Caroline Dean

Space Archaeology

What is space archaeology? 🏺 🧪 🔭 #PlanetSci

How to Successfully Colonize Space: Lessons from Island Archaeology, Humans will soon attempt to colonize astronomical bodies within, and perhaps eventually beyond, our solar system. This is intrinsically dangerous, and…

Eight lessons from island archaeology to optimise success in refining (1) targets for space colonisation and (2) the composition and behaviour of the colonist group.
🧪 🏺 #PlanetSci #SpaceArchaeology

One year ago, I started posting observations on BlueSky, and I have thoroughly enjoyed the journey. I've put all 196 observations from the last year into a little book called "What I noticed along the way". I hope you enjoy it. drive.google.com/file/d/1w0zL...

"Only if we understand, can we care. Only if we care, will we help. Only if we help shall all be saved." - Dr Jane Goodall

Our tribute to Jane's incredible career and profound legacy 👇

Painting of a Kangaroo Island Emu standing by a coastline, with the crashing sea behind it. The bird is standing half in profile, and appears to be making eye contact with the viewer. Art by Terry Matassoni.

In the lead up to #ThreatenedSpeciesDay, we're reflecting on the species that we have lost, and the future we need to protect.

These poignant artworks depict some of the unique Australian animals that are now extinct, as well as one species we can still save.

1) Kangaroo Island Emu (Extinct)

A ladybird beetle spreading its wings captured with a high-speed camera. In real-time wing deployment from the fully folded state takes less than 0.1 seconds.

Credit: University of Tokyo / Saito et al.

Here's a challenging Open Middle problem to help students develop conceptual understanding of quadratics in standard form: www.openmiddle.com/maximum-...

Looking for seaglass: A guide to finding your beach's hidden treasure Seaglass can take decades or centuries to be formed by the motion of the waves. Morning Edition's Chad Campbell and his daughter have tips on how beachgoers can search for these small treasures.

Seaglass can take decades or centuries to be formed by the motion of the waves. Morning Edition's Chad Campbell and his daughter have tips on how beachgoers can search for these small treasures.

‘budget reduces the funding of STEM programs — education and outreach programs …— from $143 million down to $0.’

NASA chief to defy agency's charter, terminating science NASA's 1958 charter's top priority was, "the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space." Is this how it ends?

bigthink.com/starts-with-...
‘even if NASA’s budget is entirely restored, the loss of personnel, expertise, and mission continuity …is going to set science back by years or even decades…’
AND

The Rise of Generative AI Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT — Information is Beautiful ChatGPT, BingChat, LaMDA, LLaMa, PaLM - the rise and rise of AI-based Large Language Models & their free alternatives visualized in one chart.

A visualisation of major large-language models (LLMs), ranked by performance, using MMLU (Massive Multitasks Language Understanding) a benchmark for evaluating the capabilities of large language models.

Scientists’ role in defending democracy

The ability to tell the truth, especially when it does not suit any particularly partisan aims, is an essential prerequisite for a free society.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Quantifying large language model usage in scientific papers - Nature Human Behaviour Liang et al. estimate the prevalence of text modified by large language models in recent scientific papers and preprints, finding widespread use (up to 17.5% of papers in computer science).

🧪 Who’s writing your science paper?

A new study analysed over 1 million research papers and found growing use of large language models, especially in computer science, where up to 22% show signs of LLM editing.

🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

#SciComm

Boozy Book Clubs

Reading Between The Wines
“Here’s Cheers Dog-Ears!”
Prose & Prosecco
Tequila Mockingbird
Get Lit
Ink & Drink
Bookaholics
Sots Who Swot
Shelf Esteem Issues
The Masters of Margarita

Terns and gulls feeding out in the Gulf St Vincent just on dawn.
I know this doesn't look like a photo - but it is.

Hiroshima marks 80 years since atomic bombing as aging survivors worry about growing nuke threat Hiroshima is marking the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the western Japanese city. Many aging survivors express frustration over growing global support for nuclear weapons as deterrenc...

On August 6, 1945, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. It's 80 years since this devastating and unnecessary event, and the threat of nuclear weapons is growing again.

'A man's foot and a woman's hand': the cultural significance of the Apollo 11 bootprints In this previous post , I considered how we might make a feminist map of the Moon. Why does a feminist map of the Moon matter? Well, soon th...

Women have never been to the Moon. But in one way, they were responsible for the iconic first footsteps.
#InternationalMoonDay 🧪 🏺 #WomeninSTEM

Teeth record the hidden history of your childhood climate and diet

The balance of different varieties of atoms inside a person’s teeth can reveal a week-by-week record of rainfall and protein consumption during their infancy.

Opinion | I’m a Pediatrician. I’m Afraid of Diseases I Thought I’d Never See.

"For the first 25 years of his career, Dr. Adam Ratner, a pediatric infectious disease physician, never saw a child with Hib meningitis. But this spring he was an author of a report on two cases of severe disease in unvaccinated New York infants."
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/o...

These Peritrichia were a popular organism at yesterday’s zooplankton workshop! These stalked ciliates are especially cool because they contract quickly when disturbed. #plankton 🦑

What Are the Environmental Impacts of Artificial Intelligence?  A single AI-focused data center can use as much electricity as a small city and as much water as a large neighborhood. 

How much energy does it take to generate one ChatGPT request? What about water use and the broader climate impact of generative AI? UCS’s José Pablo Ortiz breaks it down, and explains why we need smart policy to guide this tech. Read the blog:

Resource guide: Countering Disinformation in Your Community, Union of Concerned Scientists www.ucs.org/sites/defaul...

A flyby of Earth from the International Space Station.

Credits: NASA

Tonight's moon.
Waning Gibbous 95.4%

Take a math photo that shows symmetry! Where do you see symmetrical shapes, patterns and designs?

Week 2 of #MathPhoto25 is here! This week look for symmetry, patterns and designs. Take photos and share using hashtags #MathPhoto25 and #symmetry. #ITeachMath

5-panel comic. (1) [teacher with long hair next to whiteboard] TEACHER: I’m supposed to give you the tools to do good science. (2) [teacher addressing students] But what *are* those tools? Methodology is hard and there are so many ways to get incorrect results. What is the magic ingredient that makes for good science? (3) TEACHER: To figure it out, I ran a regression with all the factors people say are important: [embedded list in sub-panel, cut off at end] Outcome variable: correct scientific results. Predictors: collaboration; skepticism of others’ claims; questioning your own beliefs; trying to falsify hypotheses; checking citations; statistical rigor; blinded analysis; financial disclosure; open data (4) TEACHER: The regression says two ingredients are the most crucial: 1) genuine curiosity about the answer to a question, and 2) ammonium hydroxide. (5) STUDENT: Wait, why did *ammonia* score so high? How did it even get on the list? LONG HAIR: ...And now you’re doing good science!

Good Science

xkcd.com/3101/

There is a huge difference between understanding the idea of a thing and being able to write a precise solution to an exam question involving the thing.

It's a beautiful day
Some sort of public holiday here.
Don Dunstan's birthday or something.
Anyway enjoy your day wherever you are

First slime mould of the season.

We had a disappointing year for quandongs last year, so hopefully we get a bumper crop this year