Mostly space and COVID stuff.
Laniakea supercluster
Joined July 2012
- Tweets7K
- Following3.8K
- Followers2K
- Likes6K
An ancient basket older than writing.
WOW! This small woven basket is about 9,500 years old! 🤯
Looks like it was made yesterday rather than by hunter gatherers during the Mesolithic!
From the Cueva de los Murciélagos (Cave of bats) near Granada, southern Spain. 📷 by me
#Archaeology
ALT My photo shows a small, shallow, conical-shaped basket viewed from above, woven from Esparto grass. It is displayed against a dark museum background. Two different colour twines, greyish-brown and a warmer tan brown, have been woven together to create a decorative geometric pattern, giving it a two-tone appearance. Height 4.6 cm, diameter 10.8 cm. This basket belongs to a famous basketry assemblage recovered from the Cueva de los Murciélagos (Cave of bats) near Granada, southern Spain. The assemblage is the earliest known basketry in southern Europe, made by hunter-gatherers some 9,500 years ago. Part of the collections of the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid. However, this basket is currently on loan to the State Prehistory Museum in Halle, Germany, for the temporary 'Shaman of Bad Dürrenberg' exhibition, which is where I photographed it.
Not good at all.
Journalist Peter Brannen describes how the Industrial Revolution ignited a new metabolism upon the Earth, ongoing and potentially catastrophic. Annually, humans release CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate 100 times faster than Earth's volcanoes combined. buff.ly/2CIK24J
More of these articles please.
Covid constitutes the largest mass disabling event in the United States since the Americans with Disabilities Act became law in 1990.
Now, the Trump administration’s anti-worker and anti-disability turn has created a climate of fear and difficulty around Long Covid accommodations. motherjones.com/politics/202…
AC retweeted
This woman is reciting Donald Trump’s words on his new vaccine recommendations verbatim. This remains the clearest way to illustrate just how far gone he is mentally. This is terrifying.
AC retweeted
Because NASA is targeting the south pole of the moon the astronauts landing there are going to see the Earth 'upside down'.
Very interesting study on the effects of climate change on life at different scales.
Global Change Biology | Environmental Change Journal | Wiley Online Library onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
AC retweeted
NYT Link: SARS-CoV-2 reinfections as Russian Roulette
nytimes.com/2026/10/19/well/…
AC retweeted
A large part of mathematics which becomes useful developed with absolutely no desire to be useful, and in a situation where nobody could possibly know in what area it would become useful; and there were no general indications that it ever would be so. By and large it is uniformly true in mathematics that there is a time lapse between a mathematical discovery and the moment when it is useful; and that this lapse of time can be anything from 30 to 100 years, in some cases even more; and that the whole system seems to function without any direction, without any reference to usefulness, and without any desire to do things which are useful.
-- John von Neumann,
"The Role of Mathematics in the Sciences and in Society" (1954)
The Planetary Science Institute weekly newsletter:
🌕 Keep the Moon celebration going!
This week’s PSI Weekly Briefing explores the Moon’s formation, spotlights PSI co-founders Bill Hartmann & Don Davis, and features Hartmann’s lunar art. 🎨
Read the latest + subscribe for more planetary science: buff.ly/bzLGXEv
Airport air sampling captures COVID, influenza viruses cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/airp…
AC retweeted
Bright sunlight glints as long dark shadows mark this image of the surface of the Moon. It was taken on July 20, 1969, by Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, the first to walk on the lunar surface. Pictured is the mission's lunar module, the Eagle, and spacesuited lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin. Aldrin is unfurling a long sheet of foil also known as the Solar Wind Composition Experiment. Exposed facing the Sun, the foil trapped particles streaming outward in the solar wind, catching a sample of material from the Sun itself. Along with 22 kilograms of moon rocks and lunar soil samples, the solar wind collector was returned for analysis in earthbound laboratories.
Image Credit: Apollo 11, NASA (Image scanned by Kipp Teague)
“Measles is spread by airborne transmission and can remain in the air for up to two hours.”
An infant in Travis County has been diagnosed with measles, Austin Public Health announced Thursday. It is the county’s second confirmed case of 2026. kut.org/health/2026-09-10/au…
ALT Austin Public Health confirms measles case in unvaccinated infant
COVID can cause internal damage to your body. Don’t play Russian roulette with your long-term health.
COVlD outbreaks span 33 states/territories. Find your local levels at pmc19.com/map
Stay safe with layered precautions:
-Get boosted
-Wear a well-fitting N95 respirator, such as a 3M Aura, available at most hardware stores
-Increase air hygiene by flipping the HVAC from "auto" to "on," opening windows, or adding air purifiers
-Test before gatherings, if exposed, or if experiencing symptoms; the Flowflex brand performs well and can be accessed quickly through an Instacart search of local stores or delivery via Amazon and others
-Stay home when sick and test daily
-Move events outdoors or online
Mere handwashing and coughing/sneezing into one's arm are insufficient against a virus with at least 99.99% airborne transmission. An infected individual exhales virus into the air by breathing, it lingers in the air, and people become infected by inhaling the virus deep into the lungs. Cumulative infections continue to cause long-term health conditions, disability, and excess deaths via downstream heart attacks and other proximal processes. An exposure need not mean infection if one uses layers of precautions.
COVID-19 can wake up dormant viruses in the body, large study confirms | Science | AAAS science.org/content/article/…
When do infections lead to long COVID? Scientists close in on triggers and treatments for post-viral syndromes nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
“…in my own research, I have chosen not to rely on artificial intelligence to replace my creative process”.
Hugo Duminil-Copin, a Fields Medalist, writes from the heart about what we mathematicians lose when we do math with AI.
Many people here on X will disagree with what he's saying. But before trolling or laughing or braying, try understanding what he's saying. He's not trying to persuade anyone. He's just speaking from his heart.
proofsandprompts.com/2026/08…
