JFC π€¬
09.03.2026 21:16
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JFC π€¬
Today I am grateful that my pediatrician follows @ameracadpeds.bsky.social's vaccine schedule, one informed by science and not by old mens' desire to grift money from making kids sick.
Vaccines work β€οΈ π§ͺ
Clockwise, from top left: Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus. None of the worlds is to scale, but all are imaged with JWST's near-infrared (NIRCam) instrument.
The giant planets of the Solar System, by JWST.
I missed this news last week: the DART impact not only changed Dimorphosβ orbit around its primary Didymos, but because of the volume of material blasted entirely out of the system it minutely altered Didymosβ orbit as well. Writeup by Marcia Dunn for AP: apnews.com/article/aste...
As a longtime advocate for a US-led ice giant mission, Iβm simultaneously disappointed (from a US perspective) and delighted (from a basic science perspective)
My name is Marisa Kabas, and I'm an independent journalist who publishes The Handbasket. I'm reaching out about a matter that involves your team and that continues to trouble me. In June of last year, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and I filed a FOIA lawsuit against the DC Metropolitan Police Department to compel them to release body camera footage from the March 17, 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace. What followed was months of back and forth with their lawyers, arguing why it was in the public interest to release the un-redacted footage in its entirety. Though tiny segments were handed over, that wasn't enough: We wanted all of it.Β On February 18, 2026, a DC judge ruled in our favor, and your reporter Mark Segraves sent a kind note of congratulations that day. Then on Monday, March 2nd, the footage was handed over to me and excitedly announced I'd received it and would be reviewing it in the coming days and sharing what I learned. When Segraves emailed me this past Thursday asking for my phone number, I didn't think much of it. But when he called me just before 2pm on Friday to let me know NBC4 Washington would be airing a segment at 5pm, I grew concerned.Β Segraves said he'd obtained some of the footage via a FOIA request that week after he heard the footage had been released to me. He said he'd credit the work of RCFP and me, but it was little comfort. I asked if he'd known the day before when he emailed me for my number, why didn't he tell me then? He didn't have a good answer for that. He acknowledged all the hard work I'd done getting this footage released. I asked him if he could hold the story until Monday, to which he replied that he's "not just a blogger" (implying that that's all I am, presumably) and that he'd have to check with his editor. I said fine. Nearly an hour later he called back to say his editor refused to hold the story, but that they were happy to interview me via Zoom to add to the package, and I said I would.
What followed was two hours of furiously writing and posting clips of the footage to Youtube so I could get something published before the 5pm broadcast, and in the midst of that, recording a quick Zoom interview with a person who was about to take credit for my work. At 4:59pm ET, The Handbasket published a piece titled "Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid." Then I tuned into NBC4 Washington via your website to catch the broadcast, and my instinct to rush to get something out first was proven right.Β "It's a story you're seeing first on News4," your newscast began. "For the first time we're getting an inside look at what happened the day the Trump administration took over the US Institute of Peace. News4 obtained more than four hours of police body camera video from that day." What followed was more than six minutes of clips and commentary from Segraves, but it's not until six minutes and 21 seconds into the piece that he mentions my name (mispronounced though he asked for the correct pronunciation on Zoom), "The Handbasket blog," and the RCFP's foundational role in bringing this footage to light. I was angry, but didn't feel there was much I could do. Then I saw the version NBC4 posted to Instagram and TikTokβthe video itself made ZERO mention of the RCFP or my work, only briefly acknowledging it in the written caption on Instagram, and not even bothering to do that on TikTok. An average viewer with no background on the case is lead to believe that this footage was released because of your efforts. When I saw that, I decided I couldn't let this go. It's difficult to explain what it's like to spend nearly a year working on a story only to have another reporter and outlet surreptitiously take credit for it; months of work and personal risk only to have another reporter lying in wait to swoop in. What NBC4 did was immoral, unethical, and to be frank, just truly sucked.
I just sent this email to the news director at NBC4 Washington about the unprofessional and disrespectful way they handled publishing the body camera footage of the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that was obtained via my FOIA lawsuit:
A rough, rubbly looking terrain that looks like that weird lint crap that builds up in crawlspaces.
This photo was taken on the surface of an asteroid.
Seeing all the anti-science actions by the fed gov't is βdiscouraging, and thatβs one of the reasons why Iβm here. How can I help to maybe turn the ship around?β
Rally-goers refuse to give in to despair, keeping hope, and the fight, alive βπ§ͺ
βWeβre fighting to save science, weβre fighting to protect health, and weβre fighting to defend democracy,β @cdelawalla.bsky.social, founder of @standupforscience.bsky.social, about todayβs Stand Up for Science rallies. eos.org/articles/tho...
The FCC just opened public comments on SpaceX's plan to launch a million satellites to do AI compute in space. Under the current proposal, an environmental review won't be required. Please consider submitting a public comment to oppose this damaging plan.
darksky.org/news/two-sat...
Elon Musk has already started plans to launch a million satellites.
Yes. A MILLION.
This is a colossally bad idea, and it's not too late to make your voice heard. I explain everything:
www.scientificamerican.com/article/ramp...
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When the US govt terminated the National Nature Asst, @phillevin.bsky.social + the author team were determined not to let that stop them.
They re-organized, set up an advisory committee, found fundingβ¦and now the brand new Nature Record is open for public comment. ππ³ππ²
Check it out (link below)!
Lawsuit Filed Over Goddard Library Closure
nasawatch.com/trumpspace/l... #NASA
Screenshot of a nasa FB post that says 3:36 4 F17 < NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Ad... β’β’. NASA - National Aeronautics and Space NASI Administration e β’ Follow 3hγ» Explore with us! Learn more about NASA Force, a new initiative to recruit the nation's top engineers and technologists in support of America's space program. Applications are opening soon: https:// go.nasa.gov/4|ctjOz NASA 626 41 ~ 72
Itβs weird how this doesnβt say βoops we accidentally pushed out/incentivized to leave/firedβ a lot of engineers and it turns out engineering projects need those.
"Science funding is wasteful" π€‘
My response whenever someone accuses scientists of covering up evidence of aliens:
When someone says βScientists do not want you to knowβ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They canβt shut up about what they found out and want you to know.
Et tu @apnews.com? Disappointed π
What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.
A sommelier, but for yarn.
βAhh, yes. I see you have Red Heart Super Saver in Raspberry Dream a wonderful variegated yarn dyed red with blue undertones and a lovely cream color, dye lot 2026-01-10. That pairs well with Caron Smash Cake in Black Diamond, dye lot 2025-06-12.β
bluesky clippy: hey there! you seem to be mad at something but not the person youβre yelling at. would you like some help self-regulating?
There's always a tweet.
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.
When I saw the news story about the girls school being bombed, one of my first thoughts was about how unlike American physics, Iranian physics is 50% women at the undergrad level and how some of those girls who had been murdered were going to be physicists one day
Has anyone claimed these schoolgirls were βhuman shieldsβ yet?
Because they willβand it will be a lie.
TESS confirms what we saw with Kepler and K2 - on average, ***every single small red star has a planet around it***! And a short-period one at that (<30 days).
And you know what the galaxy is mostly made of?
Small red stars.
PLANETS. PLANETS EVERYWHERE!!!
Happy weekend pondering that, everyone.
I GOT THE JOB AT ASU!!!!!
the consolidation of major media institutions by the presidentβs oligarch friends is obviously bad, but i do wonder about the ultimate impact. it is clear that trump and his allies believe that you can buy up media and pull an orban or a putin. butβ¦
Artemis II/Artemis program update press conference starting momentarily. I'll live post the highlights in this thread!
"NASA will then attempt to two crewed lunar landings in 2028."
I'm old enough to remember when NASA had a well researched, well vetted plan to land astronauts on the moon in 2028 and then some boneheads pushed them to do it in 2024 for politics.
(FYI, that was 5 years ago π€¦ββοΈ)