John F Wu
@jwuphysics.bsky.social
Tenure-track astronomer working on galaxies, machine learning, and AI for scientific discovery. Opinions my own. He/him.
Website: https://jwuphysics.github.io/
Website: https://jwuphysics.github.io/
Heroic effort by Joe Burrow for making the Ravens turn the ball over 5 times today
November 28, 2025 at 4:34 AM
Heroic effort by Joe Burrow for making the Ravens turn the ball over 5 times today
Ugh I had such high hopes for this book but it had disappointed me at every turn. Honestly makes me scared to talk to science journalists...
November 28, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Ugh I had such high hopes for this book but it had disappointed me at every turn. Honestly makes me scared to talk to science journalists...
Reposted by John F Wu
Tickets now available: ~Black Reconstruction in Lower Charles Village~ premiering in late November! fullstorybaltimore.tours/our-tours/#c...
November 13, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Tickets now available: ~Black Reconstruction in Lower Charles Village~ premiering in late November! fullstorybaltimore.tours/our-tours/#c...
Our five year old is getting pretty good at jigsaw puzzles!
November 28, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Our five year old is getting pretty good at jigsaw puzzles!
Every Thanksgiving I cut the sugar in my cranberry sauce by half, and every year I taste it, grimace, and add the rest of the sugar back in
November 27, 2025 at 9:14 PM
Every Thanksgiving I cut the sugar in my cranberry sauce by half, and every year I taste it, grimace, and add the rest of the sugar back in
New software for astronomy visualization and outreach, where the lead dev (who is an amateur astronomer) mentions that LLM tools were used to assist development of this software.
November 27, 2025 at 5:40 PM
New software for astronomy visualization and outreach, where the lead dev (who is an amateur astronomer) mentions that LLM tools were used to assist development of this software.
No surprise to anyone who has worked closely with LLMs, but still important to publish negative AI results in high stakes situations.
arxiv.org/abs/2511.13703
arxiv.org/abs/2511.13703
Generalist Foundation Models Are Not Clinical Enough for Hospital Operations
Hospitals and healthcare systems rely on operational decisions that determine patient flow, cost, and quality of care. Despite strong performance on medical knowledge and conversational benchmarks, fo...
arxiv.org
November 27, 2025 at 2:51 PM
No surprise to anyone who has worked closely with LLMs, but still important to publish negative AI results in high stakes situations.
arxiv.org/abs/2511.13703
arxiv.org/abs/2511.13703
Reposted by John F Wu
![Comic. Panels up to the 10-year point are grayed out. New panels since the Ten Years comic, which chronicles the first ten years of PERSON 1's journey with cancer: (1) [two people in bed] PERSON 1 (woman): One more chapter? PERSON 2 (man): Don’t we both have to get up early? PERSON 1: Nnnnnggggh PERSON 2: Sure, good point. (2) [many people wearing masks, walking while looking at graphs on their phones] (3) [birds landing on people] PERSON 2 in beanie and scarf: Hah! They like *my* seeds best. PERSON 1 in scarf holding phone with a bird sitting on it: Wait, how do I take a picture of this one? (4) [two people rowing boats with tree landscape] (5) [Person 1 carries overflowing stack of things to Person 2 in bed] PERSON 1: I brought you honey lemon tea, more pillows, a cinnamon roll, Tylenol, another blanket, a– PERSON 2: It was just Appendicitis, I’m really– PERSON 1: *It is my turn to take care of you and I am going to do it right!* (6) [Two people in car] (7) [still in car) PERSON 1: Oh my god. PERSON 2: Oh my god. (8) [car driving] PERSON 1: Pull over! PERSON 2: I am! (9) [both people get out of car] (10) [Large colored panel of aurora borealis over water with both people looking on] (11) [Person 1 sits against tree while Person 2 lies on the ground] PERSON 1: Fifteen years. No sign of the cancer. (12) I *am* having some weird symptoms. Joint pain. Fatigue. I think I’m losing my close-up vision. PERSON 2: Yeah. Me too. (13) PERSON 2: I think we’re getting old. (14) PERSON 1: I guess that’s okay. PERSON 2: It’s all I wanted.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreihwhjblp5lyiwp63ouar7ocfea7evmckytoeo7rkfuoo4gw5rnrra@jpeg)
November 26, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by John F Wu
Great article by @alexwitze.bsky.social on hurdles to attend SACNAS and NSBP/NSHP this year, with quotes from me & @astrojennifer.bsky.social: "even with all the barriers and uncertainties, people showed up, supported one another, and shared their science and stories with honesty and resilience". 👏
Following Trump's DEI cuts, attendance has plunged at some conferences for scientists from underrepresented groups. The loss of federal support means fewer chances for people to network, share science, and develop new career paths.
Still, attendees say "the sense of solidarity remains strong".
Still, attendees say "the sense of solidarity remains strong".
‘Anti-woke’ policies blamed for falling attendance at some US conferences
Scientific meetings that support Black, Latino and Indigenous researchers are grappling with funding cuts and other restrictions.
www.nature.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Great article by @alexwitze.bsky.social on hurdles to attend SACNAS and NSBP/NSHP this year, with quotes from me & @astrojennifer.bsky.social: "even with all the barriers and uncertainties, people showed up, supported one another, and shared their science and stories with honesty and resilience". 👏
Reposted by John F Wu
This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.
November 26, 2025 at 2:10 PM
This is the scandal. Trump isn’t targeting dangerous people. He’s targeting peaceful immigrants. Almost exclusively.
Wow 80% bad-faith responses, and people lecturing the creator of Flask here and the creator of Django/datasette in the comments on why AI is useless for software engineering...
Is this platform still massively against AI or has it moved more towards acceptance?
November 26, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Wow 80% bad-faith responses, and people lecturing the creator of Flask here and the creator of Django/datasette in the comments on why AI is useless for software engineering...
Beautiful shot, but worth noting:
[H]e then made the image “super high-res” by shooting the Sun on another telescope and “assembled a mosaic of the entire Sun”, which he later matched with the features in Brown’s photo.
petapixel.com/2025/11/14/s...
[H]e then made the image “super high-res” by shooting the Sun on another telescope and “assembled a mosaic of the entire Sun”, which he later matched with the features in Brown’s photo.
petapixel.com/2025/11/14/s...
November 25, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Beautiful shot, but worth noting:
[H]e then made the image “super high-res” by shooting the Sun on another telescope and “assembled a mosaic of the entire Sun”, which he later matched with the features in Brown’s photo.
petapixel.com/2025/11/14/s...
[H]e then made the image “super high-res” by shooting the Sun on another telescope and “assembled a mosaic of the entire Sun”, which he later matched with the features in Brown’s photo.
petapixel.com/2025/11/14/s...
You never get over imposter syndrome. It just becomes a superposition of "holy crap everybody is smarter than me" and "holy crap maybe I know stuff nobody else does"
So the intersection of states is just "holy crap"
So the intersection of states is just "holy crap"
November 22, 2025 at 2:11 AM
You never get over imposter syndrome. It just becomes a superposition of "holy crap everybody is smarter than me" and "holy crap maybe I know stuff nobody else does"
So the intersection of states is just "holy crap"
So the intersection of states is just "holy crap"
Agree. I strongly believe that using AI to summarize information is a strong form of outsourcing your thinking.
Summarization is crystallizing your thoughts, and -- at least for topics you are still trying to learn -- you can't afford to let an LLM do that in your stead.
Summarization is crystallizing your thoughts, and -- at least for topics you are still trying to learn -- you can't afford to let an LLM do that in your stead.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Agree. I strongly believe that using AI to summarize information is a strong form of outsourcing your thinking.
Summarization is crystallizing your thoughts, and -- at least for topics you are still trying to learn -- you can't afford to let an LLM do that in your stead.
Summarization is crystallizing your thoughts, and -- at least for topics you are still trying to learn -- you can't afford to let an LLM do that in your stead.
Reposted by John F Wu
Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...
Not just left vs right: Most voters think about affordability and material wellbeing, not in ideological terms
Most voters want a party that emphasizes cost of living issues and makes the world a better place. Few Americans think in solidly ideologically terms. "Moderates" are mostly non-ideological.
www.gelliottmorris.com
November 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Good morning. I've got a banger new post out today that develops a new method for placing voters on the left-right ideological spectrum, and adds a new, "non-ideological"/affordability axis to usual way we chart & think about US voters (esp swing voters). www.gelliottmorris.com/p/not-just-l...
Honestly I don't think it is.
This person wants to feel like they're in a space where they belong, where they don't feel like a foreigner... and they didn't leave feeling that way. That sucks, I get it.
I love La Maison because it's one of the ONLY places in Baltimore where I feel DO that way.
This person wants to feel like they're in a space where they belong, where they don't feel like a foreigner... and they didn't leave feeling that way. That sucks, I get it.
I love La Maison because it's one of the ONLY places in Baltimore where I feel DO that way.
Wow, that's racist. (The letter, not you)
November 19, 2025 at 5:55 PM
Honestly I don't think it is.
This person wants to feel like they're in a space where they belong, where they don't feel like a foreigner... and they didn't leave feeling that way. That sucks, I get it.
I love La Maison because it's one of the ONLY places in Baltimore where I feel DO that way.
This person wants to feel like they're in a space where they belong, where they don't feel like a foreigner... and they didn't leave feeling that way. That sucks, I get it.
I love La Maison because it's one of the ONLY places in Baltimore where I feel DO that way.
If you're going to leave a bad review for La Maison/Cafe Dear Leon, then you better at least get your facts straight...
November 19, 2025 at 4:42 PM
If you're going to leave a bad review for La Maison/Cafe Dear Leon, then you better at least get your facts straight...
Reposted by John F Wu
Hey #astrosci community! After working on this project for 3 years, there's a new Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive that's just been newly made available at @stsci.edu: archive.stsci.edu/missions-and... follow me to learn more! (1/n)
November 17, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Hey #astrosci community! After working on this project for 3 years, there's a new Hubble Spectroscopic Legacy Archive that's just been newly made available at @stsci.edu: archive.stsci.edu/missions-and... follow me to learn more! (1/n)
Nice! This belongs on #astrosci!
Paper day!!! My most recent first-author paper is officially published. I’ll make a post breaking it down soon but TLDR I compared X-Ray observations of hot gas around galaxies to cosmological simulations and it looks like simulations aren’t consistently able to match the real universe! 🔭🧪
November 17, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Nice! This belongs on #astrosci!
Reposted by John F Wu
I did my job. And then I did a job that never should have been my responsibility afterwards, sending emails and having meetings about how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Other women scholars had to spend their time explaining to Aspen leadership why this was not ok.
November 16, 2025 at 7:15 PM
I did my job. And then I did a job that never should have been my responsibility afterwards, sending emails and having meetings about how this was allowed to happen in the first place. Other women scholars had to spend their time explaining to Aspen leadership why this was not ok.
Reposted by John F Wu
New (sort of) preprint on arXiv today: a generalized bias-variance decomposition for Bregman divergences! arxiv.org/abs/2511.08789
A Generalized Bias-Variance Decomposition for Bregman Divergences
The bias-variance decomposition is a central result in statistics and machine learning, but is typically presented only for the squared error. We present a generalization of the bias-variance decompos...
arxiv.org
November 13, 2025 at 8:44 PM
New (sort of) preprint on arXiv today: a generalized bias-variance decomposition for Bregman divergences! arxiv.org/abs/2511.08789
Reposted by John F Wu
“This record-breaking response reflects Webb’s exceptional performance and unprecedented capacity to inspire the scientific community and to transform our understanding of the universe,” said STScI Director Jen Lotz. 🔭 ☄️
The demand to use #NASAWebb shows no signs of slowing! For its fifth year, researchers around the world submitted a record-breaking 2,900+ proposals.
The types of requests show astronomers are ready to answer even bolder scientific questions: https://bit.ly/4nYC0LS 🔭 🧪
The types of requests show astronomers are ready to answer even bolder scientific questions: https://bit.ly/4nYC0LS 🔭 🧪
November 12, 2025 at 8:25 PM
“This record-breaking response reflects Webb’s exceptional performance and unprecedented capacity to inspire the scientific community and to transform our understanding of the universe,” said STScI Director Jen Lotz. 🔭 ☄️
Took a break from wrangling NSF grant application spreadsheets and instead decided to wrangle MLB team sentiment spreadsheets...
November 12, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Took a break from wrangling NSF grant application spreadsheets and instead decided to wrangle MLB team sentiment spreadsheets...
Reposted by John F Wu
Trump "has expressed such outrage at attacks on Christians in Nigeria that he has threatened military intervention there... but here’s the awkwardness: Trump’s aid cuts are killing far more Nigerian Christians than Islamic terrorists are." @nickkristof.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
Opinion | Trump Aid Cuts Kill More Christians Than Jihadists Do
www.nytimes.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Trump "has expressed such outrage at attacks on Christians in Nigeria that he has threatened military intervention there... but here’s the awkwardness: Trump’s aid cuts are killing far more Nigerian Christians than Islamic terrorists are." @nickkristof.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/o...