Google "tom holland umbrella" and be prepared to enter an awesome new world.

Whenever I think I'm having a tough day, I think what it must be like for Tom Holland to be in a bar, quietly having a drink

and then Rihanna's "Umbrella" starts playing on the jukebox/radio

and everyone, like, *everyone* turns to look at him

expectantly.

Yeah, I think I'm fine.

“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is not being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience.

“Second point, shooting it with almost exclusively 50-millimeter or 65-millimeter lenses, which is the most comparable to the human eye—and only shooting from the point of view of a human being that’s present in this space. There are no cameras on gurney wheels going in the hallway. There’s no cameras on the ceiling looking down from a God point of view. You are limited to the perspective of a participant. You can look away, but you can’t leave, and it becomes an endurance test for you to stay on your feet as long as we’re on our feet. Which [brings me to my] third point: real time. Real time has an aggregate sense of tension that you don’t get in any other form of storytelling. What happened before is happening now, and these two things are going to add up to the next thing. And if we throw more ingredients into this cooker and keep ratcheting it up, it’s going to pop.”

Wyle makes eye contact for his next point, delivering it with a Robby-esque matter-of-factness. “Fourth point: The election went the other way,” he says with a shrug. “We could have been a really good show with a lot of nice things to say in a perfectly normal Kamala Harris universe. And instead we became almost a beacon of hope and humanity in an alternative universe. But in the midst of that, fifth point—this is essentially competence porn. You’re watching really smart, dedicated people do what only they know how to do at a level that you don’t know how to do it, and you’re so fucking glad that they’re there doing it, and compartmentalizing their own stuff to put your broken pieces back together. You’re so reassured by knowing that there are people out there that laugh and joke and have the ability to lock in like that.”

this is fucking unreal stuff from Noah Wyle on the magic of The Pitt. www.gq.com/story/noah-w...

Map of the sea floor east of Australia in the Coral Sea region, showing the location of the alleged island, Sandy Island.

This is Sandy Island, in Australia's Coral Sea:
- 15 miles long, 3 wide
- First recorded in 1774
- Not actually there.

It's the world's most recently undiscovered island, after 2 previous attempts to undiscover it failed. (What a sentence!)

Here's the story...

1/

I sincerely hope so! At the very least, it'll make this necessary change harder to ignore, and hopefully harder to argue against as well.

A chart from Our World In Data, showing the shift away from coal power in the UK - nearly 70% of electricity production in the late 1980s, to less than 0.1% in 2025.

There's a lot being shared right now about China's incredible shift towards renewable energy - and rightly so.

But this, from the UK, is equally astonishing & encouraging.

It's not just that change can happen. It's that it *is* happening.

(Via climateactapp.substack.com/p/your-daily...)

BBC News headline announcing "Viktor Orban concedes with Hungarian opposition on course for landslide election win"

Pssssst.

*Far-right authoritarians can be defeated.*

Tell your friends.

(And WELL DONE, HUNGARY.)

100% of my congratulations to you!

ok NOW i bet Zelenskyy will thank JD Vance

BBC News headline announcing "Viktor Orban concedes with Hungarian opposition on course for landslide election win"

Pssssst.

*Far-right authoritarians can be defeated.*

Tell your friends.

(And WELL DONE, HUNGARY.)

Via, of course, the incredible xkcd: xkcd.com/1053/

And yes, I'm biased - I'm a science communicator for a living: everythingisamazing.substack.com

But even if I wasn't, I'd be yelling this.

Leaning cool things for the very first time is A MINDBLOWING JOY.

Never take that joy away from anyone.

Xkcd cartoon explaining that making fun of people for not knowing stuff is training them to not share their joy of discovery with you - so everyone loses.

The last week has been an absolute joy, watching so many folk get incredibly lit up by SCIENCE! 🎉🎉🎉

Yet, inevitably, some people asking well-meant & genuinely curious questions had "LOL u r SO DUMB" comments flung at them.

This is snobbish and self-defeating!

Here's a cartoon explaining why.

1/

I'M GLAD THE ASTRONAUTS ARE SAFE BUT DID ANYONE RESCUE THE JAR OF NUTELLA

My Scottish friends are very proud of their contribution to this event

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

LET'S GODDAMN FUND SCIENCE.

ALL OF IT.

I discovered I hadn't been breathing for about 60 seconds. It was a surprise, as in "oh yeah, I remember that's probably important, right?"

This is the correct amount of WOW we should all be feeling.

these motherfuckers said it would splashdown at 8:07 and it splashed down at 8:07. after going to the fucking moon. fucking a man. god damn

Grayscale image of the capsule under the parachutes, which look silvery. The capsule is glowing brilliantly along the bottom where the heat shield took the brunt of the atmospheric beating.

Love this shot. I think this is a thermal infrared camera, showing how the bottom of the capsule is still glowing due to its warmth after hypersonically ramming the atmosphere — compressing a gas heats it up a LOT when you're moving at superorbital speeds.

#ArtemisII

Photo of the capsule splashdown of Artemis II crew.

This is what science can bring: smart people dreaming big and working alongside each other to see what's out there - together.

There's just SO much that can get done this way.

I wish everything worked like this - politics in particular. We can do better. THIS is what better looks like.

SPLASHDOWN!!!

Three cheers for science, engineering, research, curiosity, cooperation.

Look what the fuck we can do when we ask big questions, work together, and fund our scientists.

Congratulations, NASA. Congratulations, humanity!

Yup! Orbital mechanics FTW.

And a planet starts breathing again.

Safe splashdown to you, you amazing people.

I hadn't thought 0f that! Good catch.

Very cool example of atmospheric physics in motion -- save this for your students!

Just north of the equator is Cyclone Sinlaku rotating counter clockwise.

And just south of the equator is Maila, rotating clockwise.

Coriolis effect!

🧪

An update on the Zanclean Megaflood!

In 2025, researchers from Italy’s University of Catania found types of rock on top of hills in Sicily that must have been carried there by the floodwater.

Those hills were well over 100 metres high - & yet the flood still roared right over them.

GOOD GRIEF.

Chart via Our World In Data showing how China's share of coal-powered energy is declining because of the growth of renewable energy.

Yes, this is true - but its share of coal power is declining because of that massive growth of renewables.

This certainly isn't a clean process by any means, literally or figuratively. But the direction it's heading? That's hopeful.

Nobody's kneeling before that suggestion, Zod, considering there are no working coal power plants left operating in Britain?