Rachel O'Brien

With the closing of the EPA ORD, does anyone know what is going to happen to all of the resources that have been made available online from that work? I'm thinking of things like the pages explaining outdoor and indoor air quality at an approachable level.

Red daylily with yellow center in the sun. The anther is covered in pollen.

Orange and black butterfly on a fern leaf. The antennae are a black and white stripe pattern, and you can see the fuzzy body of the butterfly. I believe this is a Silver-bordered Fritillary.

My favorite picture from the GRC. A blue dragonfly with wings extended. You can see white lily pad flowers in the background through the wings.

Some bright pink Phlox flowers in the sun. The pink fades to a darker purple in the middle of each little flower.

A few of my favorite shots from the past week!

Beautiful deep reds and yellows in the daylilies. I love the patterns on the butterfly antenna and the wings of dragonflies are amazing. The Phlox in the last picture is so bright and colorful!

Photos taken at the Atmospheric Chemistry GRC.

Pond at the Atmospheric Chemistry GRC.

Orange butterfly on a flower

Red dragonfly on a blade of grass

Blue dragonfly on a blade of grass

Having a good time photographing around the Atmospheric Chemistry GRC

The Invisible Climate Change Effect That Is Most Likely to Kill You Air pollution is less dramatic than floods or storms, less inconvenient, and much harder to politicize. It’s also much more deadly.

Also, the majority of air pollution of outdoor origin we breathe during our lifetimes is inhaled indoors.

Adaptation to climate influenced and other air pollution should include improved control inside homes, businesses, schools & other institutional settings.

newrepublic.com/article/1986...

Lahaina’s historic Banyan Tree Park could re-open in several months Nearly two years after the devastating wildfires swept through Lahaina and Kula, one of Lahaina’s most well-known landmarks has made a significant comeback.

A little bit of good news from Hawaiʻi.

View of Boston Harbor from an airplane landing at Logan. You can see the piers, the skyline, and a beautiful blue sky.

I'm always happy flying into Boston ❤️

Yup.

They are great! I was stripping with regular wire strippers until my friend gave me this. It was so much easier to use on multi-strand wire.

I bet this is going to be a garish gold mess. It will also be even more waste because it would need to be redone by the next administration to not be embarrassing.

Breaking: NSF is suspending roughly 300 grants with UCLA, following a DOJ finding on Tuesday that the university violated Title VI by "creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students."

Bee on a Blackeye Susan that is covered in pollen.

Good morning! I took this photo on a recent trip to Alabama. I love how you can see all the pollen, especially on her face. 🐝 #InsectThursday

Signs Your House Has Mold—And How to Get Rid of It Here are the keys to mold detection, removal, and prevention.

Happy to be quoted in Time Magazine about the problems associated with #mold in #housing. Glad they are providing information on this important issue! time.com/7305167/mold... #IAQ

Willow presenting her work on biomass burning photolysis on different surfaces.

Holden presenting his poster on outdoor and indoor surface film composition.

The two undergrads who worked in my lab this summer presented their work today! They did an amazing job with some very complex samples and data sets!

Trump Administration Scraps Effort to Pause Health-Research Funding The administration halted and then restarted billions in new research grants flowing from the National Institutes of Health.

Russell Vought lost!

WSJ: "A Trump administration effort to block all funding that flows to outside health researchers was scrapped Tuesday evening after senior White House officials intervened."

Gift link!

Look my specific delusion is that no matter how sad, how depressed, how broken I feel about the current moment, that at my lowest point I still feel more joy than the people enacting these horrible things.

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - The Elements - LIVE FILM From Copenhagen in 1967

❤️
m.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3...

I once read a comment saying something like "if you choose not to laugh at farts, your life will contain less laughter but still the same amount of farts". I think about that a lot.

Carpenter bee in a hosta flower in the afternoon sun in Michigan.

We have a couple of carpenter bees who moved into our fence this spring and I've been trying to catch a photo, but they are very busy! I finally got one I liked today.

Opinion | The Elite Panic at the Heart of Liberal Attacks on Mamdani

I have no gift subscriptions left but somebody please post one for this MUST READ piece from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social. Straight fire.🔥

The Elite Panic at the Heart of Liberal Attacks on Mamdani www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/o...

Why are cups of coffee from random gas stations in the middle of nowhere so much better than the much more expensive coffee from larger chains?

Voices of CIRES: Joost de Gouw Listen to Voices of CIRES: Joost de Gouw by CIRES News #np on #SoundCloud

I enjoyed working on this piece for Voices of CIRES and think it came out really well. on.soundcloud.com/T9uMt1CyffGq...

The people who roll back regulations never seem to be the ones who are drinking the water or breathing the air at the high end of those concentrations.

I wish we could make it a requirement that you need to live with the pollution before you can lobby, vote, or advocate to increase it anywhere.

It was really good! I hope they make one staring Mr. Terrific :)

We just saw Superman and it was really great. Very strong recommendation!

I don't know how to fix this, but I think some leaders who can guide conversations and create a space for people to figure out what works would be a great idea.

Trump quietly shutters the only federal agency that investigates industrial chemical explosions The Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency that investigates large-scale industrial chemical disasters, will close under Trump's orders.

Trump quietly shutters the only federal agency that investigates industrial chemical explosions.

Hazardous chemical accidents happen in the U.S. about every other day. Who will investigate them now?

grist.org/energy/trump...

#Chemicals #Policy #Politics #Climate #Environment #Policy

Oh no! I hope you are feeling better.

Then they should have no problem lowering their pay to the same level. Think of all the other things that money could be used for!

I wish there was more we could do for our colleagues in government positions after everything they have endured over the past 6 months.

This is terrible. The costs for this decision in terms of people harmed, lost research, and lost expertise will far outstrip any meager savings.