In Opinion “We definitely have an attention problem, but it’s not just a function of the digital technology that pings and beeps and flashes and nudges us ever closer to despair,” write D. Graham Burnett, Alyssa Loh and Peter Schmidt. “It starts with the way we think about attention.”
Opinion | The ‘Attention Economy’ Is a Lie
It started in a laboratory. No one could have predicted where it would end.
nyti.ms
Nice discovery of a Saturn-mass microlens using the different perspectives of Earth and the GAIA telescope @gaiamission.bsky.social, and a nice animation to boot! arxiv.org/src/2601.000... www.science.org/doi/epdf/10....
NASA Discovers Distant Planet With Conditions That Could Sustain Rocks https://theonion.com/nasa-discovers-distant-planet-with-conditions-that-could-sustain-rocks/
These are shells of dust coming off a pair of tightly bound stars, newly imaged by #JWST. There is such beauty in the universe.
Our special November issue, celebrating 30 years of exoplanets, is now here! https://bit.ly/483MH9I #astronomy #exoplanets
New paper from my group! Stars aren’t born alone—they form in massive associations. If we want to understand how stars and planetary systems form, we need to figure out where today’s clusters came from… and where all their long-lost siblings ended up. arxiv.org/abs/2511.07533
Lost Sisters Found: TESS and Gaia Reveal a Dissolving Pleiades Complex
Most star clusters dissolve into the Galaxy over tens to hundreds of millions of years after they form. While recent Gaia studies have honed our view of cluster dispersal, the exact chronology of whic...
arxiv.org
My talk is tomorrow! FEAR: the impact of killer whales on baleen whales. Streaming: hmsc.oregonstate.edu/main/science...
Trevor A. Branch@trevorabranch.bsky.social · 10mo agoFEAR: the impact of killer whales on baleen whales Talk on 19 November by yours truly!
My most important service to solar system planetary science was being a part of the Science Definition Team (SDT), nearly a decade ago, that made the science case for an NASA Ice Giants Orbiter and Entry Probe. Check out our 2017 document: arxiv.org/abs/2511.13946
Ice Giants Pre-Decadal Survey Mission Study Report
The Ice Giants Study was commissioned by NASA to take a fresh look (as of 2017) at science priorities and concepts for missions to the Uranus and Neptune systems in preparation for the third Planetary...
arxiv.org
🧪🔭⭐ #exoplanets #exoplanet #youngplanets New paper from our group and @madysonbarber.bsky.social today! We report a brand-new planet around a <50 Myr star—adding to a very small (but rapidly growing!) population of the youngest known transiting planets. Paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.10734
arxiv.org
#SciML fact of the day: automatic differentiation fails to give the correct derivative on a lot of very simple functions 😱 😱 😱 . #julialang #automaticdifferentiation youtube.com/shorts/KTguZ...
Automatic differentiation is incorrect on very simple functions??? 😱 😱 😱
YouTube video by Chris Rackauckas
youtube.com
RIP George Smoot. My first project in astrophysics was with George's group at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. That summer I showed that the COBE temperature fluctuations were consistent with a Normal distribution, which I did not realize at the time was a confirmation of a prediction of inflation.
Berkeley Lab@berkeleylab.lbl.gov · 11mo agoWith sadness and gratitude, we honor George F. Smoot III—Berkeley Lab scientist since 1974 and 2006 Nobel Laureate in Physics—who has passed away at 80. His “baby picture” of the universe changed cosmology. https://elements.lbl.gov/news/honoring-the-legacy-of-george-smoot/ @nobelprize.bsky.social
Congratulations to @kelbadry.bsky.social for becoming a McArthur genius!!! 🤩🥳 www.caltech.edu/about/news/k... 🔭🧪🎢
Kareem El-Badry Named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow
Kareem El-Badry Named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow
caltech.edu
Yall check this out, it’s the top coolest thing I’ve seen in a while, closed form autodiffable representation of optical interferometry, enormously powerful. Yes!!
Shashank Dholakia@astroshashank.bsky.social · 11mo agoNew paper by me and @benjaminpope.bsky.social! How well can we map a star using optical interferometry? This is just a submitted preprint at the moment--comments and questions welcome! (1/N) arxiv.org/abs/2509.25433
The statue of Pasteur in Paris faces the Invalides where Napoleon is buried. This is apt as one fought germs, while the other fought Germans.
Mario Livio@mariolivio.bsky.social · 11mo agoToday Sept 28. On this date in 1895 chemist Louis Pasteur passed away. Renowned for discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization. His research led to remarkable breakthroughs in the understanding of the causes and preventions of diseases.
Excellent review paper on prospects for high-precision photometry of exoplanet systems with JWST by Sarah Millholland & Joshua Winn: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Not only did this paper get published, but the author, Thomas Count Dracula, received the “Best Author of the Month” award. www.easpublisher.com/article/arti... h/t @bluewhalenews.bsky.social
Astronomy 🔭 and physics ⚛️ GRFP applications are due Nov 14! Only seniors and 1st-year grad students can apply now (no second years).
Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 11mo agoNew: After a long wait, the GRFP solicitation is live! Deadlines have been extended to early November, so applicants have a bit over a month to submit. www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
Today Sept 27, 2025. It marks a special mathematical date because the numerals of the date form perfect squares. Written as 09/27/2025, it becomes 9,272,025, which is the square of 3,045. When written in the European format 27/09/2025, it becomes 27,092,025, the square of 5,205.
Congrats to Univ of Washington's Prof. Josh Krissansen-Totton (former UCSC postdoc!) on being selected for the AGU Ronald Greeley Early Career Award in Planetary Sciences www.agu.org/user-profile...
AGU - American Geophysical Union
agu.org
A High-Precision, Differentiable Code for Solar System Ephemerides (Cassese et al in press) arxiv.org/abs/2509.19549
A High-Precision, Differentiable Code for Solar System Ephemerides
We present jorbit, a python/JAX library designed to enable modern data-driven numerical studies of the solar system. Written entirely in JAX, an auto-differentiable and optionally GPU accelerated lang...
arxiv.org
On the 🔭🧪 postdoc job market? Excited about science with Rubin and big surveys? Come join us at DiRAC. I’m so excited that we’re able to offer a few of these Fellowship positions this year! Please share, LMK if you have Q’s! aas.org/jobregister/...
Postdoctoral Scholar - Institute for Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics & Cosmology | American Astronomical Society
We invite applications for the 2026 DiRAC Fellowship in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. These up to 3-year full time postdoctoral positions are available to promising earl...
aas.org
Pythagorean Triple Square Day, as one man affectionately calls 9/16/25, is a day like no other this century.
On 9/16/25, celebrate a date of mathematical beauty
Pythagorean Triple Square Day, as one man affectionately calls 9/16/25, is a day like no other this century.
n.pr
youtu.be/Jx5SxWqpjjI 🔭 AAS Journal Author Series: Richard Zeebe and David Hernandez on 2025AJ....170...71Z Richard Zeebe (University of Hawaii at Manoa) and David Hernandez (Yale University) chat about their article on stellar flybys of the solar system and their (lack of) effect on the Earth.
AAS Journal Author Series: Richard Zeebe and David Hernandez on 2025AJ....170...71Z
YouTube video by AAS
youtu.be
Sorry Google and @wikipedia.org but this is not correct. Half of the Nobel prize was awarded to Penrose for the mathematical theory of black holes; the other half to Genzel & Ghez for their study of Sgr A*. (Thanks @nytgames.bsky.social Connections for alerting me to this!)
TIL that I study “space balls” (71 down in Sunday’s NYT crossword).
The Rocky Worlds DDT has published our final target list. Join us for an information session on September 15 to learn more about the 9 targeted planets and the goals of the program. 🔭 #exoplanets
Rocky Worlds DDT Updates: Final Target List and Virtual Information Session
stsci.edu
Hey #exoplaneteers (and other early career folks) - applications for the 2026 NASA Hubble Fellowship Program are open! www.stsci.edu/stsci-resear...
Announcement of Opportunity
Find in-depth information about the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) and its requirements.
stsci.edu
