Sierk van Terwisga
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sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Sierk van Terwisga
@sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
110 followers 130 following 51 posts
I'm an astronomer working with ALMA on the destruction and chemistry of protoplanetary disks. Currently a postdoc at the IWF and no longer living from boxes!
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
bibianaprinoth.ch
The application for the ESO Summer Research Programme 2026 has just opened!

It‘s a six week programme in Garching close to Munich where pre-Ph.D students can work on a hands-on project.

Working at @eso.org is a fabulous experience, so please help me spread the word ✨

🔗 eso.org/sci/meetings...
ESO - SummerResearch2026
ESO is the European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere. It operates the La Silla Paranal Observatory in Chile and has its headquarters in Garching, near Munich, Germany.
eso.org
December 17, 2025 at 1:12 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
stevesilberman.bsky.social
Happy Hanukkah to our friends who celebrate. Rachel Posner, a rabbi’s wife in Kiel, Germany, took this photograph in 1931 -- a potent reminder that fascism must be fought in every generation, even if it's wrapped in an American flag and a red hat.
A menorah in a window across the street from a building displaying a Nazi flag.
December 8, 2023 at 1:50 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
helengittos.bsky.social
Christ the swarm is out! Now fly & come here my cattle. In the Lord’s peace; in the protection of God; come home in good health. Sit, sit, bees, St Mary impels you. You have no furlough. Do not fly into the woods. Neither will you escape me nor will you elude me. Sit... still; work God’s will.

2/
December 11, 2025 at 10:59 AM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Wat ik me ook afvraag als ik dit zie: voor wie is dit bedoeld? De 8460 mensen die op de Libertarische Partij hebben gestemd? Of is er een onaangeboord electoraat dat graag wil dat heel Nederland overgaat op de dollar?
ninazeelen.bsky.social Nina Zeelen @ninazeelen.bsky.social · 24d
De architect van de Argentijnse saneringsoperatie in conclaaf met de VVD.
December 3, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
sundogscoops.bsky.social
firefox AI and slop disablers from tumblr for the people from local hero mckitterick. Tried it on my end and the browser is significantly faster now

(copy paste-able in the alt text)
browser.ml.enable browser.ml.chat.enabled browser.ml.chat.menu browser.ml.chat.page browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled extensions.ml.enabled browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate
December 2, 2025 at 3:47 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
oxfordclarion.bsky.social
Walter de Staplecat, Simpkin IV, Teabag, Balthasar and Benny D Cat take the stage as we meet the college cats of Oxford. And, of course, Magdalen’s Ozymandias. Read on for our photo special. (Includes a cat map.) oxfordclarion.uk/college-cats...
College cats of Oxford
Once upon a time, we featured an image of Magdalen's kitten, Ozymandias, in our newsletter. We figured it might be a gentle contrast to our regular diet of planning and local politics. The grey ball ...
oxfordclarion.uk
November 20, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
deschscoveries.bsky.social
Avi Loeb's calculations about 3I/ATLAS are 100% wrong because he has never understood that dust in the tail(s) responds to solar radiation pressure. Solar wind shapes the ion tail. But the radiation pressure is about 1000 times larger than the solar wind ram pressure, for particles that feel it.
November 13, 2025 at 9:36 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
sherlockhulmes.bsky.social
We are 35 people away from hitting 3000 sign ups for Kickstarter notifications on this project! Have you signed up?!

rollandplaypress.com/highrollers

A High Fantasy Campaign Setting, with Dragon Nobility, Magical Dimensional Dungeons, & so much more! #dnd #ttrpg #dnd5e @highrollersdnd.bsky.social
Artwork depicting a fantasy town with a pair of orc guards with glowing scars looking at a group of heroes, a white-maned lion man, a young woman with blonde flowing curls, a half-giant bard, a vampire-esq noble woman and a handsome humanoid dragon man running through the streets. A stylised logo reads ALTHEYA the Dragon Empire.
November 10, 2025 at 12:33 PM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Bit of shameless self-promotion on a Friday afternoon: there's a cool new paper on the arxiv today, by Gavin Coleman and myself, in which we look at the evolution of the trend between disk mass and external UV irradiation from nearby massive stars, and what it tells us: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04410 🪐🔭
How the gradient of $M_{\rm d}$ versus UV field strength yields insights into the ages of protoplanetary disc populations
FUV radiation from massive stars launch photoevaporative winds from the outer regions of protoplanetary discs around other stars, removing gas and dust. Observations have identified a relation between...
arxiv.org
November 7, 2025 at 3:19 PM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Modern astronomy has, of course, progressed a lot since then: we now have peer review and (distributed) time allocation duties instead of corvées.
lswisnom.bsky.social Dr Selena Wisnom @lswisnom.bsky.social · Nov 3
Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching
November 3, 2025 at 12:52 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
eso.org
Open Sesame!

The ELT doors have moved for the first time. This was no small feat, as each door will weigh 650 tonnes once completed.

The ELT dome & its doors will guard the telescope from the harsh conditions of the Atacama Desert.

https://www.eso.org/public/videos/potw2544a/

🔭 🧪
📹 ESO/ACe
November 3, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
iwf-oeaw.bsky.social
In #NatureAstronomy präsentiert ein internationales Team die erste 3D-Temperaturkarte eines Exoplaneten. Mithilfe von Beobachtungen durch #JWST wurde bei #WASP-18b eine Atmosphäre mit unterschiedlichen Temperaturzonen enthüllt. Analysiert und interpretiert wurde diese unter der Leitung des #IWFGraz.
Exoplanet WASP-18 b jetzt in 3D
In der Fachzeitschrift Nature Astronomy präsentiert ein internationales Team die erste dreidimensionale Temperaturkarte eines Exoplaneten. Mithilfe von Beobachtungen durch das James Webb Space Telesco...
www.oeaw.ac.at
October 28, 2025 at 11:16 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
roelkonijn.bsky.social
Fantastic article in which actual experts on AI and higher education cut through the nonsense surrounding the infinite garbage engines and expose a system captured by the techbro sales pitch. "A general ban is necessary, but nobody dares to say so."
apache.be apache/ @apache.be · Oct 24
Belgian AI scientists are advocating *against* the use of AI in academia. “If independent thinking is no longer encouraged at university, where would it?” apache.be/2025/10/24/b...
Belgian AI scientists resist the use of AI in academia
Several AI scientists have published an open letter calling for a ban on AI use by students.
apache.be
October 25, 2025 at 10:54 AM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Very cool work from Monsch et al. on the arxiv today, on a recently-discovered protoplanetary disk seen very nearly edge-on. It has weird, wispy structures and asymmetries - far more dynamic than we normally imagine disks to be! And, of course, it makes for beautiful images.
arxiv.org/abs/2510.11819
A dramatic three-colour Hubble image of an edge-on disk, with distant stars in the background. The disks' midplane forms a dark lane in the middle and hides a young star. Above and below it, dramatic wisps of backlit dust can be seen. To the north of the disk, faint filaments of material connect to the disk. On the left side of the dust lane, there is a hint of a spiral. Descriptions of the disk features are based on Fig. 2 in the paper.
October 15, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
wokestudies.bsky.social
GOOD NEWS !
"A team of musicologists has unearthed the printed score of a previously unknown Purcell song, as well as the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions."
#baroque #music
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...
‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell
Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk
www.theguardian.com
October 7, 2025 at 10:23 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
mathewjowens.bsky.social
We bail out banks. We bail the steel industry, the water industry, airlines and hotels.

The UK higher education sector directly employs nearly 1M people. It's the envy of the world and benefits almost every area of UK society. But apparently it can go burn.
September 20, 2025 at 9:20 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
mpi-astro.bsky.social
1/ 🔭 Astronomers have discovered 'The Cliff,' a distant object that may hold the key to understanding the mysterious 'little red dots' observed by the James Webb Space Telescope #JWST. These could be supermassive black holes, not galaxies! #Astronomy #JWST
“Black Hole Stars” could solve JWST riddle of overly massive early galaxies
A newly discovered distant object that astronomers have dubbed “The Cliff” could solve a riddle posed by some of the first observations of the distant universe with the James Webb Space Telescope, rel...
www.mpia.de
September 15, 2025 at 8:03 AM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Really cool work from Jenny Frediani, in the XUE collaboration led by @maclart.bsky.social - a protoplanetary disk with way more CO2 and less H2O than expected. Read the whole paper here: www.aanda.org/component/ar...
August 29, 2025 at 12:08 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
eso.org
A very hungry planet! 🪐

What appears to be a ripple in space is actually a newborn planet, eating its way through its dusty cradle around a younger version of our Sun 🌞

Read more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2534a/

🔭 🧪 #exoplanets
📷 ESO/R. van Capelleveen et al.
A white protoplanetary disc at the centre of the picture takes up most of the frame. The elliptical cloud of dust and gas consists of some gaps creating a ring-like structure to the cloud. In one of the larger gaps/rings a little dot (a planet) is visible.
August 26, 2025 at 10:02 AM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
qi.com
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it. TERRY PRATCHETT
August 18, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
astrowright.bsky.social
In Avi's latest he finally figured out why spacecraft would have dusty comae!

It almost feels like he read @deschscoveries.bsky.social's complaint about how lazy his "it's aliens" claims have been lately and decided to up his game.
Avi Loeb Figured Out Why Spacecraft Have Comae!
Avi Loeb has two new blog posts out about 3I/ATLAS, and they’re doozies! Steve Desch recently posted a snarky piece entitled “This is not the quality of pseudoscience infotainment to which I have grow...
sites.psu.edu
August 9, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
astrowright.bsky.social
Loeb: we must stick to the facts, not judge things based on public opinion.

Also Loeb: Look at how many likes and messages my ideas get! I must be doing it right.
August 2, 2025 at 5:59 PM
sierkdoesscience.bsky.social
Blatantly AI-generated images of Anne of Brittany in a @sport.nos.nl discussion of today's Tour Femmes stage, which have now vanished into nothingness (sadly, before I could archive them). Modern French flags in quasi-historical illustrations kind of gave it away (as did the art style).
July 28, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Reposted by Sierk van Terwisga
alyankovic.bsky.social
My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.
Photo of Tom Lehrer
July 27, 2025 at 5:33 PM