Bill Lukens
@paleosol.bsky.social
geology | paleoclimatology | geochemistry | soils | sed/strat | Assoc. Prof. at JMU | views are my own Lab website: https://sites.google.com/view/lukenslabjmu Scholar profile: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Nlx0NacAAAAJ&hl=en&authuser=1&oi
Had the same reaction while reading @astrokatie.com‘s The End of Everything. The Big Bang has to start from a single point. How the heck can infinite space be infinitely dense and then… expand?! Enough is enough! 🤪 🧪
Elizabeth Nolan Brown@enbrown.bsky.social · 5h agoMy 4-year/old just learned about the concept of infinity and is now throwing a tantrum over it. “It’s weird! I don’t like it. I just want numbers to stop!”
And somehow she won 1 of the 2 primary spots, with about as many votes as the 3rd and 4th candidates combined. Local, off-cycle primary elections are wild my dudes.
Bill Lukens@paleosol.bsky.social · yesterdayHeaded off to vote in the VA primaries. If you want some juicy, local drama, this story involves the family/home of one incumbent city council member who is still on the ballot! Pretty wild. #Virginia #Harrisonburg #primaries www.whsv.com/2026/06/18/a...
Headed off to vote in the VA primaries. If you want some juicy, local drama, this story involves the family/home of one incumbent city council member who is still on the ballot! Pretty wild. #Virginia #Harrisonburg #primaries www.whsv.com/2026/06/18/a...
Harrisonburg councilwoman’s relatives arrested amid investigation into alleged prostitution, other charges
Three people were arrested in Harrisonburg on Wednesday as part of an investigation by the Harrisonburg Police Department into allegations of prostitution and internet crimes involving minors, accordi...
whsv.com
THIS a very a cool fossil. 🧪⚒️
Science Magazine@science.org · 2d agoA complete skeleton of the archosaur Austronaga minuta, recovered in Early Triassic deposits from southwest China, has several specialized features indicative of an aquatic lifestyle, according to new research. Learn more in #ScienceAdvances: https://scim.ag/4pLIct4
Isotope geochemists: Everyone report your data as heavy over light, and your reward is you get to use this little guy ‰ Astrophysicists: Cool, let's do that but only for D/H. And it gets a %. Otherwise we'll do light over heavy thx. (lols aside, very cool work!) 🧪⚒️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Isotopic evidence for a cold and distant origin of 3I/ATLAS - Nature
Carbon isotopic measurements of the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS reveal that it may have formed as long ago as 12 billion years and thus represents a preserved fragment of an ancient planetary system.
nature.com
Hi! As part of an appearance in the @cosmicshambles.com Forest of Science and Culture at this year's @latitudefestival.bsky.social, I wanted to ask the #geoscience, #geology, #EarthScience hive-mind a question: What are the most amazing discoveries in our field in the last 20 years? 🤔
Just bought a beach shade structure and can't stop thinking about these AI slop images in the online ads. Picture your family, happily sitting together, at noon, on the solstice, on the Tropic of Cancer, with the sun exactly overhead. But also the sun is not exactly overhead.
central virginia folks, consider supporting the blue ridge area food bank www.brafb.org
Blue Ridge Area Food Bank | Nourishing Our Community
Empowering Central & Western Virginia with nutritious food. Join us in our mission to end hunger—volunteer, donate, or find help today.
brafb.org
Carl Quintanilla@carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2w agoPage One. @nytimes.com
Hey data scientists, can someone pls explain what in the world a 'standardized regression coefficient' is in a random forest? My understanding is that RF has nothing analogous to regression coefficients - what am I missing? 🧪📊 #Data See Fig 1 (rose diagrams) www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Human amplification of climate-induced greenhouse gas emissions from global small water bodies | PNAS
Human activities amplify climate-induced greenhouse gas emissions from small water bodies (SWBs), creating critical but unquantified feedback in th...
pnas.org
The diarrhea lettuce thing is bringing back memories of when I learned that Kenyans use the phrase "driving" as a euphemism for having diarrhea. A friend and I were hysterically laughing as I taught him the American diarrhea songs, but with 'driving' substituted. Good times.
Hey #EGU members, in case you missed it: The EGU Election Autumn 2026 for the next EGU Treasurer and the Union representative of the Early Career Scientists will take place from 2 to 24 November 2026. 😂 my inbox is overflowing this these emails… 🪨⚒️🧪 #AcademicSky
Pssst... You can hate corruption. And you can really really hate certain leaders. AND you can love the fact that we have the best USMNT in a generation. Lots of hate unfairly directed at Balogun and the team. Don't let fascists ruin your joy. ⚽ #WorldCup
Hm. I guess Messi just needed a little water break to get going.
In soccer, the ball must be completely over a line to be out of bounds. A huge improvement in the game would apply this same logic for offsides: A player is only offsides if they are completely beyond the plane, and if part of their body is still behind the plane then they're onside. ⚽ #WorldCup
The trans sports ruling reminds me of Sackett v. EPA (2023). Remember when the conservative justices decided that they knew how to define a wetland better than, you know, wetland scientists? They're doing the same thing re: biology. Crazy. 🧪⚒️
This is an incredible lightening bug year in the Shenandoah Valley. Our pollinator-friendly yard, freshly watered with recent rains, is teaming with their glowy little butts. 🤩
Um, WTF? "NSF will fund the X-Labs through a rarely used mechanism that .... allows NSF to fund nontraditional recipients such as a limited partnership or a venture capital firm, some of which might have been created solely to receive the NSF award." 🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky www.science.org/content/arti...
Exclusive: NSF slashes research programs to support new tech initiative, insiders say
Unexpected shift in funds has meant sharp drop in grants this fiscal year
science.org
Raising a toddler, in two acts: Act 1 (a beautiful, clear evening) - You show your son the moon for the first time ever. We all point to the sky in amazement! 🤩🌗 Act 2 (a beautiful, clear morning) - Toddler melts down, pointing at sky, because why no moon?? 😫 #dad #parenting #toddler
Wikipedia can lend a little context here (under the 20th century history section)…. 😕 Growing up in PA small towns makes you think twice about the nonsense that racism and prejudice are less common in the north.
![Throughout the middle of the 20th century, several incidents of racial prejudice and social injustices occurred in the city.[16] Between 1955 and 1970 there were several racial disturbances, most notably the 1969 York Race Riot, which resulted in the deaths of Lillie Belle Allen and Henry C. Schaad. These murders were largely left ignored until thirty-one years later, when allegations of murder and racial prejudice were raised against the mayor, Charlie Robertson.[17] Additionally, the city commonly held unopposed Ku Klux Klan rallies and public meetings, fostering further racial tension.[18] Though the murders of Allen and Schaad were solved and the perpetrators were apprehended, the actions, which originated back to the beginnings of the hate group, continue to the present day.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:45f2atmbsnwfzq63yfdudcuy/bafkreieijppmpo73uyzdmfswzduw34uf646qrojfmb2dx3c5f5vg3cj3pq)
Harrisburg & Central PA Local News@hbgpalocalnews.bsky.social · 2mo agoYork Revolution forfeit game after some players refuse to wear 'Pride Night' jersey The York Revolution has forfeited its game Thursday night against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs after an internal controversy surrounding "Pride Night" and the prid…
The World Cup and Olympics are neat because every country’s national anthem is an equally embarrassing, hokey ditty written so long ago that it bares no resemblance to any surviving culture. Is it legal to update these once a century? #WorldCup26
🚨Funding for 2yr postdoc w/ me & @geocron.bsky.social on landslide-tsunami-jökulhlaup project, but (this is the ridiculous part) I need to select someone NOW or I lose the $. If you're NOT in Canada (can be any nationality) and interested, send me your CV and transcripts by midnight MT, June 12. 🧪⚒️
A deep-sea whale necropolis that has: 1) Far more whale falls than you can imagine, 2) At wild depths, & 2) Whale fossils as old as the Mio/Plio boundary, still on the seafloor?? 🤯 Gets my vote most interesting publication of 2026 (so far). #AcademicSky 🧪⚒️ www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A 5.3-million-year-old deep-sea whale necropolis in the Diamantina Zone - Nature
Researchers uncovered an enormous deep-sea accumulation of whale remains in the southeastern Indian Ocean, showing long-term, specialized ecosystems and an extensive fossil record that offers new insi...
nature.com
[me, for the first 17 mo of my son’s life]: there will be NO screen time! My son will never learn that the TV even turns on! [first day of #WorldCup26]: I’m so pumped to watch soccer with my son for the first time! 🫠
I’m gonna cheat a little on this. Bill Walton was hanging out with us in the pit during various portions of all 3 Grateful Dead 50th anniversary shows at Soldier Field. He was certainly the best athlete in attendance.
The 984@the984.bsky.social · 2mo agoWho is the best athlete relative to their sport you saw play live? I'm gonna say Mia Hamm at the 1996 Olympics.
Hey look, NSF is investing in sustainable ecosystems!! 🥹 …. Oh, it’s actually just more public money being funneled to tech. Huh.😕 🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky #NSF
Striking directly into the hearts of the millennial geologists, Randall! ⚒️🧪
Randall Munroe@xkcd.com · 2mo agoNostalgia Content xkcd.com/3256/
![Comic. [Person in front of images of pogs, a Tamagotchi, and huge fungal tower over mossy ground.] PERSON: Who else remembers pogs? Tamagotchis? Vast forests of prototaxites towering over the mossy landscape as armored fish stir in the deep? [caption] Due to a database error, millennial nostalgia now includes a portion of the Early Devonian.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreiho5esmmquxyeqmhlp6c3qduj242ovxfdc7cwqpoqdnhwujt26kiy)
As an associate editor, I experience so much joy when a pretty good paper is reviewed by competent and kind people and leads to a very good revised product. When the system works well, it's very rewarding. Wish it happened that way all the time. #AcademicSky #publishing #peerreview
This is exactly why I'm confused by the "liberals don't like technology" nonsense. This van is my literal dream vehicle. Am I not allowed to love this, and novel renewable energy projects, and also despise data centers?
ryan cooper@ryanlcooper.com · 2mo agoapparently the Mexican government has backed a new super cheap EV van, 100 percent made in Mexico, that looks sick as hell www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
