NGC2264

A portrait of Charles Darwin as an older man, with long white beard, balding head, looking to the viewer's right and down, as if contemplating great things. "Estate of LEONARD DARWIN (1850-1943) Portrait of Charles Darwin. Carbon print, the image measuring 4 5/8x3 5/8 inches (11.8x9.2 cm.), the mount 8 1/2x5 1/4 inches (21.6x13.3 cm.), with a printed facsimile signature on mount recto, and notations, in pencil, in an unknown hand, on mount verso. Circa 1884"

Happy Darwin Day 2026! 🧪

"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."

- Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871).

Gavin Newsom isn’t going to lead an anti-trans pogrom in 2028 for the same reason a Republican governor just vetoed a bathroom bill in New Hampshire: rounding up trans people is heinously unpopular with anybody remotely well-adjusted.

MBARI Senior Scientist Kelly Benoit-Bird named an ASLO 2025 Sustaining Fellow • MBARI The Association for the Sciences of Limnology and Oceanography (ASLO) has named MBARI Senior Scientist Kelly Benoit-Bird a 2025 Sustaining Fellow. Each year, ASLO honors select members for their contr...

Happy #InternationalWomenandGirlsinScienceDay! 💙

We’re proud to celebrate all the women expanding our understanding of the ocean and inspiring the next generation of scientists, including Kelly Benoit-Bird, who was recently named a 2025 Sustaining Fellow by @aslo.org: www.mbari.org/news/mbari-s...

Testing a new rough paper. #art #artsky #wip #painting

Our feature tutorial/artist today is this great little set of notes by
@IsaacOrloff! The idea of breaking your environmental details into forms of DIFFERENT SIZES is the key to varied, visually interesting designs :) #howtodraw #gamedev #animationdev #gameart #animation

illustration of two women sitting and sharing a gentle moment together to the left is Neve, her back turned to us, sitting on a higher ledge, holding Chiara's face with her right hand, head slightly tilted, she's smiling, dark brown hair falling freely down. to the right is Chiara, sitting on a lower ledge, looking in awe at Neve, she's leaning forward, her hands on Neve's thighs the moment feels intimate Neve Gallus is a character from Dragon Age: the Veilguard, Chiara de Riva is a custom player character from the same game

You came through.

#dragonage | #art | #neverook

Canadian Society of Zoologists 2026 annual meeting coming to Carleton University and Ottawa, Ontario, Canada May 11-14th.
#Science 🧪 #Zoology #Canada
www.csz2026.ca

Stunning image! 🔭 🧪

⚒️🧪Fiery Mud Volcano Eruption!

The Daşmərdan (Dashmardan) mud volcano in Azerbaijan erupted ~16:50 on the 30th Jan 2026. The eruption lasted ~15 mins and was accompanied by a pillar of flame several hundred meters high. Daşmərdan had previous documented eruptions in 1866, 1954, 1976, 1986 and 2011.

This is my whatsapp code

Message Achal on WhatsApp. wa.me/message/TFNN...

Stellarium graphic showing the positions of the Moon, Neptune and Saturn on the evening of 23 January 2026.

The 24% lit #Moon sits above #Saturn in the constellation of Pisces this evening. If you have binoculars or a telescope, faint Neptune sits between them. #Astronomy

The Star Formation Newsletter Returns - The Star Formation Newsletter The Star Formation Newsletter is back after a hiatus. This post explains its future direction.

The Star Formation Newsletter is back! 🔭☄️ 🥳

From February onwards, we're returning with monthly round-ups of star and planet formation papers, interviews, and more!

Also this week: tracking spacecraft re-entry using seismometers on the ground. This method provides additional constraints on the debris trajectory, even during daytime. 🛰️🔭 #seismology

White House tweet with Trump walking with a penguin toward a Greenland flag

Galapagos penguin, photo by putneymark (Wikimedia commons)

Thanks to the White House about half the internet learnt that there are actually no penguins in Greenland. Yay #scicomm!

BUT there *is* one 🐧living in the northern hemisphere: the Galapagos penguin, the only species found (just) north of the equator. No, the "penguin" on the WH tweet is not it.
🧪🪶

"Easy-peasy!"
--Ludovico Lami @ludovicolami.bsky.social at #QIP2026

Democrats Are Finally Fighting Back on Trans Issues After years of running scared from Republican attacks, Democrats are learning that engaging—rather than fleeing—actually works.

Colin Allred ran from trans issues in 2024. Lost by 8 points. James Talarico is doing the opposite—reframing Republican attacks instead of accepting their terms. Early polling says it's working. New post on what changed. aridrennen.substack.com/p/democrats-...

It’s a sunny day in the mountains. There are zero lift lines. The corduroy is perfect. And the boomer next to me on the chairlift spent the whole time complaining about how bad the skiing has been for all his friends with second homes in Colorado. Some people bring Hell everywhere they go.

Talking With Gabriel Zucman On Europe, oligarchy and more

Krugman talks to Zucman

Hubble took this shot of something pretty wild out there. There's a young star dead center, way too bright, buried in all this thick gas and dust that's glowing orange—mostly that warm orange with some redder bits bleeding in. From the middle a lopsided fan thing blasts out, wide and uneven, like half a spray of stuff got thrown one way and forgot the other side. The outer parts pick up a touch of blue-ish glow where it hits the dark. Random tiny stars poke through the dark background, just little dots adding some extra light. Messy as hell, violent-looking, but you can't look away—star birth up close and personal, total chaos.

🧵
Using Hubble’s WFC3 astronomers captured an amazing image of IRAS 05506+2414, an enigmatic stellar object surrounded by a shroud of thick gas and dust, over 9,000 ly away in Taurus. 🔭

➡️ science.nasa.gov/missions/hub...

Pic by ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Sahai

🧪 #science #galactic #Universe

1/4

I want every penny back + interest

Trump is so unpopular he has to repost Indian ai slop accounts because everyone else hates him

BREAKING: House Passes Spending Bills With All Anti-Trans Riders Stripped Out Provisions targeting gender-affirming care and trans students were removed during negotiations. The bill now heads to the Senate

Notching a rare win: House passed spending bills with all anti-trans riders removed—no care bans, no school funding threats, nothing.
Sarah McBride and Dem appropriators fought for this for months. open.substack.com/pub/aridrenn...

A view of the canal in the city of Groningen, Netherlands. The sky is blue and the trees lining the water are green, so it's *definitely* not taken in January. Credit: https://www.hanze.nl/en/study/living-in-the-netherlands-and-groningen/groningen-is-waiting-for-you

A screenshot from our conference website: https://groningen2026.rockyworlds.org/ The text reads: Rocky Worlds 4 19–23 January 2026, Groningen, Netherlands In-person registrations for the conference are booked up. Registration for virtual participation is open.

Wondering why we've been so quiet this month? That's because we're busy preparing to welcome everyone *next week* to Groningen 🇳🇱 for...

🌋✨🚀 The ROCKY WORLDS 4 Conference 2026! 🪐✨☄️

Updates will be posted throughout the week from this account & others using the #RockyWorlds4 hashtag – stay tuned! 🔭🧪

Image showing a bright meteor trail with a hill in the foreground and a background of stars in the night sky.

From @noirlabastro.bsky.social: You never know when you’ll see something different in the sky, like this extra-bright meteor spotted by the Maunakea live webcam near the Gemini North telescope in Hawai‘i. #astronomy

Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

This image opens the Subaru Gallery for 2026. As the Sun sets and Maunakea is bathed in evening light, the Subaru Telescope prepares for the night ahead. Inside the enclosure, final preparations are underway to open the main shutter and begin observations. The Subaru Telescope achieved first light in January 1999 and entered its 27th year of operation in 2026. In March 2025, ʻŌnohiʻula Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) began scientific observations. Development of Ultra-wide Laser Tomographic Imager and MOS with AO for Transcendent Exploration (ULTIMATE-Subaru) is also progressing.

Sunset over Maunakea and the Subaru Telescope Preparing for Observation

Credit: Dr. Vera Maria Passegger/NAOJ 🧪🔭
subarutelescope.org/en/gallery/f... #Maunakea

Congratulations @nichollsh.bsky.social for your outstanding work and thesis results! 🔭🚀🌋 It has been and continues to be privilege to work with you, and all the very best for your new endeavour at Cambridge! 🌟💻

An image of the Beehive cluster M44, a cluster of bright/big white and orange stars in front of many mall fainter/smaller stars.

When M78 sank too low in the sky, I had the scope switch to M44, the Beehive cluster. This is about 2 hours of 10-second exposures after culling.
I used a short exposure time because the cluster supposedly has a mix of red and white-blue stars. However I can’t see any blue in my image.

#astrophoto

Pollster: most voters trust Dems over GOP on trans issues Speaking on a panel moderated by Human Rights Campaign President Kelly Robinson at the National Press Club this morning, pollster Joey Teitelbaum offered a clear message for Democrats: extreme policie...

Democratic strategist urges candidates to go on offense as a new report from @HRC finds that LGBTQ adults are 2x as likely as others to report worsening finances over the past year, with nearly half at least partially returning to the closet: aridrennen.substack.com/p/pollster-m...