Michael Mästlin had already published the correct explanation for Earthshine in 1596. Leonardo da Vinci had given an almost correct explanation much earlier but it was not published

The real question is why this heap of total garbage became a cult film

Sidelit geezer looks wistfully at old portrait.

For those of you who didn't catch the first episode of this last night, it promises to be a grand little series full of special guests - especially (or so my spies tell me) episode three ... programme your VCRs immediately!

I think it's total crap

“Since the 1800 dawn of the age of vaccines, the life-saving miracles have had their opponents, decrying immunization to its public health advocates. The anti-vax arguments aren’t new, as Tom Levenson shows. Only the fear-mongering voices have changed, now led by RFK Jr. A Pox of Fools is your go-to guide for countering the mendacity and conspiratorial thinking.”—Laurie Garrett, bestselling author of The Coming Plague

Got a post up over at LinkedIn, celebrating some of the early praise for A Pox on Fools (see image below) and making a blog:

My hope is that the book can help advance our civic conversation re vaccines. To that end, if you'd like me to come to your institution to talk my book, I'd love to. DM me.

So next year the ”Who has the better drugs” competition is starting in England

@rmckee.bsky.social

Yes the WP is mostly terrible right now, but this is a very good piece on how neo-Nazi influencers make millions spreading fantasist histories, while the few adjunct profs who still have jobs struggle to make a living off $3K/semester courses in fact-based history & social sciences: wapo.st/4mERkhv

Francis Crick Was Misunderstood The Central Dogma is not a 'dogma,' and it has never been broken.

No because that’s not what Crixk argued. That was, as he later put it, “Watson’s dogma” (DNA-RNA-protein) www.asimov.press/p/crick

Thread, a discussion by those in the know

Walk softly and carry a big stick!

A printed figure with a hat, titles "Jupiter" in an almanac from 1500 (GW 1549).

What a badass! #Jupiter owns his place in this almanac from 1500. #skystorians

Christian Nationalism is a Cult of Convenience

That’s why we don’t need nuclear.

Technologies of Making and Knowing - HIAA Beyond its modern conceptualization, technology has always informed artistic production...

Call for Papers:
"Technologies of Making and Knowing"
Hosted jointly at Getty, LACMA, and UCLA
Los Angeles, California, March 4 - 6, 2027

www.historiansofislamicart.org/events-and-s...

I don't know if that's true. It's on Perl which appeared posthumously so it's possible. It is true that he just sang it through straight once in the studio and that's the version on the record.

I once had the pleasure/honour of doing live sound for Bob Neuwirth and he told me the story of how Mercedes Benz came to be written.

So honored to share this award with my good friend and #ScienceUnderSiege co-author @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social.

Thanks @center4inquiry.bsky.social --means so much from you folks! centerforinquiry.org/press_releas...

19-Apr-1882: The death of a hero After decades of mysterious ailments, and a short, final illness, Charles Darwin died at 4 o’clock in the afternoon of Wednesday 19th April 1882, at Down House, Downe, in Kent.

19-Apr: ☹️ On this day in 1882, Charles Darwin died, age 73. Here’s the sad story…
friendsofdarwin.com/articles/dar...
#HistSci

Written by Bob Neuwirth on a bar napkin

The Necessary Pain Involved in Blogging (if you want your work to be preserved beyond your lifespan) I am thinking a lot these days about my own mortality. That’s not because I am obsessed with death or anything of the sort. It’s more that my health problems are accumulating and I do not know how long my body is going to hold out against them. It might be that I can clear all my current...

Blogging is painful but essential for preserving my work beyond my lifetime. I discuss the steps I take, from metadata to digital preservation, and why it's worth it.

eve.gd/2026/04/19/the-necessary...

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

you can literally just impeach all these guys. all you need is the votes. you don't even need a good reason

the head of a unicorn from the left side, with tongue out

A happy and overambitious unicorn, handcolored into a book about Popes from the fifteenth century.

Trump, IRS In Talks To Settle U.S. President's $10 Billion Lawsuit Trump's adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization are also plaintiffs.

Trump is reported close to a "deal" with himself under which US taxpayers would pay him $10 billion.

I served in multiple communist and authoritarian dictatorships, but I never witnessed corruption on this scale or this blatant.

Waking up to discover that evidence has been released proving something we all knew. The Supreme Court's efforts to stop the Obama clean power plant rules were rooted in explicit, corrupt efforts to protect the fossil fuel industry.

🙃

Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope* Abstract. As the Cape of Good Hope was integrated into early modern colonial world-making projects, it came to be regarded as ‘the western part of the East

On advance access: "Colonial world-making and global knowledges at the early modern Cape of Good Hope"

by @gianamar97.bsky.social (@uvahumanities.bsky.social)

#OpenAccess

doi.org/10.1093/past...

That’s sexist Carsten!