cnn.com/2025/10/25/t...

Researchers harvested the coffee bean–containing scat of wild Asian palm civets, which is used to make kopi luwak, to do a chemical analysis of the beans. cen.acs.org/food/ferment... #chemsky 🧪

Concerns about patient safety have turned into alarmism. To save lives, news outlets must set the record straight, write Jedediah Lewis, Hedi Aguiar, and Adam Schiavi for Undark. undark.org/2025/10/23/o...

A much-anticipated scientific fraud case against a neuroscientist for his preclinical work on a potential drug for Alzheimer’s disease evaporated when the U.S. Department of Justice abruptly dropped the charges.

Ouch. AI chatbots fail at accurate news, major study reveals p.dw.com/p/528zp?maca... "...four of the most commonly used AI assistants misrepresent news content 45% of the time..."

From @hmns.bsky.social: This fossil of a giant crinoid colony (Seirocrinus subangularis) attached to a piece of driftwood was found in Germany. Crinoid means "lily-like", but they're not flowers, they're animals, the ancestral line leading to modern sea stars & sea urchins.

Why go out for second Earth when we have Earth at home? @jseanharrison.bsky.social reviews @weinersmith.bsky.social & @zachweinersmith.bsky.social's "A City on Mars," now out in paperback. Hilarious and frank talk about a fantastical subject. @aiptcomics.com @penguinpress.bsky.social

We’re often told to “think critically” online. But in today’s attention economy, that’s only half the battle. The other half? Knowing what to ignore. New post on "critical ignoring," a powerful media literacy skill for cutting through the noise. matthewfacciani.substack.com/p/the-overlo...

The research on misinformation is growing, but do we have any solutions yet? We review the new book 'Misguided,' by social scientist @matthewfacciani.bsky.social. @danielloxton.bsky.social @caulfieldtim.bsky.social @jonathanstea.bsky.social @critikid.bsky.social

Brandolini’s Law (also known as the bullshit asymmetry principle): The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. H/t @unbiasedscipod.bsky.social

A review of 58 college syllabi that focus on critical thinking showed that these courses often focus on pseudoscience, paranormal claims, and conspiracy theories, relying heavily on active learning methods to help students learn how to separate science from pseudoscience and make better decisions.

WWE's Wrestlepalooza event on September 20 presented what was called an "EMF-Friendly" match, partnering with a dubious tech company aligned with President Donald Trump's anti-science HHS Secretary, RFK Jr. Is it just new age snake oil? @wrestling.aiptcomics.com @iamjohnpollock.bsky.social

A study finds that 75% of the time, people share links to news stories on Facebook without clicking on them first. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This guy's videos are amazing and this animal is absurd

From Annelia Anderson @astroannelia.bsky.social : Today’s paper explores the detectability of primordial black holes as a potential dark matter candidate. 🔭✨☄️ astrobites.org/2025/09/08/i...

Science is under siege from weaponised disinformation – posing a threat to human civilisation | Michael Mann and Peter Hotez

"These are cases where people are in distress, and I don't think it helps to have a couple of people who have no training and no clinical background show up, tell you it's a demon, and walk away with book and movie contracts," Hendrix said.

‘Ultrawild: An Audacious Plan for Rewilding Every City on Earth’ should be in every future engineer’s library @lernerbooks.bsky.social #comicbooks #science Out today, read @davidbrooke.bsky.social's review:

What the heck *IS* the Voynich manuscript? Until Thursday morning, you can contribute to @saltandpeppergames.bsky.social's Gamefound campaign to try to figure it out in board game form. In the meantime, @satanicskeptic.bsky.social is here with the document's real history. @gamefound.bsky.social

From Sandy Chiu: Cosmic rays, born from powerful events like exploding stars, are an elusive part of a galaxy’s interstellar medium. Today’s paper combines multi-wavelength observations of M82 to untangle how cosmic rays and magnetic fields shape its energetic core.🔭✨☄️ astrobites.org/2025/08/25/c...

RFK Jr. Vowed to Find the Environmental Causes of Autism. Then He Shut Down Research Trying to Do Just That. Story by @fastlerner.bsky.social www.propublica.org/article/rfk-...

Alex Jones flew too close to Niburu.

There seems to be NO END to his doubtmongering BS. Dark Age 2.0 HHS revives child vaccine safety panel sought by anti-vaccine activists www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/... And don't fall for the Motte and Bailey fallacy. Obviously everyone wants safe vaccines. Support the science.

Unlike other senses, smell bypasses the thalamus and makes a beeline to brain areas governing emotion and memory.

Penguin poop helps cool Antarctica. 🐧💨 Guano releases ammonia that boosts cloud cover, reflecting sunlight and reinforcing cold conditions—a quirky but vital climate buffer that could weaken as penguin numbers drop. #ClimateScience scientificinquirer.com/2025/08/05/d...

The drug-induced vision of the Hatman in @jamesthefourth.bsky.social's "Department of Truth" #32 seems like an information age creation, but its origins go much deeper. @doubtisthewayout.bsky.social explains. @imagecomics.com @aiptcomics.com

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

Are we having more earthquakes (or more volcanic eruptions) than normal? Nope. I explain in this short article. wendybohon.com/2023/04/15/a...

Saguaro cactus have a long lifespan (150-300 yrs) & there's a rough correlation between height and age. A 25 ft cactus, for example, is probably 100 yrs old. They may not put out a 'side arm' or branch until they're at least 75 years old. This specimen *could* be older than the telegraph.

What would you see if you could go back to the beginning of the universe? Marvel's First Family make the trek in @ryannorth.ca's "Fantastic Four" #33, and astrophysicist @leastactionhero.bsky.social is here to explain. What happened to all the antimatter?! @tombrevoort.bsky.social @aiptcomics.com

Geologic Periods xkcd.com/3120/

Heard the latest news from the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration? We detected the collision of the most massive pair of black holes so far: #GW231123 weighing in at ~137 + ~103 times the mass of the Sun! So to celebrate, here’s a handy chart ✨ Just how chonky are these black holes? 🤔

In my latest (and last!) column for Science’s Expert Voices series, I write about the reasons behind AI chatbots’ “deceptive” behaviors (and why Claude threatened a fictional CEO with blackmail). www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Ever wonder where 'Ancient Aliens' and 'Finding Bigfoot' came from? A new book called 'Weirdumentary: Ancient Aliens, Fallacious Prophecies, and Mysterious Monsters from 1970s Documentaries,' takes a look at 'In Search of,' 'Legend of Boggy Creek,' and more.

Conspiracies about extreme weather spread faster than life-saving alerts on social media, says study www.euronews.com/green/2025/0... via @euronews.com "...influence of high-profile conspiracy theorists during climate disasters is drowning out emergency response efforts."