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Posts by John F Wu

A tightly cropped Hubble view of a vast star-forming region known as the Trifid Nebula. The top left is bright blue. Brown and amber colors run from top right through the center in irregular, overlapping lines to the bottom-center. At bottom right, the view is almost black. Tiny, amber-colored stars appear throughout the scene. Toward the left there is a prominent brown shape that looks like a head with two horns. The left horn points left and is wavy. The right horn is triangular and points up. The brown dust continues, flowing down, as if along a back, and up toward the top right. A prominent line, about the same length as the left horn, appears below the middle of the body, and changes from orange to red. A small, separate semi-transparent pillar is left of the head. A few slightly larger, blue foreground stars with four diffraction spikes appear sprinkled throughout.

A tightly cropped Hubble view of a vast star-forming region known as the Trifid Nebula. The top left is bright blue. Brown and amber colors run from top right through the center in irregular, overlapping lines to the bottom-center. At bottom right, the view is almost black. Tiny, amber-colored stars appear throughout the scene. Toward the left there is a prominent brown shape that looks like a head with two horns. The left horn points left and is wavy. The right horn is triangular and points up. The brown dust continues, flowing down, as if along a back, and up toward the top right. A prominent line, about the same length as the left horn, appears below the middle of the body, and changes from orange to red. A small, separate semi-transparent pillar is left of the head. A few slightly larger, blue foreground stars with four diffraction spikes appear sprinkled throughout.

Hubble marks its 36th anniversary with a shimmering close-up of star-formation in the Trifid Nebula! Tiny, actively forming stars are eating and spewing material all around. (One at top left in brown, and two fiery red jets.) Explore it all: https://news.stsci.edu/4cvi5jL

1 day ago 196 69 5 7

House SS&T Dems just issued a report re NASA and the FY2026 budget: "Mission Aborted: How NASA Illegally Implemented the President's Budget Request Without Congressional Approval." Calls on Isaacman to "defend" NASA and not do the same w/FY2027 request.
democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/do...

4 days ago 43 27 0 5

Honestly I didn't know that either!

4 days ago 0 0 0 0
A picture of me holding the physical copy of the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 63, 2025.

A picture of me holding the physical copy of the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 63, 2025.

So cool that Annual Reviews sent me a physical volume of ARA&A 63! A great memento from when I served as a guest reviewer.

4 days ago 6 0 1 0

I did not have "Allbirds pivots to AI" on my bingo board

5 days ago 2 0 0 0

I both love and hate the fact that I was told *real programmers use vim* when I first start.

Hate it because, well obviously that's obnoxious. But also appreciated it because, otherwise, I wouldn't have felt the pressure to ever learn vim, and probably would've used some crappy notepad app instead

6 days ago 2 0 0 0

I kind of agree, but I also think that (non-beginner) students should be taught the tools of the trade.

6 days ago 4 0 1 0
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Physics & Astronomy Astro Seminar | University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences

Excited to deliver the University of Kentucky astro seminar! First time in Lexington too -- I did not realize how many horse farms there are here!

www.as.uky.edu/physics-astr...

6 days ago 7 0 0 0

This is a wild Orioles game

1 week ago 1 0 0 0
Cycle 1 Proposal Submission Statistics

Great googly moogly, 12:1 oversubscription!

roman.ipac.caltech.edu/page/cycle-1

1 week ago 8 2 0 1
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'She has lain forgotten': the Māori composer whose 110-year-old song features in Project Hail Mary While it's fitting that 'Pō Atarau' was used in a story of intergalactic friend-making, Erima Maewa Kaihau's name became "detached" from the song, a Wellington academic says.

That hauntingly beautiful song towards the end of Project Hail Mary? Erima Maewa Kaihau is who you have to thank.

1 week ago 87 28 0 0

*Pablo Escobar waiting meme

1 week ago 2 0 0 0

Wait that's supposed to be Pablo Escobar? Huh TIL

1 week ago 1 0 0 0
My 20 month old son looking like the old Indian man meme

My 20 month old son looking like the old Indian man meme

My 20 month old son looking like the old Indian man meme

1 week ago 6 0 2 1

Just taught a bunch of 5-year-old kids about astronomy. They sure had a lot of questions!

1 week ago 14 0 0 0
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The Center for Computational Astrophysics @flatironinstitute.org is hiring a new Research Software Engineer to work on @astropy.org and to support the software and computing efforts within the CCA. Apply by May 22!
apply.interfolio.com/184639
🔭 🧪 ☄️

1 week ago 20 18 1 1

$7 Doritos never sent me to space

1 week ago 0 0 1 0
To preview our findings, we find that AI assistance impairs independent performance and reduces
persistence. Although AI assistance improves performance during assisted sessions, people’s perfor-
mance drops sharply once AI is removed. More strikingly, relative to the controls, participants in the AI
condition also persist less with tasks and give up more frequently. This pattern is robust and replicates
across domains. These effects emerge after a brief 10–15 minute session, raising the question of what
prolonged AI use does to human capability over time.
Our results are notable on two fronts. First, while concern about AI-induced deskilling has grown,
prior evidence has been largely correlational (Budzy ´n et al., 2025; Gerlich, 2025) or limited to small
samples (Kosmyna et al., 2025; Shen & Tamkin, 2026). Here, through a series of randomized controlled
trials on human-AI interactions, we provide the first large-scale causal evidence of this effect. Second,
we demonstrate how AI can result in loss of motivation and persistence. A rich body of literature
in cognitive science and education has shown that the capacity to regulate effort and persist through
difficulty is foundational to effective learning, and is among the strongest predictors of long-term
academic achievement, workforce adaptability, and resilience (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Duckworth
et al., 2007; Maddux, 2009; Metcalfe, 2009; Andersson & Bergman, 2011; Bjork et al., 2011; Kapur, 2014;
Guiso et al., 2016; Mooradian et al., 2016). Our results suggest that AI assistance erodes precisely these
capacities. People do not merely become worse at tasks, but they also stop trying. If such effects
accumulate over months and years of AI use, we may end up creating a generation of learners who have
lost the disposition to struggle productively without technological support.

To preview our findings, we find that AI assistance impairs independent performance and reduces persistence. Although AI assistance improves performance during assisted sessions, people’s perfor- mance drops sharply once AI is removed. More strikingly, relative to the controls, participants in the AI condition also persist less with tasks and give up more frequently. This pattern is robust and replicates across domains. These effects emerge after a brief 10–15 minute session, raising the question of what prolonged AI use does to human capability over time. Our results are notable on two fronts. First, while concern about AI-induced deskilling has grown, prior evidence has been largely correlational (Budzy ´n et al., 2025; Gerlich, 2025) or limited to small samples (Kosmyna et al., 2025; Shen & Tamkin, 2026). Here, through a series of randomized controlled trials on human-AI interactions, we provide the first large-scale causal evidence of this effect. Second, we demonstrate how AI can result in loss of motivation and persistence. A rich body of literature in cognitive science and education has shown that the capacity to regulate effort and persist through difficulty is foundational to effective learning, and is among the strongest predictors of long-term academic achievement, workforce adaptability, and resilience (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Duckworth et al., 2007; Maddux, 2009; Metcalfe, 2009; Andersson & Bergman, 2011; Bjork et al., 2011; Kapur, 2014; Guiso et al., 2016; Mooradian et al., 2016). Our results suggest that AI assistance erodes precisely these capacities. People do not merely become worse at tasks, but they also stop trying. If such effects accumulate over months and years of AI use, we may end up creating a generation of learners who have lost the disposition to struggle productively without technological support.

The two main findings about AI in for learning: AI impairs performance and it reduces persistence.

1 week ago 4 0 0 0

Absolutely worth a read!

1 week ago 6 1 1 0

We're so cooked

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0
A nearly pristine star from the Large Magellanic Cloud Nature Astronomy - A high-resolution spectroscopic analysis reveals ultralow amounts of heavy elements in the star SDSS J0715−7334. The star originates from the Large Magellanic Cloud...

🔭 Paper day, and it’s a big one! We have found the most metal-poor object known in the universe. It’s a star, and it comes to us from our nearby friend the Large Magellanic Cloud. Out in Nature Astronomy today: rdcu.be/fbylI

2 weeks ago 62 13 3 2

Another area of uncertainty is the balance between taste (or intuition or artistry) versus capabilities (proofs, coding, grunt work stuff). I like how Schwartz put it -- humanities might survive while AI capabilities increase!

Lately I have leaned more into the *art* of astro research too!

2 weeks ago 5 0 0 0
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Great post Minas! Agree on all points here, and I also want to add that a 15 minute conversation with students Alice and Bob is enough to tell which one did the hard work, and which one outsourced their thinking to AI.

Education in the era of AI has huge uncertainty.

2 weeks ago 5 0 1 0
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Understanding the interplay between urban segregation and accessibility to services with network analysis The 15-minute city concept has gained momentum as an urban planning strategy to enhance livability, inclusiveness, and sustainability by ensuring that essential services are within a short walk or bik...

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

2 weeks ago 1 1 0 0
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Dr. John Wu, PhD, Associate Astronomer and the Applied AI Scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute, presenting his talk "Short Stories of AI in, and for, Astronomy" at our hybrid seminar series!

To sign up for future seminars, join our email list cosmicai.org/get-involved

2 weeks ago 3 2 0 0

It's showing up on all the Dallas area road signs too.

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

"i have two Microsoft Outlooks, and neither one of those are working."

The Astronauts truly representing us all up there.

2 weeks ago 5966 1443 121 80

I'll see you at 1:30! 😎

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0
Example galaxy and DESI DR9 photometric catalog that "shreds" the foreground galaxy into ~10 sources.

Example galaxy and DESI DR9 photometric catalog that "shreds" the foreground galaxy into ~10 sources.

FWIW I didn't read this paper, just skimmed, so I don't know how much of the findings hinge on the *photometric* catalogs. The DESI targeting catalogs are much more conservative and don't seem to be as susceptible to shreds.

The photometric catalogs on the other hand...

2 weeks ago 1 0 0 0

When we did this for xSAGA and DESI LOWZ, it removed a huge fraction of supposed Mstar ~10^7 Msun objects.

2 weeks ago 1 0 2 0