Adrian Fraser
@fraserlaser.bsky.social
I study turbulence in stars and other things at CU-Boulder but really I’m just here for some funny posts. NSF AAPF fellow on the job market. Interested in turbulence under strong constraints: rapid rotation, strong stratification, magnetic fields, etc
The culprit? Like last year, NSF is spending more up front, discontinuing multi-year awards and paying off the mortgage on existing awards. But FY26 and FY25 have similar budgets. What accounts for the difference is that NSF has withheld $1 billion—$1,016,862,632, to be precise.
Scoop: For nearly a year, NSF has struggled to make new grants. Now we know that it will not catch up. In fact, NSF will award just 6,100 new grants—a 30% y/o/y decline, itself down from a previous avg. of 11,000+. In fact, the last time NSF awarded so few grants was in the early '80s.
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
nature.com
A vulture goes to check in for his flight carrying a dead armadillo under each wing. The desk attendant asks “Are you going to check those?” The vulture responds “no, they’re carrion.”
Yikes
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 3w agoMiami University: All academic departments at Miami to integrate artificial intelligence into the curriculum by 2027-2028 "If it's this embedded in the world, then it needs to be embedded in the learning and in the coursework" miamioh.edu/news/2026/08...
If there’s one thing Trump and I agree on, it’s that more stellar astrophysicists should…
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.Trump: "Magnets! Do magnets, okay? I'll tell you how to make money. Do magnets. It's one thing we don't have, but we're getting close. I guarantee you it's gonna be susssessullll"
Disabled students in this country are about to get bounced between three different federal agencies just to get the education they’re legally entitled to.
Trump Breaks Up Education Dept., Prompting Worries Over Civil Rights
nytimes.com
It’s truly astonishing to see how comprehensively the US government is tearing down every part of the system that has made it up until now a world-leading power in science, research, and technological development. The entire world will suffer from this wanton destruction.
Dan Vergano@danvergano.bsky.social · 3mo agoWhite House proposes new rules giving political appointees final approval of research grants These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...
wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖
Helen Branswell 🇨🇦@helenbranswell.bsky.social · 4mo agoI find this unsettling: A new study in #Lancet shows that the number of faux citations in scientific articles is on the rise, and #AI is likely to blame. @aniloza.bsky.social reports. www.statnews.com/2026/05/07/l...
Reading a fellowship announcement that’s just like Harvard Harvard Princeton Princeton Stanford Stanford. Like congrats for sure to the awardees but maybe they should just tell people at other schools to not bother trying lol
If you liked/understood the quoted post (looking at you @chowlandgfd.bsky.social), or otherwise care about salt fingers, ultimate regimes, or the different thermohaline models in MESA, then you should check out this neat paper on the arXiv today from Valentin Skoutnev: arxiv.org/abs/2605.038...
Unifying Transport Models of Thermohaline Convection in Stars
Thermohaline convection is a standard chemical mixing process in stellar interiors, yet its mixing efficiency is not fully settled. Competing theories predict turbulent diffusion coefficients, $D_μ$, ...
arxiv.org
Adrian Fraser@fraserlaser.bsky.social · 5mo agoI need someone with an obnoxiously large computer allocation to spend 10’s of millions of CPU hours on one or two giant simulations of salt fingers/thermohaline convection and let me know if there’s an “ultimate regime” à la RBC, please and thank you
I feel like we’re willing to make Pluto a planet again, at least provisionally, if they’re willing to fund astrophysics. I’d say $100 billion/year is reasonable But if you keep cutting our budgets, I swear we’ll keep eliminating them. Hope you like a three planet solar system!
Jeff Foust@jfoust.bsky.social · 4mo agoIsaacman: very much in the camp of making Pluto a planet again. Working on some papers right now to escalate through the scientific community to revisit this. And that's it.
I’m tired so I first read this as “stardew valley” and was ready to fight about it
karl rove knausgård@uhactually.bsky.social · 4mo agoIt’s hard to think of an industry more disconnected from popular opinion than Silicon Valley.
Reminder: we are hiring a Research Software Engineer @flatironinstitute.org !
Adrian Price-Whelan@adrian.pw · 5mo agoThe Center for Computational Astrophysics @flatironinstitute.org is hiring a new Research Software Engineer to work on @astropy.org and to support the software and computing efforts within the CCA. Apply by May 22! apply.interfolio.com/184639 🔭 🧪 ☄️
i firmly believe that kennedy wants preventable diseases to rip through american communities since, in his warped mind, those who survive without vaccines will have proven themselves “healthy.”
The UnPopulist@theunpopulist.net · 5mo agoKennedy canceled $500 million in mRNA research and announced no new mRNA projects will ever be initiated—killing the technology that produced the fastest vaccine rollout in human history.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this in my entire life,” Rep Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) said, fighting back tears. The Tucson Democrat described the way people were laying down inside as “like sardines.” “It is frightening in there,” Grijalva said. “It is disgusting.”
Surprise inspection finds ICE stuffing migrants 'like sardines' into a facility with no bed, showers
Three lawmakers visited a Mesa ICE facility unannounced and found overcrowding, with 250 detainees packed into rooms "like sardines"
azmirror.com
Exciting good news- I’m delighted to share that the new astronomy minor at the University of Oregon has been APPROVED and sent to the registrar! Starting this Fall 2026 we will be offering the FIRST EVER astronomy program in the entire state of Oregon!!! 🥳🤩🔭🧪🎢
"It's never possible to directly simulate astrophysical regimes—the best we can do is study similar regimes and extrapolate" Nope! Check it out: 3D direct numerical simulations of chemical mixing in stellar interiors using the actual parameters of these regions iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3...
Bridging the Prandtl Number Gap: 3D Simulations of Thermohaline Convection in Astrophysical Regimes
Bridging the Prandtl Number Gap: 3D Simulations of Thermohaline Convection in Astrophysical Regimes, Fraser, Adrian E.
iopscience.iop.org
Star Wars would be a stronger franchise in 2026 if they had taken the feedback about the pod racing sequence in Phantom Menace and made that the entire franchise for a decade
I need someone with an obnoxiously large computer allocation to spend 10’s of millions of CPU hours on one or two giant simulations of salt fingers/thermohaline convection and let me know if there’s an “ultimate regime” à la RBC, please and thank you
To paraphrase Nixon, “It’s not new math when the President does it.”
For those of you who care about thermohaline convection in stars; coming soon to a preprint server near you:
The @ligo.org and @egovirgo.bsky.social collaborations officially announced the first direct detection of gravitational waves #OTD in 2016. Hard to believe we are ten (ten!) years into the gravitational wave era of astronomy and astrophysics. A remarkable tool for understanding our Universe. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️
LIGO Detected Gravitational Waves from Black Holes
On September 14, 2015 at 5:51 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:51 UTC), the twin Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors, located in Livingston, Louisiana, and Hanford, Wash...
ligo.caltech.edu
The thing where ICE parks masked men in school lots is something I would not have believed unless I saw it with my own two eyes. They do it constantly. It’s purely a terror tactic and they’ve done it to schools over the region. Our schools are collapsing - often at 50% attendance or less.
poop@dude3000.bsky.social · 7mo agoColumbia Heights (Liam's school district) cancelled school today because of a credible bomb threat at Liam's elementary and multiple ICE vehicles parking in the high school staff parking lot at 6:15am.
![Comic. [Article titled “Evidence for liquid water on the surface of a terrestrial planet in the habitable zone,” with unreadable text but including pictures of a beach and of people playing on a beach.] [caption] Planetary science journals have asked astronomers to please stop submitting their vacation photos.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiabfmtaoraxvc6vm3kblaozbl3lla473bvzruovdodt5arv7ttjha)
