Danielle J. Whittaker

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

At NASA, "The projects in question include missions to Venus and to an Earth-threatening asteroid."

If Armageddon (the movie) were to happen for real today, we would definitely die.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

First they made me download apps to pay for street parking. Now those apps are requiring two factor authentication. Please remind me, how exactly is technology making my life easier?

Wait were the nineties actually the best?

Sure! Sorry for the slow response - readjusting to normal life is hard

A storage trench dug into the ice. Used for temporarily storing ice cores during the field season, and for overwinter storage of gear and leftover food the rest of the year

The ice trench is pretty awesome. So blue!

Oh no I'm gonna die in the ice trench! (To be fair, Antarctica certainly could kill me...)

PNAS: Six-million-year-old ice discovered in Antarctica offers unprecedented window into a warmer Earth via our NSF COLDEX & US Antarctic Program. ❄️ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A drawing of a girl walking uphill in a snowstorm

My bags are packed, I'm ready to go... Travel to Antarctica begins in 3 days! a-life-worth-living.beehiiv.com/p/cleared-fo...

Hot take: there's no such thing as neurotypical

On a flight to Portland and they haven't mentioned the war once

Photo of a rude old man on a plane wearing headphones and watching football on an iPad

The guy next to me on this plane is watching football and yelling at the screen like he's watching in his own living room.

And if that's not bad enough, it's 7 am. He's watching a replay.

A much, much younger me wearing field gear sitting on the ground and smiling at the camera next to a river in the rainforest of the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia

All this training and prep for fieldwork in Antarctica, and I can't help but wonder: how much worse can it really be than the work I did in remote Indonesian islands? a-life-worth-living.beehiiv.com/p/how-bad-co...

Just eating brownies and drinking wine in the bathtub. Everything is fine.

Front page of hud.gov, with a giant red box with large white tupe that reads "The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands. The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people."

The Republicans control all 3 branches of government and can't get a budget passed, but they desperately want to convince the American people that Democrats are the problem. This is what the front page of the HUD website looks like today.

Parts of it are slightly cleaner now...

Decided to give my keyboard a good cleaning this morning.

(Translation: I knocked over my water bottle onto the keyboard.)

Advice for the Newbie Antarctic Deployer Apparently chilblains are a real thing

Advice for first-time Antarctic deployers, provided by my colleagues and curated by me. Tl;dr: don't sweat, but if you do, don't get chilblains; cover your face; don't get the Carhartt overalls with the butt zip. Stay tuned for the creepy baby doll. a-life-worth-living.beehiiv.com/p/advice-for...

What do ice cores have to do with birds? Absolutely nothing

Addressing the elephant in the room:

a-life-worth-living.beehiiv.com/p/what-do-ic...

So RFK Jr says no more Covid vaccines for you people, and just like that Paxlovid ads appear in my Instagram feed....

Title page of Lessons in Magic and Disaster by Charlie Jane Anders. Inscription reads "To Danielle - Magic is EVERYWHERE!!!" and is accompanied by labeled drawings of a cat astronomer and a cat moon

I finished Lessons in Magic and Disaster last night and I absolutely loved it!!! Plus how cute is this drawing by @charliejane.bsky.social ??? I forgot I had preordered a personalized signed copy and was so delighted when it arrived.

It creates other fun problems for me too. I told a student group that I included mocktails in their catered dinner order, and it autocorrected to "cocktails."

Is it just me, or has @microsoft.com Outlook's autocorrect gotten super racist when it comes to non-Anglo names? And they seem to have taken away the ability to turn it off.

These "AI Assistants" embedded in every piece of software have gotten so intrusive. All I want is to read this stupid PDF that someone sent me and I have had to close THREE pop-up windows offering me "assistance." It's Adobe Reader! How much assistance could anyone possibly need?

I would definitely patronize this business

Jumping off the edge of the map I'm going to Antarctica!

It's happening! I'm going to Antarctica to do fieldwork this season. I'll be living in a tent and drilling ice cores in East Antarctica for over two months. If you want to follow along on my adventure, check out my newsletter: a-life-worth-living.beehiiv.com/p/jumping-of...

When I listen to TERFs and other anti-trans people talk about womanhood, it's very much in the blood-and-babies-centric way, like we're just ambulatory uteruses. And I'm like, "Well, I've never been pregnant." So I get personally offended, as well, like they're saying I don't count, either.

"9:45:04 PM Bird Feeder Camera has detected bird": photo of a mouse

"4:33:18 AM Bird Feeder Camera has detected bird": photo of a mouse's butt

AI image recognition is going great

I really like Power Plates by Gena Hamshaw. The food is really good, nutritionally balanced, and vegan. I'm not even vegetarian but I cook from it regularly

Dear all of the news outlets in the world: No I do not want any more newsletters in my inbox. Pls stop