Wombat Appreciator 🇭🇲🇺🇸

Northern lights viewed from Fleming, CO! Wow!

📸: Evolution Studios

#COwx

"Respond" to what? Brazil applying its own laws to a Brazilian in a fair and transparent process?

Your Zodiac Sign Is 2,000 Years Out of Date Over millennia, our view of the stars has shifted, because of Earth’s wobble. It may be time to rethink your sign.

Oh no! Now it won’t mean anything! www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

RFK Jr. rolled out that old chestnut again about how healthy Americans were in the 60’s, so here’s a fact check.

In 1965:

-42% of American adults smoked; it’s 11% now.

-The infant morality rate was 24.7/1000; it’s 5.6/1000 now.

-Overall life expectancy was 70 years; it's about 77 years now.

Man on the Moon

World's first method turns plastic into fuel with 95% efficiency A US-China team has unveiled a one-step method that converts toxic plastic waste into petrol with over 95% efficiency.

A US-China team has developed a groundbreaking one-step process to efficiently convert mixed plastic waste directly into petrol (gasoline) and hydrochloric acid, with conversion efficiencies reaching up to 95-99% at ambient temperature and pressure.

interestingengineering.com/science/us-c...

Global solar deployment hit 380 GW in H1-2025 — 64% more than last year! It took until September to reach 350 GW in 2024. In 2025, we got there by June. This isn’t just a China story—it’s 🌍. Each year we add more, faster. No orange idiot or petrostate can stop exponential change. #EnergyTransition

Right-on-red was a bad idea in the US that has resulted in a lot of needless injury and death. Australia shouldn't copy this policy.

The Soothingly Blue Ridge Mountains

Space Command will now be located about one mile further down from space.

I was just listening to a Charlie Kirk rant about how millions of people in the USA don't speak English ("unity is our strength," he says), then uses India as an example of a "unified country."

Buddy I have news for you about the linguistic diversity of India.

Accidentally hitting the Alt key while I type out something

RATs are potentially skewing official case numbers this flu season Queensland hospitals have reported being overwhelmed with patients suffering from respiratory illnesses as experts sound the alarm about growing vaccine mistrust.

Queensland flu season marked by high rates of hospitalisations.

"82 per cent of Queenslanders admitted to hospital with the flu to date this year were not vaccinated"

-Yes. That's why it's a great idea to get vaccinated in April
Get a dedicated science reporter, ABC

www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

They just have to look at the Bill of Rights and ask a political scientists if they are confused. It’s not “explicit”
because it’s not his authority to have.

PUBLIC HEALTH ORDER NEW MEXICO DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH SECRETARY GINA DEBLASSIE AUGUST 29, 2025 Ensuring Availability of COVID-19 Vaccine for the 2025-2026 Season

THIS ORDER supersedes any previous order, proclamation, or directives to the extent they are in conflict. This Public Order shall take effect immediately and remain in effect until such time as it automatically expires one year from the date of issuance, or until such time as the New Mexico Department of Health Cabinet Secretary rescinds it.

New Mexico has issued a public health order that removes federal restrictions to COVID-19 vaccine access so that pharmacies in New Mexico can vaccinate people of all ages and risk profiles. Every state need to do this!

not just that he has no constitutional authority, there isn't even any particular legal or institutional mechanism by which the president can make anyone treat this as anything other than a weird advisory opinion.

The world's largest sand battery just went live in Finland Finland has inaugurated an industrial-scale sand battery this week in the southern town of Pornainen, where it'll take over heating duties from an old woodchip power plant for the municipality. It's s...

Sand batteries are literally just silos of sand that retain heat exceptionally well -- so well that they can be tied to heat exchange systems to serve as proxy *electrical* batteries. Finland's new model can store enough power (100 MWh) to heat an entire town for a week.
newatlas.com/energy/large...

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In places with good bike infrastructure, cycling is a practical and natural way to get around, not a statement about fitness or the environment.

Health officials from Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania met this week to consider coordinating their own vaccine recommendations, separate from the federal government.

Good.

The devastating flu epidemic of 1918 was particularly dangerous for young adults, for people in their prime, who died by the millions. But RFK Jr. is too stupid to know that. Link below.

Denver hasn't had 4 straight days below 80° since early June. Get excited, fall lovers.

#COwx

Urban planning is public health!

RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’ HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

every attempted explanation this guy gives for his decisions is total nonsense. just gobbledygook. www.scrippsnews.com/health/rfk-j...

We stopped expanding the House in the 1920s, decided the Supreme Court should freeze in the 1930s, added the last states in the 1950s, amended the Constitution only once in the last fifty years.

The USA and its government continued to grow, but almost all that growth came in the executive branch.

scalding take: the "data center operators are stealing all our water" discourse is just a variant on the "only 10 companies are responsible for climate change" discourse - i.e. the underlying thread is always that the end user bears no responsibility for what's necessary

I realize broad science-literacy problems cannot generally be solved just by shoving more facts at people but I really wish more people understood that the entire purpose and mechanism of a vaccine is to educate your OWN immune system, making it about the most "natural" medical intervention possible