Author | Lightnews

Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 1d

:My brain:

Chemistry Degree: Helium has a full valance shell of electrons and is a very unreactive Noble gas.

Physics Degree: ☝️ Actually, if Helium reaches a high enough density and temp (~1M K) it can undergo fusion and release a tremendous amount of energy. 💥 🤓

#Chemsky #Astrophysics

🇵🇸Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer🖖🏳️‍🌈 @nuclearanthro.bsky.social · 2d

This is amazing y’all.

White dwarf pulls He from neighbor star causing dwarf-surrounding explosion…

…causing inward traveling shockwave that compresses dwarf star’s core & results in supernova.

Many a nuclear weapons designer was an astrophysicist b/c that’s a closest analogue to a NUDET.

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 5d

🤢

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Mandy Patinkin and Kathryn Grody @mandykathryn.bsky.social · 6d

@zohrankmamdani is a deeply thoughtful human being and we think he would make the best NYC mayor imaginable. We feel this as New Yorkers, as Jews and as human beings who are desperate for kindness, compassion and empathy to be represented in our politics.

GET OUT THE VOTE here bit.ly/4nxYXFp

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 6d

I recently baked some silica gel, but did not eat. 😁

Picture of a bunch of silica gel beads sitting in a glass baking pan. Most of the beads are clear/white but some are cool indicating orange. A red silicone spatula is stirring the beads in the center of the pan.

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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 7d

Literally one of the coolest comet pix I've *ever* seen: Comet Lemmon seemingly wrapped in the debris tail from a meteor!

badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/amazing-im...

And hey: I bring you stuff like this three times a week in my newsletter. Please sign up when you visit!

🔭🧪

AMAZING image: Comet Lemmon encounters a meteor, kinda.

Also, a spinny new target for the asteroid-hunting mission Hayabusa2

badastronomy.beehiiv.com

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Liz Shannon Miller @lizshannonmiller.com · 7d

friend shared this, immediately updated my settings

$Screenshot of text: unfuck google drive by shooting gemini Hey folks! Google is fucking you via sneaky enshittification again! Want the shit in your google drive to load instantly again, instead of taking for-fucking-ever? Open your gdrive (web OR app) Settings > Manage Apps Gemini was checked "use as default" (and i sure the fuck didn't set it that way, this was a silent push) Nuke that, and suddenly, folders that took up to a minute to populate and sort do so in a fraction of a second.$

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Martin Tomsky @mtomsky.bsky.social · 7d

Two shrines to the God of Fantasy Fiction! A complicated design and altar piece for those who like me, cannot consume enough fantasy books. I just finished Alchemised by SenLinYu, which was genuinely brilliant and would definitely recommend.

www.martintomsky.com/shop/god-of-...

#art #fantasy

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Jun 19

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

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saraofwhimsy @saraofwhimsy.bsky.social · 10d

Well, if you ever wanted to see 48 sea monsters hanging out... 🧶

Giant sea monster, covered in too many scales and now SUPER SHINY in various colors, surrounded by tiny sea monsters ans two larger ones sitting in shells

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 13d

Thanks! Was just looking to see if I could figure it out. 😃

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 13d

I wonder if the 100K blockers includes blocks from people using block lists? If not, the number could be much higher.

I looked and the account is block for me because of a block list I subscribe to. (Right wing propaganda and their followers)

Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 13d

"The White House account has drawn only around 12,000 followers. More than 100,000 users have the account blocked."

makena kelly @makenakelly.bsky.social · 13d

NEW: Inside the Trump Administration's Bluesky Invasion

Spoke with some administration officials who said the move was about "reaching new audiences." It's amounted to trench warfare.
www.wired.com/story/inside...

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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @cosmicrami.com · 13d

I just learned about a creature called the Conehead Mantis, and it is legit an alien.

It would be the stuff of nightmares to be the prey of this thing, caught in its raptorial claws and then munched on by this face.

JFC, nature is metal AF.

📸 F. Vassen / R. B. Casado / D. Descouens

A purple shaded Conehead Mantis balancing on a branch.

Close up of a Conehead Mantis with two long feather-like antennae emerging from its forehead above its big eyes.

Close up of the face of a Conehead Mantis.

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Corey O'Neill @coreyoneill.bsky.social · 16d

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 19d

Lol, don't click the He-man hash tag unless you want to see some He-man erotica. 😆

Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 19d

Wait (again)...they got Chris Hemsworth to star as He-man? I couldn't help myself and had to watch the trailer that apparently just dropped. It looks so bad. Like some AI generated garbage. 🤦‍♂️ #He-man

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 19d

Wait...he's set to play Skeletor in a Masters of the Universe movie? I mean, they are seriously making a Masters of the Universe movie? 🤦‍♂️

Gizmodo @gizmodo.com · 19d

A new report suggests that the disastrous opening weekend for the Jared-Leto-starring sequel may lead to Disney pulling the plug on the Grid once and for all.

'Tron' Might Really Be Doomed After 'Tron: Ares'

A new report suggests that the disastrous opening weekend for the Jared-Leto-starring sequel may lead to Disney pulling the plug on the Grid once and for all.

gizmodo.com

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 21d

Frist time I've seen HiRes images of this phenomenon. Pretty cool.

HiRISE Beautiful Mars (NASA) @uahirise.bsky.social · 21d

HiPOD: A Martian Dust Avalanche

Relatively dark slope streaks are common on steep dust-mantled slopes of Mars. At high resolution), we can clearly see that surface material has been removed from the upper slopes as expected from landslides.

More: https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_067900_1935

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Barry Deutsch @barrydeutsch.bsky.social · 21d

AD(H)&D

A cartoon I sketched out but never finished.

A wizard sits on a therapist's couch. He looks anxious and says "I know I should slay the dragon. I want to slay the dragon. But somehow I never do slay the dragon." The caption says "AD(H)&D".

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Compound Interest | Chemistry infographics @compoundchem.com · 21d

It's mushroom season in the Northern Hemisphere 🍄

Here's a look at the chemistry of arguably the most iconic mushroom, fly agaric, and what makes them so brightly coloured and hallucinogenic: www.compoundchem.com/2024/11/11/f...

#ChemSky 🧪

Infographic on fly agaric mushrooms, with an image of the mushrooms in the middle (red with white spots). The chemical structures of the mushroom's pigments are shown, including muscarufin, the primary pigment responsible for their red colour. The compounds behind the mushrooms' psychoactive properties, ibotenic acid and muscimol, are also shown. These compounds imitate neurotransmitters in the brain to exert their effects.

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 21d

Astonishing indeed. 😮

"neutrino’s energy was estimated to be an astonishing 220 peta- electronvolts (PeV)"

Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 21d

You can read all about the amazing new Kilometer-Cube Neutrino Telescope (KM3NeT), located deep in the Mediterranean Sea, at the link below.

We can now see *neutrinos*, people! 🧪

www.km3net.org/km3-230213a/...

One module of KM3NeT with 31 light sensitive ‘eyes’ (called photomultiplier tubes) in the deep sea. The observatory which detected the ultra-high energy event (called KM3NeT/ARCA) had 378 of such modules installed at the time of the detection, on a total of 21 vertical detection lines attached to the sea bottom. The lines are at almost 100 meters distance from one another, and are almost 700 meters long. Altogether being a huge network of light sensitive ‘eyes’.
Courtesy KM3NeT.

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Nereide @drnereide.bsky.social · 24d

🧵
A nice circumhorizontal arc (informally known as a fire rainbow, which is a misnomer) over West Virginia captured by Christa Harbig!

It is an optical phenomenon belonging to the family of ice halos, so it is neither fire nor a rainbow.

➡️ apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap21083...

🔭 🧪 #science

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$The image shows a circumhorizon arc (or circumhorizontal arc), an optical phenomenon resembling a fiery rainbow. It forms in a clear sky with cirrus clouds made of flat, hexagonal ice crystals aligned horizontally. These crystals refract sunlight, creating a colorful arc parallel to the horizon. Vibrant colors shine brightly against the blue sky, captured near North Fork Mountain, West Virginia.$

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kosmi.bsky.social @kosmi.bsky.social · 23d

Penguin colony [ No. 16 ].

Image taken by Sentinel-2 on Oct. 3, 2025.

-72.08, -15.08

🐧🐧🐧

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Ned @nedman.bsky.social · 24d

Teaching life. The journey is part of the adventure.

www.tiktok.com/t/ZTMD2XEE6/

My 7-year-old students tried to perform a Shakespeare play. A bead got swallowed, props went missing, and chaos took over. What happened next changed how I teach forever. Told live @The Moth #storyti...

TikTok video by Matthew Dicks

www.tiktok.com

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 24d

There's nothing I don't love about WOMBATS, from their curmudgeonly mannerisms to their armored, bony butts (that protect them from predators when they're head-first in a burrow).

But we should talk about their cubic poop & how it gets that way.

CW: animal poo in next post

a man is holding a wombat in his arms while wearing a bjp shirt

Alt: Czech professional mixed martial artist Jiri Prochazka is kissing a wombat he has in his lap.

media.tenor.com

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Habu @flyinghabu.bsky.social · 25d

Two nights of 3:45am alarms, blazing full moon lighting the sky like daytime and washing out the light of everything else, comet included. Then two days of post-processing battles, as comet processing is maddeningly tricky.

But I finally pulled it off: here is C/2025 A6 Lemmon. 🔭

#Astrophotography

Comet C/2025 A6 Lemmon taken from my backyard

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