All of the EU rn:

Earth and Moon from DSCOVR NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite captured this unique view of the Moon as it moved in front of the sunlit side of Earth last month. This view shows the fully illuminated “dark side” of the moon that is never visible from Earth. Ian Regan processed this version of the image to account for the Moon's motion. NASA / NOAA / Ian Regan

I hadn't seen this before. This is pretty remarkable.

Earth and Moon in one NASA photo.

ht @astrokatie.com

Oh dear. Oh my.

Tbf, the drop of a hat part is more common in the US due to at-will employment which is not common/legal in Europe etc.

They Pay $34 for Burgers. Should Their Child Care Be Free?

America seems to have lost all understanding of the “common good”.

www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/n...

"policing image integrity...is increasingly difficult – to the point many experts consider it an impossible task...we propose...going upstream...and certifying images at the point of creation...the technologies already exist"

☝️This is the way #dataprovenance zenodo.org/records/1410...

Why mathematicians are boycotting their biggest conference More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their field’s most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S.

More than 1,500 mathematicians are demanding that their field’s most prestigious meeting be moved from the U.S.

The System That Decides What Science Gets Published Is Breaking Down The peer review system that validates scientific research is trapped in a self-defeating cycle. A new mathematical model shows why—and what comes next.

@forbes.com picking up the recent work by @carlbergstrom.com & Kevin Gross in @plosbiology.org on the future of peer review.

www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Exactly! By this logic, universities would be obliged to hire anyone, from a flat-earther to a creationist, as long as they have some publications in a scholarly journal, to protect their “academic freedom”. It’s absurd.

Article in Quillette on the scandal of a race scientist being hired at Ghent university: “European jurists should not seek to arbitrate controversial matters best settled by science”

The thing is, the science IS settled on these matters. The absurdly simplistic claim that White and Black people have innately different levels of intelligence is not supported by genetic evidence. Claiming settled science is not settled is a “merchants of doubt” strategy

Ad banner: germinating plant, Utrecht University, VACANCY: Postdoc position in Experimental & Computational Plant Biology

I am excited to announce that we have two open positions on our recently funded MYBstery M-WEAVE (NWO-DFG) project!

1) Postdoc in my team at Utrecht University (NL). www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

2) PhD in the team of @lauraragni.bsky.social at University of Freiburg (DE). (See thread)

This 1990 speech by Carl Sagan is timely times two:

#war #climate

Arie Jan Haagen-Smit is now considered the “Father of Air Pollution Control”, and his work had a significant impact on plant, human and environmental health. And this all happened, because some ignorant American Scientists derided Auxin as European Hoax. 🧪 #ScienceHistory #SciHis #PlantScience

The fact that Americans thought Auxin was a “Hoax from Europe” rightfully got some attention in my latest #PlantScienceClassics post. But it’s actually even funnier if you learn about the context & consequence of White speaking these words to Went at the AAAS Meeting in Pittsburgh. #PlantScience 🧪
🧵

When Frits Went once failed to demonstrate the effect of auxin at an AAAS meeting, it was White who loudly declared “that the auxin business was obviously a hoax and that it was high time that these charlatans from Europe were sent back to where they belonged”. An experience that shook Went.

Evergreen

Scientific Publishing: Rethinking how research is reviewed and published Taking a radical new approach to the publication process resulted in eLife losing its impact factor, but authors, reviewers, editors and funders support the journal and its efforts to reform scientifi...

“Authors [&] reviewers tell us that they have had a more constructive experience…choosing eLife not because of our impact factor, but because of our process”

👆 eLife comtinues to provoke debate but this is perhaps the most important point elifesciences.org/articles/110...

(!) Did not realise eLife was doing institutional publishing agreements, something I’m going to try and advocate for @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social to sign!

Really happy to see that the community is continuing to support eLife!

For those following the furore in Ghent, the full report has details on the race science connection, including this pic of two academics cosying up to the founder of Aporia, which platformed a white supremacist so extreme he was banned from Europe

investigations.hopenothate.org.uk/the-sanctuary/

Our IQ is steadily declining Should you be worried?

It has been in reversal since at least 2004 according to some: www.sciencenorway.no/health-intel...

I’m sorry to disappoint followers who also love plants and plant science but this dubious science at best.

She was in jail until her attorney proved she was far away from the crime using her bank records. This is the kind of shit they’re supposed to check before they go arrest people. She lost her home, car, and dog. They left her stranded after she was released. AI/LLM regulation is long overdue.

Watch this clip.

Professors will recognize this kid as the student who didn't do the reading but still has very strong opinions about how it's all "bullshit," except this time he's not the callow student who's going to fail your course, he's the reviewer who's going to cancel your grant.

New paper showing that much of the apparent success of protein language models in predicting mutational effects is a mirage: These models mostly memorize sites. 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

👀 What if my answer to the essay competition about structural problems in science indicts the very idea of science by philanthropy that’s behind the contest itself?

Yes definitely, and the minority (but more white-haired) camp won.

It also fails (imo) to adequately capture the really well thought out guardrails out in place to ensure inappropriate and “scathing” reviews don’t make the cut and that editorial assessments follow a structured and well defined vocabulary.

The article also doesn’t grasp the scale of the ambition behind PRC. The idea is not only that it gives authors more control over publishing, but that having public reviews can also change author behaviour—perhaps leading to more careful publication and lowering the # of papers we choose to write.

IMO the article isn’t too inaccurate but it also crucially misses out on how much consultation there was with editors and stakeholders before fully adopting the PRC. Logical, since @nikomccarty.bsky.social didn’t talk to anyone who was actually involved.