Alex Walls

How One Astronomer Uncovered Nearly 200 Moons—Around Just One Planet Scientific American spoke with the astronomer who has contributed to the discovery of two thirds of Saturn’s known moons

Moon Man? Moon Hunter? @sciam.bsky.social interviewed UBC alumnus Edward Ashton about discovering almost 200 Saturnian moons:

www.scientificamerican.com/article/satu...

YouTube video by UBC Media Relations This Chromosome Is Rigging Reproduction—and Winning

Some genes don't play fair.

youtube.com/shorts/OP16k...

Done and done, thank you!

Just came across @isaactsoon.bsky.social 's paper title 'Christ’s Cosmetic Hydrotherapy: Blemishes, Wrinkles, and Transformational Waters in Ephesians 5:26-27' and never have I wanted to read a paper more.

brill.com/view/journal...

A digestive ‘treasure chest’ shows promise for targeted drug treatment in the gut - UBC News A new approach to drug design can deliver medicine directly to the gut in mice at significantly lower doses than current inflammatory bowel disease treatments.

A digestive ‘treasure chest’ shows promise for targeted drug treatment in the gut.

The proof-of-concept study introduced a mechanism called ‘GlycoCaging’ that releases medicine exclusively to the lower gut at doses up to 10x lower than current therapies: bit.ly/3GLvUhC

Antihistamines are wonderful, wonderful things. That is all.

‘That’s the link to The Last of Us’: UBC research looks at deadly fungi Ahead of the highly anticipated second season premiere of HBO’s The Last of Us, UBC researchers are studying the impacts of global warming on certain species of fungi.

www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/ar...

The new season of The Last of Us has a spore-ting chance at realism - UBC News The trailer for the hit HBO series appears to show the “zombie fungus” cordyceps infecting humans by releasing air-borne spores, instead of through tentacles—closer to scientific reality.

The new season of The Last of Us has a spore-ting chance at realism

The Last of Us S2 trailers seems to show the zombies releasing air-borne spores, closer to scientific reality for fungal pathogens that infect humans. And it's not the only thing the show gets right.

news.ubc.ca/2025/04/real...

Here’s your friendly spring PSA: sometimes it’s not allergies and actually a head cold. 🌸🌱❌🦠🤧

Digging for minerals in the Pacific’s graveyard: The $20 trillion fight over who controls the seabed “The soul of our ancestors, when they leave this world, they go into the deep.”

As nations eye Pacific seabed minerals, deep-sea mining might lead to short-term profits but the long-term costs are significant, @ubcoceans.bsky.social @ubcsppga.bsky.social Dr. Rashid Sumaila tells @nationalobserver.com:

www.nationalobserver.com/2025/04/02/n...

I was going to say, isn’t George part of the very foundations?! Ya got me!

Saturn still reigns supreme as moon king with 128 new moons - UBC News The International Astronomical Union has recognized the discovery of Saturn's 128 new moons.

Also nobody - NOBODY! - has used the term 'smithereens' when talking about moons colliding. What is this world coming to.

news.ubc.ca/2025/03/satu...

Saturn has 128 newly-discovered moons. Here they are color-coded by their MPEC release. Orange: MPEC 2025 E153, Purple: MPEC 2025-E154, Green: MPEC 2025-E155.

Saturn's outer moon system viewed from the north pole of Saturn. Moons orbiting in clockwise (retrograde) orbits have red-colored orbits while moons orbiting counterclockwise (prograde; in the direction of Saturn's spin) are colored blue. With so many irregular moons occupying the same region and intersecting each other, the irregular moon system looks like a donut-shaped vortex surrounding Saturn. Each of the 128 new moons is highlighted in the diagram with a white point representing their location, and a brighter-colored orbit. Previously-known moons of Saturn are included in the diagram, but are colored darker. The regular moons of Saturn are colored turquoise and the outermost regular moons (Titan, Hyperion, and Iapetus) labeled with their name. At the lower left corner are scale indicators to help visualize the scale of Saturn's irregular moon system. A small gray circle at the left left corner is shown to represent the diameter of the Earth-Moon orbital distance. A linear scale bar is labeled "10 million km" (6.2 million mi) to give a standard distance.

View of Saturn's irregular moon system, tilted at an angle to show the toroidal belt-like shape of the system. Each moon is labeled with their names in turquioise. Red orbits = retrograde direction, and blue orbits = prograde direction. Turquoise curves closer to the center are orbits of Saturn's regular moons.

Side view of Saturn's irregular moon system, tilted at an angle to show the toroidal belt-like shape of the system. Red orbits = retrograde direction, and blue orbits = prograde direction. Turquoise curves closer to the center are orbits of Saturn's regular moons. The irregular moons of Neptune (dark green) are also visible in the background to the right of Saturn. The horizontal red line protruding right of Saturn is the orbit path of Saturn.

I spent almost 2 hours painstakingly copying the orbits of all 128 Saturnian moons from the announcement MPEC and reformatting them for visualization...

Behold, here are the orbits of ALL 128 MOONS OF SATURN. This isn't just a moon system—it's a literal asteroid belt around Saturn! 🧪🔭☄️

Which planet has the most moons? Saturn dethrones Jupiter. The International Astronomical Union recognized 128 newly discovered moons orbiting the ringed planet.

Not so big now, huh, Jupiter?

Saturn LAUGHS in the face of your measly 95 moons!

And by "laughs" we mean "continues in an state of impassive cosmic existence that still shatters our conceptions of time, grandeur, and what it means to bear witness to the universe."

www.popsci.com/science/satu...

Also I have not watched Star Trek enough to justify the subhead but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Saturn still reigns supreme as moon king with 128 new moons - UBC News The International Astronomical Union has recognized the discovery of Saturn's 128 new moons.

Boo sucks to you Jupiter: Saturn still reigns supreme as moon king with 128 new moons

"Based on our projections, I don’t think Jupiter will ever catch up."

news.ubc.ca/2025/03/satu...

Real-life horror from nature: Mind-control worms and eye-bulging fungus UBC researchers share some gruesome parasites of nature, like worms that fill the entire gut of an insect to a fungus that grows from your nose to your brain.

Just bringing this delight to your attention again...:

Eaten as cysts by insects, hairworms emerge in the stomach and punch through into the body, where they absorb the host's blood. Adult worms manipulate their hosts to enter water, often resulting in the host drowning

news.ubc.ca/2023/10/cree...

Texas measles outbreak marks first fatality as more cases reported A child in Texas has died from measles, the AP reported, the first death from measles in the United States since 2015.

This is so upsetting. This child’s death was preventable. This outbreak was preventable. “A child in Texas has died from measles, officials said Wednesday, the first known death in the current large outbreak in West Texas and the first death from measles in the country since 2015.”

How very dare you.

Saving time and saving lives with artificial intelligence - give UBC For Dr. Raymond Ng, AI and donor support can revolutionize patient care.

UBC DSI and collaborators at Provincial Health Services Authority are using AI to "expedite the process, ensuring critical cases are fast-tracked to treatment, saving time and potentially lives" for cancer patients. Learn more about how philanthropy can scale up research give.ubc.ca/impact-stori...

Plants may stop absorbing carbon if temperatures continue to rise Rising temperatures make plants lose more water, weakening their ability to absorb carbon dioxide and survive heat stress.

“When temperatures rise, plants lose more water through cuticle than through pores,” says Dr. Sean Michaletz @ubcbotany.bsky.social. “This limits their ability to absorb CO2 & reduces their role as a carbon sink.”
@earthdotcom.bsky.social @sloanfoundation.bsky.social

www.earth.com/news/plants-...

Why a seahorse should be your dating coach this Valentine’s Day - UBC News Even in the face of ongoing threats from habitat damage, seahorses are some of the most dedicated partners in the animal world.

❤️ This February 14th, take some lessons in love from some of the most dedicated partners in the animal world: seahorses.

These marine mates are masters of rizz – even in the face of ongoing threats from unsustainable fishing practices and habitat damage.

news.ubc.ca/2025/02/why-...

Selfie of Jessie in a pink blazer in front of a cabinet of spacecraft models labeled DARE MIGHTY THINGS.

Walking in to NASA’s JPL today as a woman in science leadership felt almost like a protest. They can take us off the webpages and the walls, but we will still be here, absolutely crushing it, and supporting our community while we do it.

Happy International Day of Women in Science, everyone.

YouTube video by ubcscience Dr. Katie Burak, statistician

On this #InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience, statistician Dr. Katie Burak talks about her work with UBC's Girls in Data Science summer camp and teaching in the Master of Data Science program.

#WomeninScience #STEM @stat.ubc.ca @cs.ubc.ca

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYJT...

A 'body blow' for climate research: Trump pauses NOAA collaboration with 'foreign nationals' Canadian climate and fisheries experts are reeling after the Trump administration ordered researchers with the U.S. government agency in charge of weather forecasting, climate research and fisheries t...

Trump pauses NOAA collaboration with 'foreign nationals'. "[Scientists] depend on collaboration," Dr. Villy Christensen said. " We stand on the shoulders of giants, they walk with us – and cooperation is absolutely a requirement." www.nationalobserver.com/2025/02/07/n... via @nationalobserver.com

One in four chance per year that rocket junk will enter busy airspace - UBC News While the chance of debris hitting an aircraft is very low, the research highlights that the potential for uncontrolled space rocket junk to disrupt flights and create additional costs for airlines an...

One in four chance per year that rocket junk will enter busy airspace

While the chance of debris hitting an aircraft is very low, the potential for uncontrolled space rocket junk to disrupt flights and create additional costs for airlines and passengers is not.

news.ubc.ca/2025/02/one-...

Should we recognize robot rights? - UBC News In this Q&A, professor Benjamin Perrin and student Nathan Cheung discuss a new upper-level course studying whether robots need rights.

I found this Q&A so interesting to research:

If a self-driving car makes a mistake and crashes, who is to blame? If an intelligent AI commits a crime, how do you jail it? if an AI has human-like intelligence, should it have human-like rights?

news.ubc.ca/2025/01/shou...

These bugs are kinda fascination: Able to survive up to eight months without food or water, and happy to eat their own kind when food is scarce.

I'm guessing both facts aren't rare in the insect world, but still neat!

Mealworms digest microplastics in 'ecologically realistic' B.C. study The worms ate and digested almost half the plastic available to them in an experiment researchers hope will offer a window into eliminating microplastic pollution.

“Basically, we made plastic granola."

Mealworms ate and digested nearly half the plastic fed to them in what scientists are describing as one of the first “ecologically realistic” experiments via @stefanlabbe.bsky.social

www.vancouverisawesome.com/highlights/m...