Bernard Schutz's Avatar

Bernard Schutz

@bschutz.bsky.social

Astrophysicist, author, grandfather. Have lived in USA, Wales, Germany, Italy. FRS, NAS. Views my own.

830 Followers  |  491 Following  |  5 Posts  |  Joined: 15.08.2024  |  2.0465

Latest posts by bschutz.bsky.social on Bluesky

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Cardiff University academic who objected to cuts robbed of title through 'spite' Martin Shipton A distinguished archaeologist and academic who publicly opposed Cardiff University’s cuts programme has been β€œspitefully” denied a status often given to retired professors. James Whitle...

Spiteful, petty bean counters

nation.cymru/news/cardiff...

26.06.2025 07:46 β€” πŸ‘ 51    πŸ” 23    πŸ’¬ 5    πŸ“Œ 3

This one hits particularly hard. I'm a UIUC alum.

There's an experimental field in the middle of the campus that grows corn and soybeans.

The large undergraduate library next to it is built underground - legend has it that this is so that the building doesn't cast a shadow on the field. (1/2)

09.02.2025 07:30 β€” πŸ‘ 14    πŸ” 7    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0

And if there is a shortage of air traffic controllers then accidents like this will be more likely. If you voted for him, does this sound like a good strategy? To me it is inhuman. /end

30.01.2025 08:57 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

It is unlikely that this had anything to do with yesterday’s tragic air crash, but it might well make it more difficult to figure out what happened and then do something to prevent it. /2

30.01.2025 08:56 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Ranking Members Larsen, Cohen Statements on Trump’s Dangerous Freeze of Air Traffic Control Hiring | The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure

On his second day in office, Trump fired the head of the TSA, fired the entire Aviation Security Advisory Committee, and froze hiring new air traffic controllers. /1

democrats-transportation.house.gov/news/press-r...

30.01.2025 08:55 β€” πŸ‘ 7    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 2    πŸ“Œ 0
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A world less safe and secure On 20 January, President Trump announced the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO). President Trump shares many of the same concerns about WHO as previous administra...

A world less safe and secure www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

23.01.2025 23:06 β€” πŸ‘ 28    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Wild. Top is the NBC upload, bottom is the one aired as the live feed

21.01.2025 05:45 β€” πŸ‘ 22060    πŸ” 8503    πŸ’¬ 767    πŸ“Œ 1400

It should be the oil companies that pay the bill. I am no friend of billionaires, but the oil companies’ value comes from putting carbon into the atmosphere.

16.01.2025 15:50 β€” πŸ‘ 0    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

In early 2020, a pandemic was spreading. The UK’s PM went on a 10 day half-term holiday during which he was uncontactable and the government went into panic mode, focusing, as Hancock related to the COVID enquiry, on buying enough body bags. 1/8

14.01.2025 11:43 β€” πŸ‘ 2123    πŸ” 932    πŸ’¬ 94    πŸ“Œ 88
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New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States According to new data analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures, rising seas and changing rainfall will profoundly reshape the way people have lived in North…

In 2020, we mapped out the danger zones that will close in on Americans over the next 30 years β€”Β combining climate data with wildfire projections by US Forest Service researchers.

See what changes are in store for your county.

By @shaw.al , @abrahm.bsky.social & Jeremy W. Goldsmith

12.01.2025 04:00 β€” πŸ‘ 6378    πŸ” 2962    πŸ’¬ 289    πŸ“Œ 429
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Huge gratitude for our neighbors, Mexico and Canada have sent fire fighters and army to help us.

12.01.2025 01:40 β€” πŸ‘ 49752    πŸ” 7043    πŸ’¬ 922    πŸ“Œ 322

this is it

11.01.2025 17:40 β€” πŸ‘ 1277    πŸ” 230    πŸ’¬ 51    πŸ“Œ 7
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Zuck goes full Musk, dumps Facebook fact-checking program Meta will replace it with so-called community notes like on the X platform. The content moderation changes won’t be rolled out in the EU for now.

Zuck goes full Musk as Facebook dumps third-party fact-checkers & content moderation.

Zuckerberg's gestures towards making Facebook less toxic were only ever cosmetic. Money & power are what it's about for the tech-bros, & democracy be damned. www.politico.eu/article/mark...

07.01.2025 22:14 β€” πŸ‘ 26    πŸ” 8    πŸ’¬ 4    πŸ“Œ 1
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Resignation of the Journal of Human Evolution Editorial Board: We are saddened to announce the resignations of The Joint Editors-in-Chief, all Emeritus Editors retired or active in the field, and all but one Associate Editor. Press release below.

26.12.2024 16:52 β€” πŸ‘ 1010    πŸ” 542    πŸ’¬ 58    πŸ“Œ 169
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Sums up Elon’s position pretty well.

28.12.2024 14:25 β€” πŸ‘ 2494    πŸ” 469    πŸ’¬ 77    πŸ“Œ 21
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US agency focused on foreign disinformation shuts down A leading US government agency that tracks foreign disinformation has terminated its operations, the State Department said Tuesday, after Congress failed to extend its funding following years of Repub...

Thanks to the Republican Congress, and a tsunami of lies from Musk and others, the only US agency dedicated to tracking and exposing Russian and Chinese propaganda around the world ceases to exist
www.france24.com/en/live-news...

26.12.2024 08:30 β€” πŸ‘ 5910    πŸ” 3088    πŸ’¬ 294    πŸ“Œ 270
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This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It's Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years The interactive tool enables users to home in on a specific location and visualize how it has evolved between the Cryogenian period and the present

This Map Lets You Plug in Your Address to See How It’s Changed Over the Past 750 Million Years www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/m...

23.12.2024 01:06 β€” πŸ‘ 1169    πŸ” 339    πŸ’¬ 43    πŸ“Œ 64
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Funding overhaul threatens historic U.K. research units Scientists protest new β€œchallenge-led” grants replacing funding that supported long-term basic research

Scientists protest new β€œchallenge-led” grants replacing funding that supported long-term basic research www.science.org/content/arti...

21.12.2024 12:34 β€” πŸ‘ 6    πŸ” 5    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0
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Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?' Goldman Sachs warns sales from the most successful disease treatments are difficult to maintain.

I can hardly think of a better example of the moral decay in modern health care than a Goldman analyst noting that biotech cures for diseases like hepatitis are cool and all, until their success diminishes the business opportunity for pharmaceutical manufacturers.

www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/g...

19.12.2024 23:57 β€” πŸ‘ 10640    πŸ” 3175    πŸ’¬ 525    πŸ“Œ 333
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Louisiana forbids public health workers from promoting COVID, flu and mpox shots An NPR investigation found Louisiana health officials told staff to stop promoting vaccines for COVID, flu and mpox, holding flu shot events or otherwise encouraging the public to get those vaccines.

This is outrageous: β€œStaffers were also told that it applies to every aspect of the health department's work: Employees could not send out press releases, give interviews, hold vaccine events, give presentations or create social media posts encouraging the public to get the vaccines.”

20.12.2024 13:16 β€” πŸ‘ 842    πŸ” 408    πŸ’¬ 77    πŸ“Œ 136

The world's richest man managed to take $190 million away from a *child cancer research center* with his posts yesterday. Funding now stripped in the new bill.

19.12.2024 22:22 β€” πŸ‘ 56224    πŸ” 19478    πŸ’¬ 2602    πŸ“Œ 1495
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Steven Bartlett sharing harmful health misinformation on Diary of CEO podcast Disproven health claims are accepted with little challenge by host on number one podcast, BBC investigation finds.

Disinformation and Misinformation shared by Steven Bartlett in his so-called health podcast has multiple dubious claims, debunked β€˜experts’ including Malhotra and people with stakes in wellness including the host who also makes £££ from the podcasts. 😑😑😑πŸ§ͺ

13.12.2024 08:06 β€” πŸ‘ 301    πŸ” 102    πŸ’¬ 27    πŸ“Œ 10

The picture is fun, but surely the sapiens at that time had dark skins and dark curly hair!

11.12.2024 09:57 β€” πŸ‘ 2    πŸ” 0    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Thread on need to fight for evidence-based policy - a response to Trump's cabinet picks.

Based on new @bmj.com article by me, @martinmckee.bsky.social & @kentbuse.bsky.social

TLDR: Now is the time to stand up for science, not appease those in power attacking it

www.bmj.com/content/387/... 1/14

28.11.2024 23:58 β€” πŸ‘ 620    πŸ” 276    πŸ’¬ 17    πŸ“Œ 28
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The usual suspects are out there yelling "There are 23 million government workers! Fire most of them!" No awareness that most work for local governments, and most of *them* are schoolteachers. Federal employment hasn't grown since the 1950s

23.11.2024 14:06 β€” πŸ‘ 31014    πŸ” 9352    πŸ’¬ 1281    πŸ“Œ 637

A thread you have never seen before.

21.11.2024 21:17 β€” πŸ‘ 59    πŸ” 22    πŸ’¬ 1    πŸ“Œ 0
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Open-access journal elife will lose its β€˜impact factor’ over controversial publishing model Web of Science index decides to strip key metric because elife’s unusual peer review doesn’t meet its criteria

Open-access journal elife will lose its β€˜impact factor’ over controversial publishing model | Science
www.science.org/content/arti...

18.11.2024 14:48 β€” πŸ‘ 3    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

Thread - on Bluesky design

17.11.2024 06:00 β€” πŸ‘ 396    πŸ” 75    πŸ’¬ 15    πŸ“Œ 2
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Sander van der Linden (@profsander.vanderlinden) on Threads New computational analyses from the University of Queensland on algorithmic bias suggest that the X algorithm substantially boosted Republican accounts right after Elon Musk's endorsement of Donald Tr...

There is now some hard evidence that X boosted the Trump campaign and suppressed the Harris campaign. What's to stop Musk from doing the same in other countries?
www.threads.net/@profsander....

17.11.2024 06:13 β€” πŸ‘ 6006    πŸ” 2132    πŸ’¬ 331    πŸ“Œ 156
LIGO Physics Nobel Laureate Rai Weiss, 92, in his office at MIT

LIGO Physics Nobel Laureate Rai Weiss, 92, in his office at MIT

Always a joy to interview on πŸŽ₯ LIGO’s wonderful Rai Weiss (Physics Nobel 2017) now 92, in his office at MIT. Our 5th interview over 9 years. #LIGO

16.11.2024 17:20 β€” πŸ‘ 9    πŸ” 1    πŸ’¬ 0    πŸ“Œ 0

@bschutz is following 19 prominent accounts