Here in Minnesota; there is the infamous tradition of jello salad, which is like aspic except with fresh vegetables in sweet jelly.
Along with lutefisk and some of the less-probable fried food on a stick.
I have doctor's orders to not eat at Steak & Shake.
(Technically, the order applies to a lot of different fast-food restaurants.)
The far side of the Moon seen from Artemis II, revealing a heavily cratered surface that is lit from the right side of the picture. The terminator runs from the bottom middle to the left middle, and craters along that line are sharper in detail.
#PPOD: In this photo taken on April 6, 2026, a portion of the Moon’s far side is seen along the terminator—the boundary between lunar day and night—where low-angle sunlight casts long shadows across the surface. 🧪 🔭
Pete Hegseth infamously bragged about supposedly not washing his hands because he imagines that he is somehow inherently superior to everyone and "inoculates himself".
His being a eugenicist is not subtle.
(When called on this particular dangerous nonsense, Hegseth claimed to have been joking.)
"Pete Hegseth recklessly endangers every member of the United States military and everyone who encounters them."
For yet another reason to #ImpeachHegseth.
www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
I can report very high approval of indoor playgrounds among local six-to-eight-year-olds.
New today on Project Gutenberg:
Rutherford & Brooks's 1901 report of the 1899 discovery of radon.
I am reminded to check the radon pump in my basement.
"Man arrested for killing a bicyclist while reportedly drunk-driving."
Get yourselves a new headline writer.
Anyone who visited the following locations during any of the listed dates and hours may have been exposed: Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport’s Customs federal inspection station in the international terminal arrivals area, and lower level international bag claim area, on April 12, 2026 from 7:50 - 10:30 p.m. FastMed Urgent Care (2827 Smith Ave. Baltimore, MD), on April 14, 2026 from 5 - 8 p.m., and on April 17, 2026 from 12 - 3:30 p.m. Sinai Hospital’s emergency department main waiting area and pediatric emergency department, on April 17, 2026 from 3:30 - 7:10 p.m.
Maryland! Measles exposure: health.maryland.gov/newsroom/Pag...
'Jan. 14.—The weather was cloudy.'
- Galileo Galilei, Sidereus Nuncius, 1610 🧪 🔭
'Considerations on the process of target selection for the Comet Interceptor mission' Snodgrass et al (2026) ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2026Icar...
* observed together
Regarding dust from launch vehicles and re-entering satellites in the upper atmosphere; I am far more worried about the effects on the ozone layer than I am about the impacts on astronomy.
Per @astrokiwi.bsky.social and many others: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Switzerland has one-fifth as many guns per person as the United States does.
And it has tightened gun controls over the past 20 years; following a dozen mass shootings in the '00s.
Stop promoting lethal nonsense and tell your members of Congress to enact actual effective gun control in the US.
Orbital debris has a wide range of spectra - e.g. of paint and solar cells and aluminum.
For the small very small debris observe together; it would all get mixed up and be hard to identify.
Dust in Earth orbit slightly but measurably increases sky brightness, but the dust is removed by atmospheric drag fairly quickly so the problems for observing are less than the problems from bright satellite streaks. For one discussion: www.aanda.org/articles/aa/....
my angry post about this case this morning is now an angry article
Roy Anthony Scott was in a mental health crisis and called 911 asking for help
Cops came and killed him, & now the Court is casting doubt on whether the cops can be held accountable for his death
ballsandstrikes.org/scotus/smith...
I regret to report that I have already encountered someone proposing a monorail on the Moon.
(Following the "lunar railroad" conceptual work a couple of years ago.)
I recently went past a work crew who were cutting concrete. They were not wearing their masks either.
They should have been.
We have the technology to protect against smoke, dust, and airborne pathogens.
Wear your masks, everyone.
#CloseTheCamps and #AbolishICE.
sahanjournal.com/immigration/...
A "StarChip" as imagined by Starshot running into Proxima b would have been a few hundreds tons of TNT equivalent. Meteors that energetic flash harmlessly in Earth's atmosphere.
The proposal had many other problems, from "cannot power the chips" to "launch laser would have set the air on fire".
You were moved to do this by pride and by hate. Is it any wonder the result was ruin?
Summer undergrad internships at QUB's Astrophysics Research Centre (Deadline is May 8) www.qub.ac.uk/research-cen... 🔭☄️
Adding to what @drspacejunk.bsky.social has written:
I keep noticing how much ice has melted between 1972 and 2026.
The Vera Rubin observatory has already discovered 11,000 *previously unknown* asteroids... and the proper observing sessions haven't even begun yet!
badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/rubin-bags...
🧪 🔭
Today in social justice toolkit:
A dilemma action is a strategic action that forces your opponent into a lose-lose situation.
You've given them only bad options.
I give some examples
& then we talk about how to design them.
This one's pretty important.
Read and share, please?
@vrubinobs.bsky.social is designed to discover nearly all 100 m asteroids on Earth-crossing orbits, in combination with other surveys.
It will incidentally detect a significant number of the very much smaller few-meter impactors before they flash harmlessly in the sky: arxiv.org/pdf/2603.05587
Attention @laserseti.bsky.social .
Yeah. "I disagree with the Court's legal analysis" is one thing, but "the Court isn't using legal analysis to decide cases" is another. The latter is no longer in the realm of law and should not be treated as if it is.