Paul
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Paul
@mistfiend.bsky.social
93 followers 200 following 1 posts
Integration engineer working in the NHS who runs coding clubs for children and plays golf very badly.
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daddykaz.bsky.social
Petty is right.
April 22, 2025 at 7:34 PM
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ourislanduniverse.space
#DYK that Caroline Herschel became the 1st female scientist to be paid in a professional capacity?! Well, sorta. King George III made William (her brother) his personal astronomer in 1787. William received £200 per year; Caroline received £50 per year as his assistant. She was a giant of astronomy.🔭
royalsociety.org The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · Mar 16
Born #OnThisDay in 1750 was Caroline Herschel. Herschel was a comet finder, astronomer and pioneer. She discovered several comets and two moons of Uranus, and her observations helped shape astronomy. Find out more about her life and work: artsandculture.google.com/story/swWRW5...
March 16, 2025 at 6:21 PM
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hpsvanessa.bsky.social
Final plug for my foray into #Arctic Exploration with You're Dead to Me - and also an endorsement: if the YDTM crew ever contact you to take part, say yes! I'm open about my mixed experience with "the media" & can say @gregjenner.bsky.social & team are the BEST I've ever worked with 🗃️
BBC Radio 4 - You're Dead to Me, Arctic Exploration: the fatal quest for the Northwest Passage
Join Greg and his guests to learn all about the perilous history of Arctic exploration.
www.bbc.co.uk
March 2, 2025 at 9:52 AM
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jamellebouie.net
i feel like it's an open question whether or not the flu vaccine will even be available next season
crampell.bsky.social Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · Feb 16
On Friday night, HHS ordered CDC to take down all flu vaccine campaign materials from its website. Materials are starting to come down.
For example, a campaign explaining that flu shot can reduce flu severity from "wild to mild" is now offline. Left image is from Friday, right is now

Meanwhile...
February 16, 2025 at 8:43 PM
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tracyrenee70.bsky.social
"Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.' -J.R.R. Tolkien The Hobbit, pub. 1937
February 15, 2025 at 3:42 PM
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lethalityjane.bsky.social
The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.
Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.
February 15, 2025 at 5:49 PM
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kathryn-brown.bsky.social
Muntjac mum and baby having a good time in our garden 🥰🦌

Want to help record UK mammals as part of a national citizen science programme? 🧪 Head over to Mammalweb.org
January 26, 2025 at 7:35 PM
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chrislintott.bsky.social
For those who don’t know, Jonathan is *the* person who keeps track of stuff in space, a key part of the information ecosystem for anyone who studies or writes about satellites. He now needs some help to keep doing this. (1/2)
planet4589.bsky.social Jonathan McDowell @planet4589.bsky.social · Jan 22
Well, big news. I am planning to move the Space Library to a new home. And I need some help - in 35 years I've never asked for funding, donations or subscriptions for my Space Report, to keep it independent, but now I need to raise some additional funds.
www.gofundme.com/f/fund-jonat...
Donate to Fund Jonathan's Space Report Library Transition, organized by Jonathan McDowell
For 35 years I've been sharing information about space exploration w… Jonathan McDowell needs your support for Fund Jonathan's Space Report Library Transition
www.gofundme.com
January 22, 2025 at 4:09 PM
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veronicabane.bsky.social
Did your child lose their book collection in the Los Angeles fires? Are you a teacher at a school that lost its library or your classroom library? Whether you need one book or a whole library, we can replace your books. 📚

Everyone else, please boost this post so we can connect with those in need. 🙏
January 16, 2025 at 3:35 PM
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leahstokes.bsky.social
Cannot stop thinking about how Octavia Butler wrote a book in 1993 about climate change. It opens with deadly fires in LA in 2025. In the story, a fascist President has just won office with the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again."

She was a modern day Nostradamus. If only we'd listened.
The cover of the book Parable of the Sower.
January 9, 2025 at 8:09 PM
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georebekah.bsky.social
ABC, NBC & CBS dedicated about 16 minutes of airtime last night to the California wildfires without once mentioning climate change.

Since the news failed do it's job, here's a short summary of the role of climate change and wildfire risk:

www.noaa.gov/noaa-wildfir...
Wildfire climate connection
Climate change, including increased heat, extended drought, and a thirsty atmosphere, has been a key driver in increasing the risk and extent of wildfires in the western United States during the last ...
www.noaa.gov
January 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
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annalandre.com
Do you know a UK-based wheelchair user who works in a lab and would be willing to user-test our prototype of what is believed to be the first-ever lab coat adapted for wheelchair users?

Please share far & wide! Interest form: forms.office.com/e/66FhcQjqRT

More info: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-east/new...
Two photos of Anna, a young white woman using an electric wheelchair, wearing a blue lab coat that fits her well with tables and dry-lab equipment in the background. Text reads: "A team of researchers and designers led by UCL is looking for wheelchair users working in wet lab environments to user-test what is believed to be the first-ever prototype of a lab coat adapted for wheelchair users."
January 7, 2025 at 2:52 PM
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ericmcf.bsky.social
Merry from the brilliant Brian Bilston
#poetry #writingcommunity
brianbilston.bsky.social Brian Bilston @brianbilston.bsky.social · Dec 24
Here’s a poem called ‘Merry’.
Merry   It’s a word which only comes out at Christmas.   As for the rest of the year, it’s as if it has been packed away in the attic with the decorations and the tinsel, waiting for its own time to shine.   Rarely do we play hell with it. We do not let it loose for birthdays or anniversaries; only in error does it intrude on the happiness of a new year.   But at Christmas, it emerges blinking into the light, red-cheeked and perky, in a perfect state of mild inebriation, writing itself into Christmas cards,   greeting friends on doorsteps, embracing family before they take off their shoes, warming strangers on icy pavements. Merry Christmas, we say. Merry Christmas. Brian Bilston
December 24, 2024 at 3:59 PM
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josephfasano.bsky.social
I'm sharing this for the first time in this space. Hoping it finds people who understand.
December 19, 2024 at 2:40 AM
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dickzoutman.bsky.social
www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...
See How Many Lives Vaccines Have Saved around the World
Vaccines are the first step toward health equity in many parts of the world
www.scientificamerican.com
December 15, 2024 at 1:31 PM
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epicciuto.bsky.social
I’m sick of people talking about the present like it’s some fall from the Eden that was the end of the 20th century. So I thought I’d make a thread of stuff that’s better now than my youth (80s and 90s).
December 3, 2024 at 2:06 AM
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bribarbu.bsky.social
GOOD MORNING #CHEMSKY

It is once again time for the hallowed annual @cenmag.bsky.social tradition of selecting the molecule of the year! 🎉🧪🤩

We've got a super fun lineup of candidates this year--use the link below to tell us which one's your favorite!
cen.acs.org/sections/mot...
2024 Molecules of the Year Poll
Serving the chemical, life science, and laboratory worlds
cen.acs.org
December 4, 2024 at 3:18 PM
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swilua.bsky.social
“I am still a dancer made of song”
louisathelast.bsky.social Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social · Dec 4
Reposting with alt text, because it’s lovely
December 4, 2024 at 1:23 PM
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davidbauer.ch
One cannot highlight this often enough.

Chart by @scientificdiscovery.dev / @ourworldindata.org, more details at: ourworldindata.org/data-insight...
A horizontal bar chart titled "Number of lives saved by childhood vaccinations since 1974" shows the impact of various vaccines. Measles vaccination leads with 94 million lives saved, shown in orange. Following in blue bars are Tetanus (28 million), Whooping cough (13 million), and Tuberculosis (11 million). Smaller impacts are shown for diseases like Haemophilus influenzae type B (2.8 million), Streptococcus pneumoniae and Polio (both 1.6 million). The chart continues with progressively smaller numbers for Yellow fever (550,000), Hepatitis B (460,000), down to Neisseria meningitidis A (2,000). The data source is attributed to Shattock et al. (2024) and published by OurWorldInData.org under CC BY license.
December 2, 2024 at 4:21 PM
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geoffnorcott.bsky.social
Massive away win for the little fella.
December 2, 2024 at 1:38 PM
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gregjenner.bsky.social
Incredible 👇
paulisci.bsky.social Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · Nov 30
A List of Things People Blamed on Short Skirts

🧵
November 30, 2024 at 11:30 PM
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ferrisjabr.bsky.social
I was deeply disappointed by the lack of nature/science/climate/enviro on many major end-of-year book lists—so I decided to make my own!

Introducing: ✨🎁📚 The 2024 Holiday Gift Guide to Nature & Science Books ✨🎁📚

Please share: Let's make this go viral in time for Black Friday / holiday shopping!
A collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Atlas Obscura Wild Life, Dinosaurs at the Dinner Party, Every Living Thing, Alien Earths, Becoming Earth, and Deep Water A collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Frostbite, The Inner Clock, How to Kill an Asteroid, The Great River, The Last Fire Season, and Hoof Beats A collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are The Serviceberry, Not the End of the World, Nature's Ghosts, Meet the Neighbors, The Light Eaters, and Our Moon A collage of book covers of new nature & science books. Featured here are Turning to Stone, The Weight of Nature, What If We Get It Right?, Waves in An Impossible Sea, The Tree Collectors, and Why We Remember
November 27, 2024 at 7:08 PM
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cstross.bsky.social
Oh boy, H. L. Mencken was right. (Bsky length limit is too short for the whole quote, but Christopher May on Mastodon found it and … welp.) https://zirk.us/@ChrisMayLA6/113537460776009728
November 24, 2024 at 10:41 AM