Given we are approaching that time of the year, my big piece from years back on the 1983 Cold War Crisis (and the role of Stanislav Petrov in it) over onto authory as a free-to-read. Over the years, the myth of what happened has been simplified. The reality was scarier. Because: Ronald Reagan.

The Day the World Didn’t End

At the height of the Cold War, with alarms screaming, one Soviet officer stopped to think. It cost him his career. It may also have saved the world. The morning of the 26th September 1983 had started ...

authory.com

My friend’s kid told me about something that happened to an adult she knows and it’s too funny not to share, so here goes. The story begins when this lady (let’s call her Liz) agrees to dog-sit for a friend who’s going on holiday. The dog is very elderly. You can guess the next part. 🧵

One like one random DOE/NNSA story 🤷‍♂️⚛️

Mike Black@mikeblack114.bsky.social · 3d ago

One like one random AF story

Isn't this basically *spoiler alert* the ending of the film "Sneakers"?

Shoshana 🏳️‍⚧️@shoshana.bsky.social · last wk.

I'm going to the Circle K for some protein bars, gatorade, and… an $8.5 billion dollar donation to the Red Cross 😱 But really, it angers me so much that an AI might be adding random items to someone's bill. At what point is it just theft?

Great thread about how healthcare professionals need to switch to treating the body a person has, not the one they’re assumed to have based on where they fall under a male/female heuristic.

Astrid@astridsramblings.bsky.social · last wk.

Sex data and healthcare: where is it relevant? This is not my current policy specialism however it used to be and I have written some evidence reviews on it. If I make any mistakes, folks like @foxdie.bsky.social (who you should follow) will I’m sure kindly set me right. Not advice of any kind.

I love the fact that when scientists needed to make radium stable and transportable for this experiment, they chose to "caramelize" it in a solution of xylitol, a sweetener commonly used in chewing gum. They do not recommend eating (or even chewing) the results. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/cold-radio...

Cold radioactive molecules offer a tabletop route to new physics – Physics World

Nuclear symmetry violations could show up in molecules containing pear-shaped radium nuclei

physicsworld.com

What's the most viscous substance on Earth that isn't, for all practical purposes, completely solid? Honey 🍯❌ Pitch🛢️❌ Glass 🥛❌ Well, hmm, what about... Glaciers? 🏔️❌ Tectonic plates?? 🌍✅ physicsworld.com/a/geophysici...

Geophysicist identifies a maximum practical viscosity – Physics World

Boundary between materials that flow and those that don’t could shed light on Earth’s early history

physicsworld.com

This is a blunt assessment of what the Trump regime is proposing for US science: they plan to take all the funding, essentially collapsing university-based research, in order to give that money to themselves, and they are lying about it.

Derek Lowe@dereklowe.bsky.social · 2w ago

Thoughts on the various Trump administration proposals to revamp US science funding - and what they all have in common:

"Scientific systems rarely collapse through a single dramatic event. They decline incrementally: one technician dismissed, one laboratory left unrepaired, one instrument taken out of service, one young scientist deciding to build a career elsewhere." physicsworld.com/a/letter-fro... ⚛️🧪

Letter from Argentina: 'an empty desk and an idle electron microscope signal the erosion of the country's science' – Physics World

Faramarz S Gard laments the decline of Argentine science

physicsworld.com

This letter from a physicist in Argentina is a salutary and deeply depressing reminder that Anglosphere countries aren’t the only ones where funding for science is under threat. 🧪⚛️

Physics World@physicsworld.bsky.social · 2w ago

Faramarz S Gard, a researcher at Argentina’s Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (CNEA), describes the first-hand impact of funding cuts and job losses in the country’s scientific system. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/letter-fro...

Great interview with Laura Grego of @ucs.org - she gets into Elon Musk and space colonialism, which is 100% a conversation we should be having www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

‘Most people don’t know we’ve set up a doomsday system’: physicist Laura Grego on satellites, nuclear weapons and the battle for our skies

Elon Musk is trying to own it, competing powers are trying to fight in it and nobody seems to be regulating it. So who does space really belong to?

theguardian.com

It's simultaneously reassuring and depressing to hear that other people are also brute-forcing tasks that advanced technology ought to make really easy. Don't ask me about the hour I recently spent getting photos off my camera and onto my hard drive (no, I do not want them in the cloud).

Matthew Kenworthy@mattkenworthy.bsky.social · 3w ago

It is the Year of our Lord 2026, and today I am assembling an email list by cutting and pasting into a spreadsheet before cutting and pasting *that* into Apple Mail. Why am I doing such a straightforward task in such a roundabout way? Gosh, I'm glad you asked. /1

In the age of AI slop, people would do well to remember words ascribed to Samuel Johnson: "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure"

"Imagine that you are among the experts charged with compiling a 'compendium of what you need to know right now'. What would you include of science – and why?" Fascinating question from veteran @physicsworld.bsky.social columnist Bob Crease: physicsworld.com/a/tell-us-wh... 🧪⚛️

Tell us what science you need to know to be 'cultured' – Physics World

What ought a cultured human know of science? Robert P Crease seeks your ideas

physicsworld.com

this is legit why editing matters. we all have verbal tics that, in a live conversation, neither party notices. They stand out when you listen to a podcast. So, as much as possible without changing the vibe or flow, you have to remove them for the listener.

Case in point: I was so confident in my typo-spotting ability that when I was an impecunious PhD student, I bet my supervisor £1 for every typo he found in my first-year report. IIRC I paid him £1, and I wasn’t daft enough to repeat the bet with my thesis four years later.

Hildur Knútsdóttir@hildur.bsky.social · 4w ago

Dear reader, no book, published any century, does not have at least one typo.

It's too bad that the name "meta" is now so strongly associated with data misuse and pervert glasses, because metasurfaces are such an exciting technology. Example: this metasurface-based polarization grating could make it loads easier to study space weather. 🧪⚛️🔭 physicsworld.com/a/metasurfac...

Metasurface grating gives solar telescopes a boost – Physics World

New optical device could fly on future space missions that study solar magnetic fields and space weather

physicsworld.com

"It's a zero-sum game," Wild said. "The bullets we've dodged have hit someone else." www.reviewertoo.com/13-7-2026-bu...

"The bullets we've dodged have hit someone else" — UK science cuts largely spare physics and astro, hit projects and labs

Also: AI conflict of interest disclosures in philosophy, PhD admission down 15% at US universities, an AI "humanizer" tool for science, and more from last week

reviewertoo.com

Interesting example of how LLM language usage may be making #quantum papers (even) more confusing. 🧪⚛️

Rafael Wagner@quantumrw.bsky.social · 3w ago

A "setting" is kind of a specific measurement choice within a certain scenario (e.g. in a Bell scenario I can choose a certain "measurement setting"). Calling the scenario "setting" is a bit more confusing. But its happening all the time because AI often suggests the word setting as a synonym

I struggled with verb tenses when editing this article. We're seeing this galaxy as it was 12.7 billion years ago. Based on how it behaved then (which we're only seeing now), astronomers think it'll stop forming new stars in 50 million years, i.e. 12.65 billion years ago. My head hurts.🧪⚛️🔭

Physics World@physicsworld.bsky.social · 4w ago

A galaxy that formed around 1 billion years after the Big Bang is in its death throes because a powerful galactic wind is blasting its gas into space. The discovery could explain why some of the universe’s earliest massive galaxies stopped forming new stars. 🧪⚛️🔭 physicsworld.com/a/powerful-c...

Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search www.adweek.com/media/publis...

Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

adweek.com

You know what really burns my butt? Scientific studies that get causation the wrong way round. Example: "People who are more physically active experience less fatigue" (implying that fatigued people should exercise more) How about "People who experience less fatigue are more physically active"?

Amazing story: If someone ever makes a working fusion power reactor (please do!) and then illicitly uses it to make weapons-grade plutonium or uranium (please don't!), the reactor's antineutrino emissions will call them out on it. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/antineutri...

Antineutrino detectors could spot signs that a fusion reactor is producing weapons-grade plutonium – Physics World

Non-intrusive technique could enable round-the-clock, offsite monitoring of reactor operations

physicsworld.com

We can't send messages back in time. That's science fiction. However, Einstein's general theory of relativity doesn't prohibit us from doing so. So JUST IN CASE someone ever finds a loophole, these guys calculated how much information we could pack into those messages. That's science.🧪⚛️

Physics World@physicsworld.bsky.social · last mo.

Inspired by the film Interstellar, in which a father sends messages to his daughter in the past, physicists have calculated the information capacity of a backwards-in-time messaging channel based on a closed time-like curve. 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/back-to-th...

Happy “liberal arts professor helps save the Union” day to all who celebrate

Valentina Tereshova was the first woman in space in 1963, but the space bros have never stopped giving her a hard time. In this post I analyse the misogyny and double standards which persist to this day. 🧪 #WomenInSTEM #ValentinasDay

Valentina Tereshkova and double standards in human spaceflight history

Every year on June 16, the anniversary of Dr Valentina Tereshkova's spaceflight, where she became the first women ever to leave Earth, I ge...

zoharesque.blogspot.com

This "generating entangled photons from sunlight" scheme does require a pretty fancy solar-tracking system on the roof of your laboratory, but still! Entangled photons for free, courtesy of the Sun! 🧪⚛️💡

Physics World@physicsworld.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Producing pairs of entangled photons usually requires a complex laser system, but researchers in China have shown that these crucial ingredients in #quantum optics experiments can come from a far more basic source: sunlight. 🧪⚛️💡 physicsworld.com/a/sunlight-c...

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

University of Cambridge accused of tolerating misogyny and bullying in tribunal

Professor alleges the Institute of Astronomy has a ‘bad history of misogyny’ and staff were mistreated

theguardian.com

Cloudy in the mornings, but clearing towards the evenings. It might sound like the forecast for a pleasant day here on Earth, but it's actually the typical weather on a "hot Jupiter" exoplanet called WASP-94A b. 🧪⚛️🔭 physicsworld.com/a/asymmetric...

Asymmetric weather pattern reveals exoplanet's true atmosphere – Physics World

New observations by the JWST provide a much clearer understanding of clouds on a distant world

physicsworld.com

The remarkable story of how video game system pioneer Seamus Blackley (@seamus.bsky.social), known as the "father of the Xbox," restored physicist Richard Feynman's iconic family vehicle. The Dodge Tradesman Maxivan was uniquely painted with Feynman diagrams. www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/may-...