Every website these days makes it SO HARD to just log on with a username and password. Let me give you my password! I don’t want to open my e-mail or give a thumbprint or whatever just to log in to your site!
Cover of report "Mission Aborted: how NASA illegally implemented the president's budget request without congressional approval. Minority staff report, prepared by members of the committee on science, space, and technology, us house of representatives, April 2026
This report came out today by minority staff of the House science committee on how three NASA missions were aborted due to NASA illegally following the FY26 president's budget request instead of congressionally approved budget. Very important reading. 🔭🧪 democrats-science.house.gov/staff-report...
I’ve thought “comrade” was a nice solution for that in a particular place and time. Might be a heavy lift here and now
I do think an honorific for strangers would be extremely helpful to have though. Sometimes you really do want to be showily polite and it would be nice to have a non gendered way to do that! Something like a “your grace” that can work for everyone
No don’t bother him he’s cooking
the nonbinary rapper who frequently gets misgendered as a man: Mx. Sir-a-Lot
A lot of folks who do science communication professionally do not have degrees in hard science subjects! (Lots of journalists, for instance.)
Applications are open now! Check it out, astro/physics #scicomm people!
Yeah but that isn’t offered for some real reason
😡
Ugh 😑
An error message that says “Forbidden” below a “Reply” button
Honestly this should probably happen more often
Yeah same! It’s disconcerting to say the least.
Don't miss my new op-ed on how space science is getting demoted to hitchhiker status at NASA:
spacenews.com/put-science-...
Yeah it’s pretty much the only place it makes sense for me to charge at the moment. And it’s one of those opaque private companies so there’s no way to contest anything.
The thing that most infuriated me is that the municipal car charger I use recently silently upped its price from $1/hour to $1.20/hour even though I’m pretty sure it’s all hydroelectric and war is not in any way affecting the manner in which water falls.
This happened to me a while back too! But the publication was some probably entirely AI site that I’d never heard of so I figured it wasn’t worth following up
I don’t know why it took me until late April 2026 to realize this, but climate change is basically a rising tide lifting the boats but not the coastal cities where hundreds of millions of people live
A rising tide lifts all boats but that’s not especially helpful when you’re ballast
Oh sorry yeah I neglected to include not-yet-known events from the future when I used the present tense “is saying nothing”
🌌 Major milestone for DESI: full originally planned survey footprint was completed on April 15, ahead of schedule!
47M+ galaxies & quasars mapped → the largest 3D map of the Universe ever made.
Keep posted: Observations continue through 2028.
More: tinyurl.com/Y5DESI
#DESI
Every once in a while I think more than just in passing about the universe expanding. It’s wild! The idea is the basis for the science I do, at the core of what I teach, and has become second nature to me. But it’s really, profoundly kind of weird!
An exciting astronomy milestone was hit last night, as DESI completed its original 5-year survey mapping 40 million galaxies in the night sky!
DESI continues operation, now aiming for an 8-year survey and ~60 million galaxies. 🔭🧪 #cosmology
newscenter.lbl.gov/2026/04/15/d...
A black, single-layer cake. The top is decorated with a pastel-rainbow telescope and galaxy map behind it.
A different view of the cake, showing the galaxy map spilling over the side.
DESI finished its originally planned survey last night!! ..and will keep going :)
I made a cake to celebrate. 🌌🔭
@desisurvey.bsky.social
You’re asking me to provide you with a service — independent review of your work — and that is not a service I offer.
This is not a service I provide! All the best.
Ah cool yeah they slapped a couple GoPros on the solar panels. Those were on the European Service Module, which was separated from the crew capsule before reentry (to burn up in the atmosphere)
Sorry what’s the question?
This paper contains more detailed modelling of the impact of Reflect Orbital's space mirrors than anything I've seen from Reflect Orbital itself.
At this point it's unclear if Reflect Orbital have done anything beyond back of the envelope calculations when it comes to performance and impact.
