Beth Johnson

An excellent thread on structural bullshit in academia, how to avoid mental traps, and encouragement to people from marginalized backgrounds. The system isn’t fair, but it can be gamed and it’s designed to intimidate people into failing. Don’t let them fool you.

I was wondering. Such an odd alert and then no actual quake shown on the map. Thanks for the clarification!

Relatable Corvid

A team of Japanese and US scientists have discovered the bio-essential sugars ribose and glucose in samples of asteroid Bennu that were collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission. This finding builds on the earlier discovery of nucleobases (the genetic components of DNA and RNA), phosphate, and amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) in the Bennu samples, showing that the molecular ingredients of life could have been delivered to early Earth by meteorites.

Samples of Bennu, a primitive asteroid orbiting near Earth, contain some surprising ingredients: natural sugars, gummy polymers, and specks of stardust that are even older than our solar system.

There's a lot of complex chemistry brewing in space! 🧪🔭

www.nasa.gov/missions/osi...

Oh, Emily. That's awful. I hope everything heals as it should.

Will you be up for an interview after the holidays? I'm kicking off my own podcast and bringing in as many of the peak scicomm peeps as I can find.

In case anyone is wondering what to get me as a gift... (but not the hair stuff. I don't have enough hair anymore.)

Or, you know, you want to support a friend who makes gorgeous pieces of space art, both functional and for display.

Oh, look... the podcast topics are just piling up!

This is a fantastic idea. I'll help with promoting it for whoever gets the ball rolling.

What now? Oh, this is super cool.

What do you think, peeps? Podcast topic for my new show? I think so.

On our latest #SETILive #podcast, @planetarypan.bsky.social asked Dr. Eric Boyd to explain what it means when he says a microbe breathes in two ways. Listen to the full episode at feeds.libsyn.com/462636/rss 🧪 👩‍🔬

Thank you for the donation! I may tag you for some stuff. I'm going to rope in all my scicomm friends!

In a recent SETI Live episode, @planetarypan.bsky.social spoke with UC Santa Cruz postdoctoral researcher Dr. Artem Aguichine about his work modeling the interiors and atmospheres of steam worlds, a class of water-rich exoplanets wrapped in thick, high-temperature water vapor. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Psst. That post was 10 months ago.

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Wow. The Universe is definitely nudging me to change things up... first with stuff at work, and now with @philplait.bsky.social giving advice in today's BAN. So have a teaser:

New projects are coming soon. Want to support me in the process? Buy my cats food at my KoFi: ko-fi.com/planetarypan 🧪👩‍🔬

#ICYMI: On #SETILive, @planetarypan.bsky.social chatted with Dr. Georgina Miles and Dr. Carly Howett about the discovery that the subsurface ocean beneath the surface of Saturn's icy moon #Enceladus has been stable... but what does that mean for the possibility of life? It's all about time! 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Oh, hey, that's me! And I do so love talking about Enceladus, so please come join the fun!

#ICYMI: On our latest #SETILive, @planetarypan.bsky.social discovered that steam worlds transitioned from theoretical to confirmed in an interview with Dr. Artem Aguichine (UCSC). Watch the full interview: youtube.com/live/nBpyGdX... 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

SETI Live record button logo. Text: Where Water Boils the Sky with Beth Johnson and Artem Aguichine. Background: Artist's depiction of a steam world with hot swirls of gas in the clouds and its star in the background. Inset: Photos of Beth Johnson and Artem Aguichine.

Next #SETILive: Where Water Boils the Sky
TODAY, 13 November, 2:30 pm PST

Today, @planetarypan.bsky.social talks with Artem Aguichine (UCSC) about his new research modeling the interiors and atmospheres of steam worlds—a class of water-rich sub-Neptunes that could dominate our galaxy. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

SETI Institute communications specialist @planetarypan.bsky.social welcomed @dagomardegroot.bsky.social, environmental historian at Georgetown University, for a discussion on his new book Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean, released October 28, 2025. 🧪 👩‍🔬 📖

Dear Sister This post is not my usual science post. I have waited 11 years to share this poem. My sister, Lori, passed away on 11/11/14. Eleven was her…

This post is not my usual science post. I have waited 11 years to share this poem. My sister, Lori, passed away on 11/11/14. Eleven was her favorite number, so it seemed appropriate to share today what I wrote following her death. medium.com/p/dear-siste...

I am not a microbiologist, nor do I play one online, so this should be educational for everyone!

More moons with oceans! Super excited for this chat...

Oh, hey, that's me!

In a recent episode of SETI Live, host @planetarypan.bsky.social spoke with Dr. Sam Courville, postdoctoral researcher at Arizona State University and lead author of a new Science Advances paper on the potential past habitability of Ceres.

Dear EVERYONE...

A-ha is NOT a one-hit wonder by any measurement. This is a hill I will die on. It's a pointless hill, but I will die on it.

FFS, go listen to "The Sun Always Shines on TV". It reached #20 in the US.

Your stuff IS impressive. Has been since the first video I watched. I hope to own a piece of it someday when I can afford it.

SETI Live record button logo. Text: Hidden habitability on Ceres with Beth Johnson and Sam Courville. Background: Photo of dwarf planet Ceres taken by the Dawn spacecraft. Inset: Photos of Beth Johnson and Sam Courville.

Next #SETILive: Hidden Habitability on Ceres
Thursday, 2 October 2025, 2:30 pm PDT

Join @planetarypan.bsky.social and Dr. Sam Courville as they dive into the possibility that the dwarf planet Ceres could have been more habitable than ever imagined. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

WATCH LIVE: buff.ly/meM0tnH

What is even UP with this NFL weekend? This has been the wildest witching hour I've seen in a long time.

SETI Live record button logo. Text: Worlds of Fire with Beth Johnson and Charles-Édouard Boukaré. Background: Graphical representation of a planet with one side toward its star, being heated so much at the surface to create lava. Inset photos: Beth Johnson and Charles-Édouard Boukaré.

HOT. MOLTEN. EXOPLANETS.

Next #SETILive: Worlds of Fire
TODAY, 11 September, 2:30 pm PDT

Join @planetarypan.bsky.social and Dr. Charles-Édouard Boukaré (York University) as they dive into new research on molten rocky exoplanets—worlds so hot that their surfaces are oceans of magma. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

This is why I had to shift my walk to feed all the cats about a half hour earlier. Stupid axial tilt.