Rachel Glade

Thanks Irina!!

What are the necessary and sufficient ingredients for the formation of solifluction patterns? This vexing question has been the albatross round my neck for years. Through process of elimination and a hunch, I believe we have the whisper of an answer. See our preprint! eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

Future generations, if they are able to exist, will look back on decisions like these with disgust.

A Roomful of Computers: the Prescience of Lewis Fry Richardson In a course I teach on geophysical fluid mechanics, I like show students a video depicting a year of weather on planet earth. The video looks down on a projected map of the world as viewed from space....

Lewis Fry Richardson, often considered the father of numerical weather prediction, turns out to have been a fascinating guy: scientist, Quaker, pacifist, visionary. I wrote a short piece about his legacy:
earthcastings.ghost.io/a-roomful-of...

Science Needs to Embrace the Idea of Style How do individual scientists approach their work? These stylistic differences can influence the process of discovery.

Some chemists build molecules incrementally. Others make risky moves to discover new chemistry. Both succeed. We call it methodology. But it's style. And we act like acknowledging different approaches threatens scientific rigor.

If you care about fluvial sediment transport, this is a must read. A solid statistical physics foundation on which one (or many) could build a lifetime of work...

Four color theorem - Wikipedia

very cool- reminds me of this! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_co...

These look like exactly what I need at exactly the right time... thanks for sharing!

IT'S SNOW JOKE: THE HISTORY OF GLACIERS IN WESTERN NEW YORK They Came, They Thawed, They Conquered

Curious about the glacial geomorphology? Recent undergrad Regan Collins made this amazing ArcGIS Storymap about the formation of the Finger Lakes Region, complete with a map for a self-guided field trip to see some of the best examples of glacial geomorphology in the world! tinyurl.com/7w4asmwc

New publication alert! Congratulations to Patel and @rachelglade.bsky.social for their paper "When ice meets bedrock: variation in regional lithology as a control on the size variation of the Finger Lakes in Western New York ". Take a look here journals.psu.edu/geomorphica/...

We had a great experience publishing with @geomorphica.bsky.social! Using a simple glacial erosion model, recent undergrad Div Patel found that lithologic differences alone may be enough to explain size differences of the Finger Lakes in Western, NY. Check it out! journals.psu.edu/geomorphica/...

This book will change the course of geomorphology as a field- get a head start and see what's here!

Check out the @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social conference we're (Vashan Wright, Sujit Datta, Nathalie Vriend) organizing:
www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/s... for THIS JANUARY 6-9!
Geoscientists, physicists and engineers: are you intellectually adventurous and been wondering "is this all there is?" 🧪

Using laminar(ish) flume experiments with xanthan gum as a proxy for cohesive biofilms, we found that changing cohesion alone can qualitatively alter channel morphology and dynamics, transitioning from braided, to single thread, to gully-like channels with retreating headcuts.

I'm incredibly proud of PhD student Nacere Mohamed Samassi for submitting her first ever paper, as well as the first experimental paper from the DRIP lab! Check out the preprint here: eartharxiv.org/repository/v...

4-panel comic. (1) [Person 1 with ponytail flanked by person with short hair and another person speaking into microphone at podium] PERSON 1: In the early 2010s, researchers found that many major scientific results couldn’t be reproduced. (2) PERSON 1: Over a decade into the replication crisis, we wanted to see if today’s studies have become more robust. (3) PERSON 1: Unfortunately, our replication analysis has found exactly the same problems that those 2010s researchers did. (4) [newspaper with image of speakers from previous panels] Headline: Replication Crisis Solved

Replication Crisis

xkcd.com/3117/

Cohesion is a good example of a pesky additive rather than multiplicative term...

Rapid Response Bridge Funding Program In the face of recent abrupt shifts in federal funding for education research, including large-scale terminations of National Science Foundation (NSF) research grant awards, we have developed a rap...

FYI: The Spencer Foundation, Kapor Foundation, The William T. Grant Foundation, and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation have collaborated to offer $25K rapid response grants.

"This rapid response bridge funding opportunity is for scholars and teams whose grants have recently been cancelled by NSF."

A beautiful paper about a ubiquitous pattern- I'll never look at ripples the same way again!

Kurt Vonnegut tells his wife he's going out to buy an envelope: "Oh, she says, well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And see some great looking babies. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And I'll ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don't know. The moral of the story is — we're here on Earth to fart around And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And it's like we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

Kurt Vonnegut man

I am happy to share a fresh out of the oven preprint where we are connecting some granular mechanics to the fabrication and performance of solid state batteries! Check it out!

agreed- I simply meant individual lawmakers from both sides of the aisle.

PhD student JohnPaul also visited DC last week as an AGU Local Science Partner to talk about arctic soil erosion to a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Never has there been a more important time in history to talk to congress about science. Way to go JP!

Viewing lobate patterns on Mars and Earth as climate modulated fluid-like instabilities Lobate features found on high-latitude slopes on Mars resemble terrestrial cold-climate soil patterns known as solifluction lobes. Whether this provid…

Amidst an onslaught of bad news, I'm very happy to report some *good* news that JohnPaul Sleiman, DRIP Lab PhD student, just published his very first paper in Icarus! We find that lobate patterns on Mars are likely similar to those found in arctic regions on Earth. Congrats JP! tinyurl.com/3mwrarm2

Trump cuts threaten measurement lab critical for advanced chips and medical devices The Atomic Spectroscopy Group provides standardized measurements used across wide swaths of science and industry. The Trump administration plans to cut it.

NEW: Trump cuts are threatening a standards laboratory who's work on atomic spectra undergirds the entire modern economy.

The lab is run by just seven federal employees who have been paying out-of-pocket for their own coffee since 1973.

www.npr.org/2025/03/26/n...

The Cost of the Government’s Attack on Columbia American universities have given the country prosperity and security. The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom endangers all of that.

Excellent excellent excellent from Princeton president and constitutional/ political theorist Chris Eisgruber. There's been far too little of this kind of thing; here's hoping others follow his good example.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Excited to share our new paper in @pnas.org doi.org/10.1073/pnas...! Ice cubes often appear cloudy because, as water freezes, air bubbles get trapped and scatter light. But how does freezing rate affect the shape of the bubbles?

This is essential reading. It is an example of the required, new style of thinking about doing science.

Very useful explainer.

I'm enjoying this whole special issue about the doing of science: www.pnas.org/toc/pnas/122/5