I’m sure we can find him a very boozy, $78 “burger”
10.03.2026 00:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0I’m sure we can find him a very boozy, $78 “burger”
10.03.2026 00:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0For reference, without AXIS, the earliest that a high-resolution X-ray imaging mission can launch -- the successor to the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- is 2050s or 2060s. 🔭
09.03.2026 20:10 — 👍 32 🔁 19 💬 2 📌 0The gutting of NASA Goddard has had a devastating effect on high energy astrophysics. The AXIS probe mission proposal was rejected without review. (The Goddard X-ray mirror lab was significantly impacted by shutdowns and pressured retirements, against the congress approved budget for NASA.)
09.03.2026 20:39 — 👍 81 🔁 41 💬 3 📌 2Because “looking at images, not catalogs” is a dying pastime, the paper includes a tutorial on -how- to interpret images of galaxies. Qualitative information alone can get you a surprisingly long way towards a reasonable model, if you’re thinking through the links between morphology and physics.
09.03.2026 16:12 — 👍 63 🔁 16 💬 5 📌 6Yes, and this applies to spectra as well. If I could choose only one lesson to teach research students it would be “always look at your data!”
09.03.2026 19:50 — 👍 10 🔁 0 💬 2 📌 1I can’t believe I missed their opening!
08.03.2026 03:28 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Fresh kunafa Nablusia with pistachio on a white and black background.
Everyone in Ypsi/Ann Arbor, stop what you are doing and go to Alez Roastery now.
Really good chocolates
Incredible roasted nuts and seeds, including za’atar corn nuts
And… FRESH KUNAFA!!
Next to Ypbor F.M. and Antonio’s in Ypsi. Outstanding cuisine combo’s previously unimagined by humanity.
Got an email from my medical provider, the University of Michigan, telling me that they have been unable to reach a deal with the insurer and are scheduled to move out of network. They helpfully suggested that I contact my employer, the University of Michigan, to let them know this would be bad.
05.03.2026 15:35 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0What's scary about this story is the surveillance it hints at. This trans woman had changed her name, legally, but chose not to change her gender marker. She was apparently flagged in the DMV system as trans and her license was invalidated under a law that supposedly only concerned gender markers.
03.03.2026 12:16 — 👍 6994 🔁 3166 💬 71 📌 48
Two and a half year old to Jessie, “Come with me upstairs, okay? there might be a monster”
Half an hour later to me, “Follow me upstairs, but don’t be a monster, okay?”
That sounds more interesting!
28.02.2026 02:50 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0University—we switched to a new and terrible dual factor authentication software, Okta, that keeps getting autocorrected to okra
27.02.2026 17:28 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
It is very hard not to have a safe choice to use the bathroom in public.
It may be impossible to continue living, working, eating, etc without a valid driver's license if your life was built around driving and the assumption that your license wouldn't be invalidated overnight by the legislature.
Nothing spices up a call for proposals quite like making the first announcement email also the T-1 day before the deadline reminder email.
24.02.2026 02:29 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The Trump Admin’s “Dear colleague” letter is dead thanks to professional societies, unions, civil liberties groups, and some state AG’s fighting back.
University administrators really showed their asses, and it is going to take the rest of us decades to restore what they cut in their rush to comply
I will celebrate when schools re-open all the offices, programs, scholarships, and groups they closed.
19.02.2026 00:25 — 👍 22 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
So much this.
Other fields have been revolutionized by the wonders of…Google Scholar, which compared to ADS is hot garbage.
Other fields routinely submit to *multiple* journals, each of which demand major re-writes *before rejecting* papers.
In other fields you often cannot access some papers.
There is a specific look my husband, a historian, gives me when describing a week of tracing some concept or artifact backward in the literature through decades of articles spread across many journals.
The look says “do not even think about telling me how this would just be a few hours with ADS”
Stevens also seemed generally impressed with the staff during the visit and their treatment of detainees. “Of note, there is female leadership here, and there are women who walked with us today and explained, on the intake process, how important it is to treat people with humanity,” Stevens said. “And that obviously really stuck out to me, because some of the things that we are witnessing before our eyes, in our neighborhoods, in our streets, is really a lack of humanity.” Both congresswomen did note, however, that at least one individual who they spoke to expressed a fear of punishment or retribution for sharing his concerns about the facility — though they attempted to speak with him privately, they were denied that opportunity. Stevens noted that she plans to remain in touch with that person’s family in Macomb County to ensure he is not punished for speaking with the congresswomen. “He was kept for several weeks in what everyone there refers to as ‘the hole,’ which is similar to a solitary confinement,” Scholten said of the same detainee. “He spoke of being kept in a freezing room where he couldn’t feel his toes and having his food just thrown into his cell. So these are things that we really need to take seriously.”
How is this even possible? Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for #MISen, "seemed generally impressed with the staff" at an ICE detention facility, per the @michiganadvance.com.
At the same event, Rep. Hillary Scholten spoke of a man "being kept in a freezing room where he couldn’t feel his toes."
When I describe how our field operates to people in other fields, from society controlled journals to arxiv to ADS, they are always shocked. It is easy to take our ecosystem for granted if you haven’t lived in a different one for a while.
18.02.2026 01:46 — 👍 15 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 2I agree with your points. The arxiv is much, much cheaper to operate, but also doesn’t provide anywhere near the level of service. OJA is an interesting model, & we will see how it scales in the next few years. If successful, robustness of arxiv will be a major issue. And we don’t drive that bus
18.02.2026 00:53 — 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
I could find out more about those 13 missions easily if NASA's program/grant search page weren't still broken after *checks notes*... a full year now.
15.02.2026 21:10 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
In addition to Chandra, the astrophysics programs impacted are:
Physics of the Cosmoc Strategic Research & Technology
Astrophysics Probes Future Missions
Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Maturation
Plus 13 projects in the planetary & earth portfolios.
nasawatch.com/space-scienc...
Well, FUCK. Here I was excited for my first grant as a faculty member…
“White House Withholds Funding for NASA Science Missions Despite Recent Budget Bill”
NASA has been forced to pause funds for Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other missions until further notice.
🔭🧪
gizmodo.com/white-house-...
Ma Lou’s chicken is outstanding, but to me, the biggest draw is their collard greens.
15.02.2026 18:25 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A line curve showing number of awards for fiscal year 2026 compared to fiscal years 2021-2025 across NSF. The fiscal year 2026 curve lies well below curves for other fiscal years.
NSF Update
Funding curve overall. A little bit of progress in the past week, but only a little bit.
Now by Directorate...
1/11
