At first I found an astronaut and former test pilot saying things like “awesome!” over the comms a bit jarring (I was expecting the very neutral ATC style) but actually, the humanity and evident joy alongside the professionalism and skill is so affirming. Including from everyone on the ground!
Very cool! I took over supervision (after a colleague left) of an MSc project looking for ultra-metal-poor candidate halo stars. The student found several but they were so faint that spectroscopic follow-up would be a huge ask. I figured we’d have to wait for 30m-class telescopes!
There are many reasons the salary for that job would be way too low for me (even if I were qualified to work on BICEP)
Don’t worry! It’s all a big conversation ❤️📚
These are so beautiful!
It was such a great way to get to know that part of her. I’d heard a lot of the stories growing up, but reading it and then voicing it really shifted those moments.
It started out as research so she could hire someone, and then it became a mutual gift. A lot of editing time, but highly recommended!
Yay! These replies are so cool to read.
Plus yeah, Mom did SO much to get it finished over many years, and agents and publishers were like “if you don’t have a built-in audience don’t bother, retired random lady” so she just did it all herself because retired random ladies can be badass too
If self-published counts? My mom wrote a book, and I narrated the audiobook.
It’s a memoir about growing up (🇮🇪🇺🇸 Catholic and) with 8 siblings and a complicated mother. It gets dark, but also my mom was a stand-up comic for years so it’s funny. www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0F5...
Hi Bluesky, a question. Below is an attempt to explain why this bot reports the “lookback time” instead of a physical distance to each galaxy.
Is it a helpful analogy?
(Thank you. This non-bot post written by @vrooje.net) 🔭🧪
I love that they didn’t rotate it north-up. And the window reflection. It’s perfect.
That was … something
That’s wonderful news - congratulations! 🥳
If it’s just “what a jerk,” no.
If it’s “this person has done so much harm that citing them will cause at least some readers to have a bad day/night/week just because they read the name”, then, yes, I’ll choose a different paper to cite.
I’m sorry you’ve been put in this position, I’m drawing strength from how you met this moment with integrity, and I hope you’re taking care of yourself. ❤️
Hurray, congratulations!
Rumour has it she reconciles the roles by saying the AR is purely outreach (narrowly defined, I guess?), no advocacy. I don’t know if the grapevine is correct.
But I do know that Lord Rees advocated fiercely for our community and our research in 2008-9 when a similar undercutting was attempted.
Sorry, to be clear, this is the Astronomer Royal who is also the STFC Executive Chair and who apparently doesn’t consider that an obvious conflict of interest.
Not the Scottish Astronomer Royal, who is a big part of why the committee was able to write this well-informed and direct letter. ❤️ 🏴🔭🌌
If I were a recipient of this letter and my job was to support UK research and innovation, I’d be pretty embarrassed right now.
If I were also the Astronomer Royal, being told my lack of consultation with the community was “wholly unacceptable”?
Yikes.
committees.parliament.uk/publications...
So the strategic plan is to deliberately avoid effectively recruiting local students interested in science to apply for admission?
(I’m sorry 😔)
I’m guessing yes. I get annoyed every time, because I haven’t consented to donate my labour that way.
I am so sorry, Michele. Thank you for sharing this lovely photo of him. He looks happy and loved.
Reposting this as it seems especially relevant to UK physics and astro right now. A thread with documentation of why curiosity-driven research should be supported by governments. 🔭🧪
Thank you for making the case for us. 🌌
STFC featured the project in a report on “World-Class Innovation” in 2018, which is part of why this seems so self-defeating a move on their part. They know perfectly well that basic research is their best investment, don’t they?
Sure! I wrote an article on our Caribbean deployments to date from a citizen science perspective - theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/10....
And the projects themselves are part of a Zooniverse organisation, planetaryresponsenetwork.org; our Sudan project is currently active.
What doesn’t add up for me is that basic research has the highest long-term ROI of any research, so by slashing it now the government is torching much *more* future economic gain than had they decided to make any other cuts in this sector. It’s the quickest way to give up our future leadership.
A small thing, but the disaster relief/crisis mapping I’m leading as part of my FLF wouldn’t exist if basic research on galaxies hadn’t been funded, and if Galaxy Zoo hadn’t been created. Pretty sure the co-creator had an STFC PhD studentship. Now the tools they created are used to help save lives.
Thank you! Looking forward to it ☺️
I don’t suppose you’d mind sharing the details? I’ll be visiting (not just passing through New Street) relatively soon and would absolutely make the trip out to wherever in search of good Mexican food.
I remember May 2020 course feedback from my students thanking me for doing my best. I was so grateful to them for giving me grace to be a fellow human going through COVID *with* them.
I don’t know the details of this claim, but I suspect only the lawyers are likely to see meaningful compensation.