After three decades of advocacy, and for the first time in my life, I was able to donate blood today. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. More here: ymlp.com/zcgz8Z

FQ The last time we went to the moon, women couldn't open a credit card on their own. Now they're flying to the moon and leading the Mission Control Center.

These are the women who made Artemis II possible.

The last time the US landed on the moon in 1969, women couldn’t get a credit card without a co-signer.

Also- they made the calculations to make that happen too.

#Pinks
Via @femalequotient.bsky.social

Malicious noncompliance at its finest

I have a father and mother in law in Iran. I have a sister in law. A niece. She's 14. She likes silly pink headbands and purses and dresses, just like kids her age all over the world. There are 93 million people like her in Iran. People who do all the normal mundane life things as the rest of us.

Some reports say over 500 schools, 55 libraries, & 25 universities hit.
You can debate the numbers, but hitting Sharif University & Beheshti is like hitting MIT & Stanford. I keep wondering: How would the scientific community respond differently if it was those universities? What’s the difference?

FT Report that UK to receive last tanker of jet fuel from the Middle east this week

Just in case anyone felt like things might possibly get better soon.

Also Australia's last scheduled arrival of gasoline is apparently April 20th.

www.ft.com/content/19f1...

I've been in the room when tech companies have pitched these models to healthcare groups. That these benchmarks can be topped with text prompts only, in the absence of a visual x-ray, is an indictment.

Small epsilon perturbations and this - the lack of robustness strikes again. We must do better.

If Australia wanted to capture the economic value of science, we could be poaching. We would be poaching. Capturing the value of good scientists performing science that benefits all.

Although that would first require there to be enough funding in the current system for current researchers here.

Harry Potter tattoo regret rate is an order of magnitude higher than regret for Gender Reassignment Surgery and yet no one has been brave enough to suggest we legislate Harry Potter tattoos.

Striking design for a brick office building in Iran, by Abar Office

So much more appealing, and sustainable, than an all glass design!

No Israel prosecutions for killing Palestinian civilians in occupied West Bank since start of decade Dozens of former Israeli military, police and spy chiefs describe situation as ‘organised Jewish terrorism’

Headline says everything. As discussed by former heads of Mossad/Shin Bet and Ministers the last indictment was 7 years ago. It was not the last act of violence.

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

I choose to believe that mildy was part of your coded and cryptic response to what is going on with -waves hands around-

The logic, insofar as there is any, goes like this: the war has crashed the global oil market, so the administration is unsanctioning the people they're bombing because the bombing is working too well at the thing they didn't want it to do.

Who needs satire any more?

no01.substack.com/p/march-19-2...

$200 billion a year would enable a universal basic income of about $500/mo. That would essentially abolish severe poverty in America. Poverty would drop by about a third, and because the downstream costs of poverty are about $3 TRILLION a year, that would be a return on investment of $800B a year.

I'm assuming this refers to the 2021 TEQSA research requirements, where Uni's need to, by 2026, meet benchmark research creation standards in 30% of their Fields of Education? Given the timing, I wonder if this is a deliberate push to save someone from deregistration?

‘Worst thing I’ve ever seen’: CSIRO slashes climate modelling jobs Australia’s science agency is cutting more than 100 jobs in its Environment Research Unit, which critics say will crush our capacity to predict climate change.

"“CSIRO’s climate science capability will be retained.”

However, some research areas will be reduced, to focus on “areas of greatest impact”."

Sounds like double speak - especially given the long history of cuts in CSIRO's climate and environment modeling capacity.

www.smh.com.au/environment/...

The House of Lords Digital & Communications Committee just published their report on AI, copyright & the creative industries, and their conclusions could not be clearer.

🧵 1/5

Labor has put 169 issues in the ‘too hard basket’. This obscure rule may finally force them to act From gambling harm to financial abuse, the government has failed to respond to 169 Senate reports on time. The opposition and independents are forcing the issue.

PhD students are just another element of the too hard basket - www.theage.com.au/politics/fed...

Family includes everyone! ❤️

The timing of the initial strikes is unusual.

Often you see these types of operations launched in the pre-dawn hours at the target site partly to limit civilian casualties.

This operation began at the beginning of a work and school day, with millions of adult civilians and children in harms way.

This should make your blood boil.

But coming from a small country town, it is not at all surprising.

Australian governance 101: build it now because you won't get the money again if you refuse it, punt upkeep to whoever is responsible down the road.

The point that concerns me is if investing in fixing CSIRO's facilities comes at the cost of funding actual people to do work. Yes, there's a lot of science that needs a lab, that needs equipment, but in the end science also needs people - the current trajectory is not promising there.

Found an additional graphic that gets even more of these quotes together.

I've kept "I hate myself, I hate clover, and I hate bees" pinned above my desk since I first started studying evolutionary biology as an undergraduate. So relatable to get extremely frustrated with your study system.

His enemies were a credit to him

Comic of an underwater Parliament house, with submarines above. Speech bubble text: "Sure, we could have done more to prevent the ice caps melting, but luckily we spent the money on these submarines instead."

Vale Jon Kudelka - a brilliant artist who knew the power of comedy in holding truth to power, and effecting change. 

His work showed a genuine and profound love for people and nature - often funny, often heartbreaking, but always incisive. 

Australia has lost a great today.

Scene is Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen (then Min for Immigration) in a lighthouse with "Light on the Hill: written under the bulb. Gillard is turning the light off, saying 'It was attracting the boats"

I have many, many favourite Kudelka cartoons but this, from 2011, is possibly one of the best Aus pol cartoons ever drawn.

Lessons from political cartooning After being diagnosed with an inoperable glioblastoma, The Saturday Paper’s editorial cartoonist took time to consider what really matters – and it is not politics.

Very sad news about Jon Kudelka.

He wrote this last year about what really matters.

www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/life/2025/04...

Someone walking in the desert past Uluru and a big sign saying "Here is an No-Effort Zero-Risk Opportunity to be on the Right side of History" person says "no"

Here's a threat of Kudelka Gold

Vale to one of Australia's greatest cartoonists and artists - Jon Kudelka