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Compton Scatterbrained

@comptonscatter.bsky.social

210 followers 63 following 6K posts

Bad hearing, bad sight, scattered brain. Full of PFAS, but a true believer in radiation hormesis. Why isn't rutile rutilant? I like valence electrons (but K shell too) & deep time.

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · Jul 1

Me. Every day.

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 33m

Looks like our invasive friend, the Asian hornet.

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 1h

small hornet with black head and thorax, yellow legs, striped butt (yellow, black, orange at the end)

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 1h

omg who is this beauty

small hornet with bkack head, red face, yellow legs.

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 2h

dayum that thing looks to be about... my age 😂

Reposted by Compton Scatterbrained

Erin @ghosttrainphoto.bsky.social · 3h

Went on another "applying for PhDs and/or research positions" spree. Knocked out 13 applications in <3 hours...I think the grand total is up to ~60 total applications since July.

BTW, if anyone is looking for a neuroimaging analyst, let me know!!

Here's some lightning from earlier today

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 2h

For this reason (r arm is "perfect" and L arm perfect except they roll!) I have been the practice-pincushion for many students back in the day.

Yeah one did stab all the way through so my whole arm was a big hematoma but... felt like I was volunteering to help med students get better!

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 6h

Yeah seems that way (so far with the evidence we have)

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 6h

oh shit that sounds cool

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 6h

Someone (possibly a geochemist, I'd have to look her up again) said "sometimes geology is trying to learn about wheat by studying bread."
(I tend to swap wheat for barley and bread for beer, lol)

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 8h

We swapped ozone-destroying refrigerants to forever-chemical greenhouse gasses (yay PFAS!) so actually I guess it *was* hard because we aren't done finding a good refrigerant yet.

I like seeing promotion and reminders of when we fix things but this particular example always grinds my teeth.

Reposted by Compton Scatterbrained

Robert Mahon @bedform.org · 11h

Ugh some students i walked past on campus today were petting a field mouse and while its suuuuper unlikely to get rabies from a mouse DONT PET WILD MAMMALS Y’ALL

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 9h

...Or their bodies.

Not a mammal but I also try to keep my kids from petting dead or dying bumblebees. They look sooooo soft but usually crawling with mites that I'd rather my kids didn't spread all over the neighbourhood.

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 9h

when you get around to making shirts again I *neeeeed* one that's something like "I ♥️ BIFs" and a rustaculous stripe on it or something.

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 9h

The big skepticality seems to stem from the idea that life is difficult to form, only did it once, by crazy chance, after we had a cushy planet.

The fossil/geochem record seems to keep saying it was early, possibly easy, happened multiple times and did "big leaps" often, on a harsh world—I love it!

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 9h

free radicals FTW

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 9h

...possibly multiple times!

*squeeee*

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

It was via Bsky fer sure so you may havr seen it... or even posted it

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

and narrated in the background by Don LaFontaine, from the dead

Reposted by Compton Scatterbrained

Nature @nature.com · 2d

The number of infections for this time of year is unusual and could seed outbreaks in countries that are heading into winter

go.nature.com/4om5VOt

Japan declares a flu epidemic — what this means for other nations

Researchers say that the number of infections for this time of year is unusual.

go.nature.com

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

Oh I love that there's info targetting wheelchair users!

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

love those stacky vertical cuts

Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

This was fun reading but the ending felt like it stopped too soon!

Reposted by Compton Scatterbrained

Alka Tripathy-Lang @dralkatrip.bsky.social · 20h

My latest for @earthscope.org combines Silurian reef systems with seismology! The highlighted research looks at how to parse noisy seismic data from a single station in the Chicago area. ⚒️🧪

www.earthscope.org/news/chicago...

Chicago’s seismicity captured by single seismic station | EarthScope Consortium

Model catalogs quarry blasts, heavy machinery noise, and other anthropogenic signals that can muddy seismic data.

www.earthscope.org

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

Someone recently wrote sonething called the Boring Billion with the argument that it was a bad name... an article I think. But brain remembers little else :(

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Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 19h

“That name, man,” Riedman says of the boring billion. “We’ve got to kill it. Kill it with fire.”

Gave me a smile to see they interviewed you about your work too.

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