Your yearly reminder that university rankings are less than useless

It might've been missed in the coverage today, but one of the recipients of today's Nobel prize, Omar Yaghi, is the first Palestinian to win the chemistry award.

Omar's family comes from a village which, like 100s of Palestinian villages, stopped existing after 1948

It might've been missed in the coverage today, but one of the recipients of today's Nobel prize, Omar Yaghi, is the first Palestinian to win the chemistry award.

Omar's family comes from a village which, like 100s of Palestinian villages, stopped existing after 1948

"Show me a brief example of acoustic oscillations going catastrophically wrong"

Very nice 🛢 As a kid we learned that Egyptian cotton is a thing. But I would've never thought that this is a direct consequence of the American civil war!

Also relevant to note that British occupation of Egypt started about 20 years after that point

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin ✨ figured out what stars are made of ✨ when she was just 25. 🔭🧪

Her PhD thesis basically established the Harvard astro department — at a time when Harvard didn't officially allow woman students.

I wrote this little profile to mark the 100th anniversary of her thesis:

"Instead, Trump went for the cheap shot: telling women, without good evidence, to simply put up with the pain."

Anyone who missed Qaddafi's performance at the UN would rejoice

Better (75 years) late than never!

Israel always retaliates by punishing Palestinians, this time it might be by annexing the West Bank
www.bbc.com/news/live/cp...

This is a strong letter that does not mince words! As a member of the Dutch scientific community I support this statement

This is rather chilling account.

These people are going to go back to their countries after their 'adventure' ends, and likely face no prosecution for their crimes. As their home countries continue to enable, and deny, the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

Qatar just suspended all mediation efforts. I suspect Turkey and Egypt may follow, as they both recently hosted Hamas negotiators for mediation talks. There's simply no reason to think Israel respects anyone's sovereignty, or adhere to any international norms

It's important to stress that Qatar is a major US ally, hosting the largest US military base in ME. It's also hosting Hamas leadership *at the request* of the US for ceasefire negotiations.

Hard to overstate how much this changes things in ME

www.npr.org/2025/09/09/n...

In 1988, UNGA convened in Geneva instead of New York to hear PLO leader Yasser Arafat after the US refused to grant him a visa.

If the US refuses to change course, UNGA should consider doing the same once more-- not out of love for the PA or PLO, but out of respect for international law.

Risking the very idea behind the UN charter, and sacrificing your responsibility as a host, just to prevent any chance of Palestinian statehood, in the middle of a Palestinian genocide!

This devotion to settler colonialism at the expense of international law is really beyond bizarre

I've honestly been pondering this question for a long time

In just three days, the IDG destroyed 10,000 olive trees in Al Mughayyir village, in the occupied West Bank.

Some of the trees were over 500 years-old.

Art by Silman Mansour

Like, I've not attended any conference outside of the Schengen area for the last 8 years for that specific reason. This included having to turn down invited talks

The main obstacle is less so where the conference is but rather visa processing times for underprivileged passports. If participation confirmation is less than 3 months before the conference, this excludes all of us with a passport not from the global north, regardless of where we're actually based.

Jupiter and Saturn being in front of the moon would kill everyone, tbf

Slightly diminish a band: Consider Dragons

Happy international cat day! Bailey is the neighbour's cat (few houses down the road). He visits a few times a week. Here he's pretending to be a rabbit

Part of a report by Emma Murphy.

It's genocide.

Today is Hamilton's day (the maths one, who reformulated physics, not the politician)

Cheers to Hamilton!