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👻SAAAAAAAAHHHHHHvik Ford 🎃

@saavikford.bsky.social

11K followers 3.5K following 12K posts

CUNY Astro prof, AMNH research assoc, runner, astronomer, crafter, camper, gardener, mom, all opinions completely my own (she/her)

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👻SAAAAAAAAHHHHHHvik Ford 🎃 @saavikford.bsky.social · Oct 17

Welcome new followers!

I’ve been described as a border collie with opposable thumbs who can do math (& swears a lot). I post about many things, including astrophysics, other sciences, politics, stuff I’ve made, teaching, complaints, occasional medieval history, Irish stuff, NYC, travel, bears…

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amanda moore 🐢 @noturtlesoup17.bsky.social · 16h

The inflatables have made it to Broadview.

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NPR @npr.org · 11h

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

n.pr

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👻SAAAAAAAAHHHHHHvik Ford 🎃 @saavikford.bsky.social · 5h

🤞

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j-salvo.bsky.social @j-salvo.bsky.social · 8h

Word to the wise: do not fly internationally into Logan. All of the major public detainments of Legal Residents and Citizens at airports have been out of Logan.

Kat Stuart @luckykatstuart.bsky.social · 8h

Anyone in Boston an immigration lawyer or know one who can help this woman? Her husband is detained at Logan over a dismissed misdemeanor from 2017. He’s a legal resident of the US. She just asked for help an hour ago.

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👻SAAAAAAAAHHHHHHvik Ford 🎃 @saavikford.bsky.social · 6h

The system described (piecework) is how garment workers living in tenements on the Lower East Side got paid before effective unionization. This is bullshit.

See the rest of the 🧵 for what basic clothing ACTUALLY costs. (If you sew, this will be totally unsurprising.)

derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 11h

I interviewed one of these factory workers in Los Angeles. She gets paid three cents to sew a zipper, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt.

This is how fast fashion brands like Fashion Nova can put "Made in USA" tags on dress shirts that retail for only $25

"Every day at 6 am, Bilma boards a bus that shuttles her to downtown Los Angeles’s Fashion District. When she reaches the garment factory an hour later, she starts working immediately, without punching in. Like thousands of other garment workers in the United States, Bilma’s wages aren’t tethered to the clock but rather to the quantity of operations she executes. Three cents for a zipper or sleeve, five cents for a collar, and seven cents to prepare the top part of a skirt before she passes it onto the next sewing operator in line. Assembling an entire dress earns her a mere 15 cents. Bilma toils away on garments primarily for fast-fashion labels such as Fashion Nova, Lulus, and Lucy in the Sky, who prioritize quickly stocking on-trend items over the quality of materials. These companies peddle things like $80 maxi dresses, $25 poplin dress shirts, and $5 crop tops, all modeled by beautiful people and bedecked with the tantalizing promise of low-cost glamor."

"This worker payment system, known as “piecework” in the garment industry, is how US-based manufacturers can sidestep labor laws that require companies to pay at least the minimum wage. Rather than compensating Bilma for the exhausting 12-hour shifts—a regimen that, according to LA County’s minimum wage requirement, should yield $202.80—her pay is determined by the individual tasks she performs, which can fluctuate daily. Despite her adept handling of hundreds of garments a day, Bilma’s earnings typically linger around $50 per day. That’s $300 weekly for the standard six-day grind and $350 if she opts for Sunday labor. Doing what she can with this modest income, Bilma spends $400 a month to live in a two-bedroom apartment with six other people, some of whom are day laborers. In this crowded arrangement, two occupants squeeze into each bedroom, while two more lay claim to the living room. Bilma sleeps in the corner of the bustling kitchen."

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Lyndie Chiou @lyndie.bsky.social · 7h

Here are the remnants of a massive star that ignited in 1054. Ancient astronomers marveled at how they could see the supernova even during the day. All that's left today is the faint, colorful smudge called the Crab Nebula.

Image credit: my tiny telescope - only 2 hours!

#science #astronomy 🔭👩🏾‍🔬

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Joshua Eaton @joshuaeaton.bsky.social · 7h

FWIW ICE is probably the least accessible federal agency I’ve ever covered, and that includes the CIA.

Michael J. Kramer @michaeljkramer.bsky.social · 7h

Why are there so few (none?) news stories about individual ICE agents themselves? Who they are, what motivates them, any moral dilemmas they face? Why aren’t protesters trying to get some to speak out?

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👻SAAAAAAAAHHHHHHvik Ford 🎃 @saavikford.bsky.social · 6h

Noooooo!!!

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Dan the Gnome @brewergnome.bsky.social · 11h

This is happening right now, to a friend of mine in Chicago. This is a peaceful area, with no previous unrest or crime problem. Just people trying to live their lives. My heart hurts. They're having conversations no family should have to have.

A white box with text. "Y'all. They're tear gassing my neighborhood. Right by the place we get hummus from. Right by where we get the extra large pizzas for sleep overs. Tell your people."

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Fernando Salvaterra @salvaterra.bsky.social · 16h

My prints are 20%OFF and have a $5 discount on shipping.

only 11 hours to go: www.inprnt.com/gallery/salv...

#INPRNT #bsnm #MinCup25 #minerals

final Mineral Cup 2025 bracket with kyanite as champion. all the minerals are illustrated and the brackets are lined with decorative border in gold.

a poster with illustrations of 16 minerals eliminated in the first round of the 2025 mineral cup: chrysotile, okenite, jeremejevite, calcite, silver, leucite, sanidine, pollucite, azurite, wavellite, thortveitite, zunyite, topaz, ikaite, nontronite, and paddlewheelite. They have a large range of colours and shapes going from blue and green to yellow and red.

illustration of four minerals competing in the semifinals and final match of the Mineral Cup 25: kyanite, champion, tugtupite, second place, dioptase and hematite, eliminated in the semifinals.

a poster with illustrations of 8 minerals eliminated in the second round of the 2025 mineral cup: pectolite, stibnite, baryte, carpathite, titanite, molybdenite, taenite, mannardite They have a colour variation from greys, beiges, whites and black. One, titanite, is dark green.

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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 10h

lol liars, every one. Chicago cops threatened to quit if Brandon Johnson was elected mayor. Police union leader LITERALLY threatened "blood in the streets," saying between 800 to 1,000 would walk.

Guess what never happened.

And even if they'd made good on that threat... OK??? BYE????

Mark Misoshnik 🏴 @misoshnik.bsky.social · 1d

Lmao is this supposed to be a bad thing?

A tweet from Bari Weiss that says “"It's shaken me to my core," a lieutenant said of Mamdani's unexpected victory in June. "The absolute dread I feel is palpable.
"
Today in @TheFP our @Olivia_Reingold talks to the cops who say they will walk if Zohran Mamdani is elected in November:”

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 7h

it is unfortunate that some people need to be told this, but here we are

Kozu @kozufox.bsky.social · 7h

Telling people not to try to down helicopters is more along the lines of "don't randomly fire a gun into the walls of an ICE detention facility", and it should be obvious why both actions are a bad idea.

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Luke Steuber @lukesteuber.com · 8h

Someone inform a certain group of people that we had a President of the United States who didn't speak English as his first language (Van Buren)

List of multilingual presidents of the United States - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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Boston Tom Levenson @tomlevenson.bsky.social · 7h

MIT did us proud this week.

Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 9h

Courtesy of colleagues at Penn

A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s 1754 engraving in the Pennsylvania Gazette, published in Philadelphia, in an effort to foster cooperation among the various colonies against the tyrant king of Britain, with the American colonies replaced by the nine universities selected for special collaboration opportunities

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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 8h

Heidegger, Pound, Webern, Jung all supported the Nazis.

fascism is a moral error, not an intellectual one. being educated isn't a prophylactic.

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 11h

Most of these people are deeply trained, or at least highly educated, in humanities. Knowing isn’t being.

brasidas @brasidas.bsky.social · 16h

Anyone who claims that Silicon Valley would be better with more humanities education has to grapple with the fact that Peter Thiel was a philosophy major.

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Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 7h

NSAIDs are known to alleviate pain by reducing inflammation. A study in Nature Communications shows that selective inhibition of the prostaglandin E2 receptor in Schwann cells eliminates pain without disrupting the protective and healing functions of inflammation. #medsky 🧪

Targeting prostaglandin E2 receptor 2 in Schwann cells inhibits inflammatory pain but not inflammation - Nature Communications

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are known to alleviate pain by reducing inflammation. To the contrary, here, the authors show that selective inhibition of the prostaglandin E2 receptor (EP2) in Schwann cells eliminates pain without disrupting the protective and healing functions of inflammation.

go.nature.com

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Scoiattolo @offline.mountainherder.xyz · 8h

Listen we need to use Sora 2 to generate a version of A Christmas Carol where Trump is Scrooge and one of his old dead friends are Marley and then post it at him on Truth social.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 11h

“Trump haunted by visions of hell” is my favorite Trump, although I’m not totally sure what’s going on with the dude

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11h

Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."

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Sarah Tuttle @niais.bsky.social · 8h

Anyone can hop in an inflatable suit and protest. Can't make it to an "official protest"? Find a freeway overpass or an intersection nearby. Hang out with your friends. Wave signs about ending fascism, or saving democracy. Everyone has their thing. My mom? No swears. My husband? Guillotines. 😂🤷‍♀️

Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 8h

You all are so relentlessly insufferable. (not Kevin)

STOP GATEKEEPING PROTEST

THATS NOT HOW PROTEST WORKS

THE MORE PROTEST THE BETTER

THE MORE KINDS OF PROTEST THE BETTER

the same people screaming “do something!” also screaming “not like that!”

Y’all are shooting yourselves in the foot.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 8h

Someone in my mentions is upset because these people haven’t suffered the worst at ICE’s hands and therefore they shouldn’t be praised for being out on the streets?

Yeah, no. To push back on these people we need everyone — especially those with relative privilege — to get up and get involved.

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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 9h

I’m sorry this just did me in.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 9h

ai is a fascist tool. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

Ilyasah Shabazz didn’t want to look at the AI-generated videos of her father, Malcolm X. The seemingly realistic clips — made by OpenAI’s new video-maker Sora 2 — show the legendary civil rights activist making crude jokes, wrestling with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and talking about defecating on himself.

“It is deeply disrespectful and hurtful to see my father’s image used in such a cavalier and insensitive manner when he dedicated his life to truth,” Shabazz, whose father was assassinated in front of her in 1965 when she was 2, told The Washington Post. She questioned why the developers were not acting “with the same morality, conscience, and care … that they’d want for their own families.”

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Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 10h

someone on the Internet who really wants to convince you to shine lasers at manned aircraft as a protest tactic “because they did it in Chile in 2019” is either:

1. a fascist fed, or,

2. so terminally stupid that they have become functionally indistinguishable from one

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 2d

They are not planning "a violent crackdown" on 10.18. What they are doing is sending a signal to their shock troops to try to cause havoc. But those shock troops will be vastly outnumbered. Go out and protest freely. Do not be cowed.

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Hobby Drifter in Tokyo @hobbydrifter.bsky.social · 7d

White people who have spent decades thinking “Born in the USA” is patriotic and “Every Breath You Take” is a great wedding song are suddenly very concerned about not being able to understand lyrics to some songs at the Super Bowl halftime show.

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Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 9h

Courtesy of colleagues at Penn

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Ghostin this Hell @hoovybaby.bsky.social · 8h

Incredible that in year 5785 people keep picking fights with Derek and think they’re going to come out ahead

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Ghostin this Hell @hoovybaby.bsky.social · 8h

no quarter given lmao

Matt Stoller & @matthewstoller • 2h
UPS had seven months of warning about the de minimis change, but is still taking packages w/o getting required customs info & is making tariff charge errors.
Nice use of passive voice though!

derek guy
@dieworkwear • 2h
i apologize using a passive voice. i was not born in london to a wealthy bank executive, sent to an exclusive private prep school in new hampshire, and then studied at harvard before larping as a champion of the people. you have to work with my low upbringing.

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