Valve Design Employs Umbrella-Flipping Phenomenon A phenomenon reminiscent of a common experience with an umbrella inspires the development of a potential microfluidics component.

It's nice when we can take something irritating (your umbrella flipping inside out in the wind) and turn it into something useful! I learned about some cool implications when I talked to Matteo Pezzulla for Physics. #coolphysics physics.aps.org/articles/v18...

These New AI Models Are Trained on Physics, Not Words, and They’re Driving Discovery These New AI Models Are Trained on Physics, Not Words, and They’re Driving Discovery on Simons Foundation

You've heard of large language models, but what happens when, instead of words, AI is trained on scientific data? In my article for the @simonsfoundation.org, members of the @polymathicai.bsky.social use data in various fields of physics to drive discovery. www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/12/09/t...

Fly to Cha 1107-7626, a rogue planet 620 light-years away.

As observed by our VLT, every second it's eating up six billion tonnes of gas & dust from its surroundings — the strongest growth rate ever recorded for a planet of any kind. https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2516/

🔭 🧪
#exoplanets

Creating a Cosmic Movie Creating a Cosmic Movie: How will astronomers make sense of a new era of nearly limitless data from the Rubin Observatory?

The Rubin Observatory will do something never done in human history- make a time-lapse video of our Universe. I talked to scientists involved in the project and in the LINCC Frameworks to process all that data - and wow, I'm blown away. Can't wait to see what they discover. nautil.us/creating-a-c...

This is a long shot, but...
I'm an astronomer, and I have a great picture book series about space, and I'm searching for an agent. I see that you are not interested in text-only picture books, but if that changes, let me know!

Lab-Created Aurora Highlights New Polymer Physics The discovery of a mini aurora above a light-emitting polymer material reveals an electron-ejection process that might be useful in field-emission displays and material fabrication.

In Physics Magazine, I talk about the surprising new science discovered when this team accidentally created an aurora in their lab!
physics.aps.org/articles/v18...