Last year I gave a talk on Henrietta Leavitt at the Seanchoíche storytelling event. A story about two strangers who never met… and how one of them quietly made the Big Bang discoverable. New post on Rough Science.
open.substack.com/pub/seanmell...
If all goes according to plan, in a few hours, a crew of astronauts will begin a journey that will take them on a loop around the moon. Here's a video that NASA put together to help people visualize the journey through space, first orbiting the earth before looping around the moon and flying home 🔭
Definitely (a).
Because space is hard.
They will be travelling 384,400 km, which is:
- 920 × the height of the ISS
- 1,100 × typical Low Earth Orbit altitude
- 1,000 Sydney to Melbourne flights
Just because they're not landing doesn't mean they didn't face all the problems of flying to the Moon!
They’re going around the horn and the astronauts finish by saying ‘We are going for all humanity’.
Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!
"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."
To my Northern friends in solsticial darkness: your Sun will return. Probably. Haven't checked the maths.
The waxing crescent moon is up there somewhere, slightly fuller than yesterday.
The constellations shown are currently being obliterated by the big glowy thing, so don't use them for navigation. Check back in 6 months when Earth is on the other side and they're on night shift.
HAPPY SUMMER SOLSTICE to those who celebrate 🌞
Peak sun altitude for the year at 37.8°S, 145.0°E—though we barely saw it through clouds. If you're reading this from the Northern Hemisphere, you probably had more sunlight than us today despite your day being 9 hours shorter.
Close up of Sean's face with a sticker above his eyebrow that reads "1000!"
I'm 6 subscribers away from 1000! When we hit the milestone, I'm dropping a Q&A video. Ask me anything!
Subscribe and drop your questions here. 👇
www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxdh4...
January holidays are coming. If you know anyone running holiday care, libraries, or looking for team activities in Victoria, Rough Science can help.
We run hands-on STEM workshops: slime , water rockets, fake wounds, circuits, and more! #STEM #HolidayPrograms 😃🧪💥
www.roughscience.net/workshops
The catch is we are now the product.
They'll use Affinity to draw people from Adobe.
And then something...ads, or pushing you to a Canva Pro subscription.
Just the beginning of the pathway.
The announcement makes me incredibly sad. The single-purchase was a huge drawcard for me.
If a product is free, then we are the product.
@amyloudoherty.bsky.social Great to chat about Ghostcam's evolution today!
I love #PAXAu for #PAXRising.
Seemed smaller this year. Less Indie game developers at the moment?
I loved "The Only Good Indians" and very keen to read more of Stephen's work!
Oh, hello there! I'm at #IAC2025 Space Day. Come say hi!
BREAKING: Scientists are staging a “science fair” in the lobby of a Congressional building to tell elected officials about the critical knowledge the US will lose because their research grants have been canceled.
[Prediction: In September they will publish a report that will point the blame at childhood vaccination schedule. By the end of the decade, diseases we thought were neutralised will surge. And autism rates will not have changed.]
And here's where leaders like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
can help:
advocating for funding and resources for autism support in the community.
It's about caring and helping people to thrive.
#NotAnEpidemic #AutismAwareness
It's essential that we as a community understand that we are not looking at a sudden rise in cases.
Instead, we are more capable of identifying autism in all its forms.
This isn't a case of "an epidemic".
It's more diagnoses due to better screening and evolving understanding of autism's diverse presentations.
Over the last 70 years, recognition of autism has broadened. We now use the term "autism spectrum disorder" because there is a range of symptoms and severities.
Nonverbal to high verbal.
Varying cognitive abilities.
When RFK Jr. Was a kid, autism was considered rare.
The focus was on severe cases.
Hence "1 in 10,000".
When RFK Jr. was a kid, the diagnostic criteria were narrow.
Since then, further work have changed the criteria.
We have a better understanding of what autism is, how it presents, and (importantly) how it can be managed.
When RFK Jr. was a kid (I'm assuming 1950s and 60s), autism diagnoses were rare because the specific diagnostic criteria were based on Leo Kanner's observations from 1943. Since then, a lot has changed.
I've created an adult who is pre-loaded with my pop-culture references...
(Gabe and I watching X-Files)
BULLY: Psycho killer!
Gabe and I: Qu'est-ce que c'est?!
How do you turn logic gates into a working computer?
Logic gates are the building blocks of everything from calculators to supercomputers. But how do we turn these mathematical diagrams into wires and electricity?
#ScienceShorts #TechShorts #HowComputersWork #STEM #Electronics #Engineering
Fun fact! Bluesky asks for a 1500px X 500px banner image (3:1)
...and then crops it down to 1500px X 375px (4:1)! 🙃
