Douglas Natelson

No worries. The political environment in TX is certainly very challenging for higher ed. Any kind of real education, really.

Why Rice? I am a faculty member there, and I’m curious why on earth you would lump it in with Liberty U.

Avi Loeb has already written a preprint speculating that the blotch may be an alien interstellar probe, possibly with hostile intent.

“Experts” said that driving 100mph toward a cliff edge was a bad idea, but we haven’t had any issues so far!

This is terrible.

🧪 So, does this mean that Columbia caved to the tune of $220M and, surprise, still doesn’t get their NIH grants back? This is just absurd. Congress *should* be pissed.

New experiment uses levitated magnets to search for dark matter – Physics World Although it hasn’t detected dark matter yet, its developers say it offers an alternative path that is worth exploring

Two physicists from different disciplines met at a climate protest (as you do). They got to talking about their research (as you do). Within a year or so, they'd designed a new type of dark matter detector experiment (as you...wait, what?). First results here: 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/new-experi...

Have you watched The Diplomat on Netflix?

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97

One of the greatest scientist communicators of all time has passed on. The Science Division at UCSC was so fortunate to have had Tom Lehrer on our faculty for almost 30 years.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

Oh dear. “All the world seems in tune, on a spring afternoon….”

What does a molecule sound like? We all learn in high school chemistry or earlier that atoms can bind together to form molecules, and like a " highly sophisticated interlock...

🧪 I'm a fan of this way of interacting with vibrational spectra. I did this on my blog a while ago: nanoscale.blogspot.com/2015/06/what...

This is bad. At this point I’m surprised that Columbia didn’t write a personal check to the DJT presidential library fund….

Ghislaine Maxwell Can’t Help But Notice Interview Room Covered In Plastic Sheeting TALLAHASSEE, FL—Perplexed that the Department of Justice had chosen a setting with such strange decor to ask her about Jeffrey Epstein’s co-conspirators, Ghislaine Maxwell confirmed Thursday that she couldn’t help but notice her interview room was covered in plastic sheeting. “Wow, you’ve got the whole room tarped up—you guys doing some painting later?” said Maxwell […]

“Wow, you’ve got the whole room tarped up—you guys doing some painting later?” said Ghislaine Maxwell theonion.com/ghislai...

Opinion | The Future Is Local for Research Funding There’s a lesson for scientists in the success of the school-choice movement.

🧪⚛️ Start by taking as a given that publicly funded research has been “woke and wasteful”. Then say, “See, harming public education has been good for private schools that we like. Therefore, destroying public funding of research may well be good for research!” Wow. www.wsj.com/opinion/the-...

Research experience for teachers - why NSF education funds matter The beginning of a RET poster session Research Experience for Teachers  (RET) programs are an example of the kind of programs that the Natio...

🧪⚛️ Research Experience for Teachers programs are important and fun. It would be very disappointing if they were a casualty of recommended NSF budget cuts. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/07/rese...

I suggest the Dark Forest hypothesis to explain the lack of obvious people.

🧪⚛️ Updates on the state of science funding in the appropriations process right now. Lots of pushback on the presidential budget request, but still a long way to go. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-...

So, for anyone getting Avi Loeb’s emails, or wondering if his claims have any merit this time around: all of his alien spacecraft stuff for this object rest on his assertion that it is very large and has no detected coma.

This is incorrect. It is clearly, clearly a comet.

There's a chunk of the current preprint about intercept trajectories for this one. As a condensed matter physicist, when I read this, I thought (1) it'd be a fun essay for an undergrad, and (2) someone is even a bigger sci-fi fan than me. (If it performs a perihelion burn, I will eat crow gladly.)

🧪⚛️ Minor spoilers: I think we can all agree that Superman (2025) contains a valuable cautionary message about the hazards of mass inhalation of self-reproducing nanites. Wear your PPE!

🧪 ⚛️ There are signs that the US Senate is resisting calls for giant cuts to science agencies. Now is the time to push on the House appropriators, to try to stave off catastrophic damage to US science and engineering research and competitiveness. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/07/us-s...

Keep up the pressure on the House appropriators. If they follow the presidential budget request, then the compromise will be a 1/3 cut, which would still be catastrophic.

I’m aware. My point is that unrelated items should be “severable”, ideally.

The US appropriation system is god-awful. Explain to me in simple words why in a rational world the decision on the location of FBI headquarters should affect an up/down vote on funding levels for NSF and NASA.

🧪⚛️ Keep up the pressure! Call House appropriators as well, since there has to be some conference version!

America Is Killing Its Chance to Find Alien Life Cuts to NASA mean that the U.S. likely won’t build the next great space observatory.

For folks who weren't online July 4th (when this went live)....

Here is my @TheAtlantic piece on NASA and what's being lost there. The new budget could spell the end of the great agency's legacy of space science leadership.

A huge national mistake.

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Here’s the bottom line for what’s going on with Grok - if the owner of the website is putting his thumb on the scale hard enough for the chatbot to turn into Goebbels, you should be deeply concerned about what he’s doing to the algorithm that you can’t so easily see, and what it’s doing to you

🧪⚛️ Some science updates from the past week, including monostable tetrahedra, tunneling times, and interstellar visitors. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/07/new-...