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Marcel S. Pawlowski

@8minutesold.bsky.social

450 followers 350 following 380 posts

Astrophysicist studying cosmic choreographies of dwarf galaxies. Junior Research Group Leader at AIP, Street Photographer (he/him) Autor des Buchs „Von tanzenden Galaxien, Dunkler Materie, und anderen kosmischen Rätseln“ Potsdam, Germany

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Nov 19

Es ist soweit: heute erscheint mein Sachbuch "Von Tanzenden Galaxien, Dunkler Materie und anderen kosmischen Rätseln" ISBN: 978-3-95972-788-4

Auf 304 Seiten schreibe ich über Astronomie, Galaxien, und wie Astrophysiker*innen Herausforderungen des Dunkle-Materie-Modells begegnen. 🔭🧪

Titelblatt des Astronmie-Sachbuchs Buchs "Von tanzenden Galaxien, Dunkler Materie, und anderen kosmischen Rätseln", von Marcel S. Pawlowski. Es zeigt den Titel sowie als Hintergrundbild eine Aufnahme der interagierenden Kaulquappen-Galaxie mit einem langen Gezeitenarm.

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 1d

Congratulations to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for winning the Nobel Price in Physics … for Johns.

By my count from last year, this should now make it 12 men named John who were awarded the Nobel, versus a total of five women (of any name). 🧪

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Oct 8

Congratulations, the Nobel Prize in Physics 🧪 has now been awarded to twice as many guys named John than women.

(One John even got it two times.)

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 1d

And we’re stuck on the tarmac in Berlin “for at least an hour” in a fully boarded flight because some oil-related maintenance light came on.

a close up of a car dashboard with a red triangle on the bottom right

ALT: a close up of a car dashboard with a red triangle on the bottom right

media.tenor.com

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 1d

Heading to Cordoba in Spain for IAU Symposium 403 ‘The Hidden Beauty of the Galactic Outskirts’, and from there to Chiang Mai in Thailand to give a lecture on dwarf galaxies and small-scale problems for the German-Thai ‘WE-Heraeus & NARIT Cosmology School 2025 – Galaxies and Beyond’. 🔭☄️

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 7d

Wasn’t the best or least stressful start, but people were super helpful and supportive, and the university admin went out of their way to process my moving expenses as quickly as possible, so at least I had some money to find and set up a place to live.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 7d

Facebook reminded me that exactly 12 years ago there was another government shutdown in the U.S.

I had arrived for my first postdoc just before, applied for a SSN, but the shutdown delayed getting assigned one. Which meant that I couldn’t be paid my salary until 2 months after my international move

Reposted by Marcel S. Pawlowski

Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) @aippotsdam.bsky.social · 20d

🕶️ Dunkle Materie & Zwerggalaxien: Im neuen Video der virtuellen #BabelsbergerSternenächte beantwortet @8minutesold.bsky.social vom AIP wieder Fragen zu spannenden Themen. Jetzt reinschauen! youtu.be/TZLht8_YkGU

Unsichtbare Galaxien • Rätsel der Dunklen Materie | Marcel Pawlowski

YouTube video by Urknall, Weltall und das Leben

youtu.be

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 21d

Glad you made it. But how and why does one set off a fire in a security line?

a man in a plaid shirt is standing in front of a window and asking what is this ? what 's happening ?

ALT: a man in a plaid shirt is standing in front of a window and asking what is this ? what 's happening ?

media.tenor.com

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · 28d

Just returned from a meeting last week, and already had to get up early for the next trip. To Brussels this time, for a workshop on “Knowledge Transfer for Policy Making” at the @leibniz-gemeinschaft.de and European Parliament.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Aug 21

They place the pocket over where the heart is, so …

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Aug 8

This all makes so much more sense if you interpret the “PhD level experts” as referring to the numerous (mostly conservative/liberal) German politicians who have lost their degrees after it turned out that they heavily plagiarized in their dissertations.

NBC News @nbcnews.com · Aug 7

OpenAI releases the newest version of the AI model that powers its popular ChatGPT chatbot, with CEO Sam Altman promoting it as like having a “team of Ph.D. level experts in your pocket.”

OpenAI releases GPT-5, calling it a ‘team of Ph.D. level experts in your pocket’

OpenAI says its latest version of the popular AI model is better at coding, more accurate and less deceptive than previous versions.

nbcnews.to

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Aug 8

I read that as "even if poultry" first. 😂

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Aug 8

If you're interested in local developments: this 1-week research school is organized by colleagues in Germany (lead: @cosmicwebmaster.bsky.social) & Thailand. Beyond teaching junior researchers it aims to establish more of a research network between the communities indico.narit.or.th/event/223/ov...

WE-Heraeus and NARIT Cosmology School 2025 - Galaxies and Beyond

The WE-Heraeus and NARIT Cosmology School 2025 – Galaxies and Beyond is a week-long training program for students and early-career researchers from Germany and Thailand, supported by the Wilhelm and E...

indico.narit.or.th

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Aug 8

Nice end-of-semester surprise: someone from the Potsdam Graduate School appeared in my team meeting to give me a special recognition in their SUPERvisor Award.

Feels like enough of a reward to work with this amazing team, but I take any excuse to celebrate these great people with great coffee. 😉

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Reposted by Marcel S. Pawlowski

Chris Mihos @chrismihos.bsky.social · Aug 6

LLMs like ChatGPT, GoogleAI, etc are to learning what wrist magnets are to good health and vibrating belts are to weight loss.

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Reposted by Marcel S. Pawlowski

Becky Ferreira @beckyferreira.bsky.social · Jul 29

It's never aliens? Stick with me & it'll ALWAYS BE ALIENS

That's bc I'm announcing RIGHT NOW that my book FIRST CONTACT: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens, is coming out on September 30! 👽👾🛸🚀🔭📖

Preorder here: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/becky...

First Contact

A narrative and visual exploration of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials.First Contact explores the ancient idea—a...

www.hachettebookgroup.com

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 26

Oh, yeah, I used that to translate the message. It said: “Donuts at the door, greetings courier!”

I was disappointed to not find any donuts whatsoever.

homer simpson is holding a plate with a donut on it and says i want a donut .

ALT: homer simpson is holding a plate with a donut on it and says i want a donut .

media.tenor.com

Reposted by Marcel S. Pawlowski

Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP) @aippotsdam.bsky.social · Jul 24

Heute wurde am AIP im Rahmen des #PrideMonth die #vielfalt gefeiert! 🏳️‍🌈✨ Mit einen Rainbow-Food-Contest, einem Büchertausch und einem inspirierenden Talk über LGBT+ Inklusivität in der Wissenschaft wurde der #Pride Day zelebriert. 💬📚🧁

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 24

Turns out the package was simply left at the door. I even got a text message from the courier, but that was in Polish which (despite my last name) I don’t speak. 😅

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 24

I'm being informed that a package for me was delivered to my neighbor "Drzwi3p" ... 🤷‍♂️

Screenshot of delivery message according to which my package was anded over to a neighbor named "Drzwi3p".

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 23

The German Leibniz Information Centre for Science and Technology (TIB) has created an archive of the arXiv, to prepare for a possible loss of millions of articles at the whim of US politics. Crazy that it feels that this is necessary. 🧪🔭

More information in English here: blog.tib.eu/2025/05/14/p...

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Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 22

Perfect opportunity to juggle with colleagues: decline each request and suggest the lead authors of the three respective other manuscripts as alternative referees. They all just submitted a paper, so they should have time on their hands now to review something.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 16

You know what, maybe we should see this as an opportunity to turn things around and go on the offensive!

Here's a quick AI-written new theory on how bridges work. Has a lot of sciency-words and such, so sounds legit.

AI-generated crackpot theory of how bridges work.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 16

Haha, true.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 16

I know, right? Though it does nicely encapsulate what some people seem to do then coming up with their own "theories", so I might adopt the term for those.

Marcel S. Pawlowski @8minutesold.bsky.social · Jul 16

Oh damn, you’re right. Guess I have to counter that by setting up up an AI tool to make me (not) responding to them more efficient, too.

As someone on here said a while back: LLMs are essentially mansplaining as a service.

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