Orion🌈&sm9eb
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sm9eb.bsky.social
Orion🌈&sm9eb
@sm9eb.bsky.social
Archaeologist specializing in Late Neolithic/Halaf Şanlıurfa, Turkey; D.C.-born; foodie; astronomy & gardening buff; former guardian of Urfalı cat Commander Orion 🌈🖤; current guardian of not-a-Guest-anymore Cat Italy!
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
And third, Bhattacharya said many trials were renegotiated to "take out the political ideology" and then allowed to resume.

Senators seemed to accept that reasoning, but I was surprised that they didn't push back on how arbitrarily "political" was defined, and who was making those determinations.
February 3, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
One observation: Several senators brought up terminated grants. Bhattacharya kept saying the agency hasn't cut any funds. That is false.

When he says no funds have been cut, he means NIH spent all its allocated money, as required by law. In fact, a watchdog found NIH illegally impounded funds.
February 3, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Hey Danes, did you know you all know each other and there's no diversity in Copenhagen?
BHATTACHARYA: The key thing about the Danish is the adoption of trust–

CASSIDY: That's because Denmark is not a country — it's a club. Everybody knows each other. They all look alike.
February 3, 2026 at 7:33 PM
How was this guy ever in dialogue with people about funding for the Event Horizon Telescope.
Here is Jeffrey Epstein, a man who did not have a bachelors degree, letting the Journal of Interdisciplinary Music Studies know that researchers are doing music cognition wrong: “Heard is boring”
February 3, 2026 at 7:20 PM
It's 44F and the #snowcrete is melting!!!
February 3, 2026 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
I did catch the space station in the aurora once, but no one there was taking pictures out the window at the time.
February 3, 2026 at 6:12 PM
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
Lots of students are angry about AI promotion. They're baffled by how universities are pushing the tech on them, and they don't want any part of it. Students are independent agents and they often get instrumentalized in these conversations.
February 3, 2026 at 5:03 PM
🔥🔥🔥🔥👇
Not a great look that so many university libraries are promoting AI. Libraries have always been a space for valuing authors' work and showing how to locate and properly cite sources--not encouraging tech that steals from authors and produces slop.
February 3, 2026 at 5:23 PM
Just for the record, this is the closest thing I've experienced to what winters used to normally be like when I (GenX) was little in a long time. The Potomac is frozen in many places! I remember skating on the C&O Canal when I was little.
D.C. area has just emerged from its longest uninterrupted stretch of freezing weather in more than 35 years.

Even as temps thaw a bit today, another punishing blast of cold is poised to arrive by the weekend.

Read the full story: www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026...
D.C.’s longest freezing streak since 1989 ends, but more bitter cold looms
The prolonged cold, combined with the “snowcrete,” has produced one of the region’s most severe winter weather episodes in decades.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 3, 2026 at 5:18 PM
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BERNIE SANDERS: Do vaccines cause autism?

BHATTACHARYA: I do not believe that the measles vaccine causes autism

SANDERS: Nah. Uh uh. I didn't ask measles. Do vaccines cause autism?

BHATTACHARYA: I have not seen a study that suggests any single vaccine causes autism
February 3, 2026 at 3:59 PM
My little friend, I'm delighted by more winter. But I just want a few above freezing days to melt all this snowcrete.
February 3, 2026 at 4:54 PM
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Many said we were exaggerating a year ago when we argued that Trump is a clear and present danger to our democracy. A year later they are eating their words.

It’s up to every single one of us to save our democracy.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/u...
February 3, 2026 at 3:08 PM
On my father's side he left (northern???) Ireland as an indentured servant somewhere between 1730-1750 with a price on his head, but for what we don't know. Probably came to Virginia, also not sure.
Genuinely curious: If your family is American, what brought them here?
Mine: religious nuttery & primogeniture
February 3, 2026 at 7:22 AM
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
I was a White House ethics lawyer.

I used to advise people not to even accept a free cup of coffee from someone who had interests before them. And staff followed those rules.

I can’t even find the words to describe the scale of Trump’s corruption here.
Foreign countries are bribing our president to sell out the American people.
 
Trump family businesses made $187 MILLION from this deal, and just months later he gave the UAE some of our most top-secret AI tech.
 
They are selling our national security to the highest bidder.
February 2, 2026 at 7:28 AM
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Hi I’m your local space scientist here to say that this is nonsense spun up as an investment scam
Musk merges SpaceX and xAI firms, plans for space-based AI data centres https://aje.news/jm42h7
February 3, 2026 at 5:15 AM
Things I just learned that break my heart; there's a Firefly connection. I knew, but I kind of didn't want to really know. 😪
February 3, 2026 at 6:24 AM
Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb
This is 1% of the population of Springfield. This would be the equivalent of 40,000 showing up in Los Angeles.

Springfield is a red town in a red state.
Meeting in solidarity with Haitians in Springfield, Ohio now - over 600 people and still growing.
February 2, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Hmmm
The people who run those places aren't idiots, they knew they would win in court.

They wanted to bribe trump bc they support him.
February 3, 2026 at 5:54 AM
My People, after confining myself indoors for rather long, at last I bring you #Charlottesville 's infamous...
⚡️🏔MOUNT CHIPOTLE!!🏔⚡️

Our mountain of myth and mystery has arisen once more!!!⚡️🏔⚡️❄️
🧱 #UVA 🧱
But seismic activity told us strong throughout Barracks Road...
February 3, 2026 at 1:56 AM
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Have you ever introduced students to relational databases using some kind of physical example (index cards, yarn, etc.)? I'm not satisfied with the way I've been doing it on slides.
February 2, 2026 at 9:51 PM
...But that leaves open the question: what's happening to the NSO??? Did all those musicians just lose their jobs??
@musicologyduck.bsky.social Got any ideas??? Baltimore Symphony is already at Strathmore.
CNN is reporting the real reason Trump is closing the Kennedy Centre for two years is not for renovation: “the Kennedy Center does not have a 2026/2027 season. There would not have been any programming to announce."
February 2, 2026 at 9:55 PM
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Do you ever wonder about trilobite appendages?

Literally everything ever known has now been reviewed by Sarah Losso @thomashegna.bsky.social @invertebratepal.bsky.social 🧪⚒️🦑

osf.io/preprints/pa...
February 2, 2026 at 4:15 PM
It's 38F outside!! Maybe some #snowcrete will melt!!
February 2, 2026 at 7:41 PM
A #2026MMM COMBATANT CLUE!! Hmmm looks like a catalogue number....
February 2, 2026 at 7:29 PM
The #2026MMM TOURNAMENT PAGE IS A GO!!! Exactly *one* good thing is happening right now, and this is it.
As per always on this most holy of mammal holidays, Groundhog's Day, March Mammal Madness launches our annual tournament page! #2026MMM @mmmletsgo.bsky.social libguides.asu.edu/MarchMammalM...
February 2, 2026 at 7:28 PM