Dr. Or M. Bialik

Geology, climate change researcher, and too many other things | Posting about the writing experience, science, SFF and academia. Opinions are my own or of the characters in my head.

Website (Science!): https://obialik.weebly.com/
Other Website (Writing): https://ombialik.weebly.com/
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/obialik.bsky.social

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ombialik_at_mastodon.world@momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2026-10-22 05:03:27 UTC

Well, this is adorable. About 15,000 years ago, someone decided to start making clay beads to make something pretty. Not baked, but sun-dried, and it was such a hit people kept making them.
Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aea2158
#pottery #archaeology #jewellery
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2026-10-03 06:57:11 UTC

Why are coral reefs not found in the Mediterranean today? It's warm, oligotrophic and it hosted coral reefs. This analysis suggests that the conditions in the western Med kept them from returning, but things are changing.
Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-026-02971-3
#Reef #Corals #InvasiveSpecies #Mediterranean #ClimateChange
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2026-10-02 14:17:58 UTC

When a drought ends, groundwater doesn't immediately, magically, recover. It isn't even the same for different groundwater systems, with some recovering faster (assuming that there isn't over pumping as is in some regions).
Link: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/3033-4942/aea63d
#drought #groundwater #water
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2026-10-02 05:39:32 UTC

#WeekendReading: Schubert et al., on coralline algal beds as a carbonate factory and how it's often forgotten that they are a major ecological and carbon-removal hotspot.
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gbi.70068
#Marine #Carbon #Algae
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2026-09-26 15:07:22 UTC

If you worked with cross-polarization microscopy, you like birefringence. It's the property that gives us some really cool optics. So, naturally, someone had the thought: what if we push that to the maximum?
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/anie.202524729
#Microscopy #Petrography
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2026-09-13 06:48:16 UTC

A lot of the discussion about sexbots is about the users and manufacturers. But what do sex workers think about the tech?
This study asked them, and the answers are interesting. There is concern, but also many thoughts on authenticity.
Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-025-01146-z
#SexWork #Technology
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2026-09-03 03:57:28 UTC

"Harmful algal blooms display range expansion and increased frequency in coastal areas since the 1980s in response to both climatic and non-climatic drivers such as increased riverine nutrients run-off."
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568988319302045
#Ocean #AlgalBloom #ClimateChange
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2026-08-29 14:44:36 UTC

Reefs aren't just dying one extreme event at a time; they are declining on a sustained trajectory of area loss and fragmentation - and we can see it from space.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-026-67490-1
#Science #Reefs #ClimateChange
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2026-08-20 02:21:17 UTC

There is this thing called polar amplification where the poles get warmer or cooler faster than the lower latitudes. But it doesn't mean the former doesn't shift. Looks like that during the last ice age, the tropics cooled a fair bit.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1029/2026GL123083
#IceAge #ClimateChange #Science
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2026-08-18 14:30:27 UTC

You remember we all had our five cents about a paper a few years back, arguing that research is becoming less disruptive?
Ya, it turns out there are some issues with the dataset, and for a different analysis, disruptiveness actually increased.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10787-y
#Science #Bibliometrics
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2026-08-06 14:52:40 UTC

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But... the range is actually a bit bigger, and both brain relative power consumption and human body power consumption change through life. For a superhero, I'd think the number would probably be higher. 4/4 🧵
Link: https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijspp/13/6/article-p678.xml
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2026-08-06 14:51:52 UTC

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Which brings us back to how much energy the human body consumes over a day, which for adults turns out to be between 10 and 15 MJ/d. Going from MJ/d to watts is actually rather straightforward (hurry to SI units), just divide by the number of seconds in a day (86,400, unfortunately, isn't metric, yet), giving us 116 to 174 watts total, and 20% of which is 23 to 35, a bit more than in the ASM #25 floating text.
3/ 🧵
Link: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.abe5017
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2026-08-06 14:50:52 UTC

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We have a fairly good idea of how much energy the human body uses (we'll get to that in a moment), so the trick is figuring out how much of that the brain uses... which varies by age. But for adults, it's about 20%(-ish). 2/ 🧵
Link: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.1323099111
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2026-08-06 14:49:58 UTC

A stray line by Joe Kelly in ASM #25 on the human brain consuming 12 to 25 Watts sent me down a weird rabbit hole trying to figure out if that's right.
Being a fun science quest, how about I'll take you with me? 1/ 🧵
#Metabolism #Superheros #Spiderman #Brain
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2026-07-31 14:02:55 UTC

Interesting new work showing plankton being the primary producers of organic matter in the marine realm throughout the Phanerozoic.
Link: https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-9940488/v1
#Plankton #CarbonCycle #PrimaryProductivity #Ocean
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2026-07-26 11:31:59 UTC

I needed to let my eyes rest for a bit away from the screen, so I stepped out to look at the waves.
Wanted to share the view.
#shore #waves
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2026-07-23 13:06:16 UTC

I had a long thought about what I'm trying to achieve with my students and why I have issues with certain ways of doing things.
It took me back to Asimov's work, Profession.
I'm trying to raise the sort of people who write the programs for the taping.
(If you never read Profession, the summary on Wikipedia [
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profession_(novella) ] is rather extensive, or you could look for a copy of Nine Tomorrows)
#AcademicChatter

2026-07-21 13:04:16 UTC

This paper makes for an interesting argument - becoming a super soldier is a life sentence. Removing augmentation may be debilitating, and keeping them might not be serviceable. I think it's worth a read for writers who think about toying with the concepts for their works.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2025.2519457
#SciFiScience #Augmentation #PostHuman #Worldbuilding #Ethics
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2026-07-19 13:03:46 UTC

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I work across several fields, and in between all of them, there is only one Diamond OA journal (which struggles) and one that is tangential. I can't publish in either as they have no impact factor.
There are entire swaths of disciplines for which the only real publication option is with the big publishers, and they all charge APC.
Repositories are great, and I hope more journals will allow for Green OA, and the people in general will take that option.

2026-07-18 19:32:19 UTC

Paywall sucks, and I get that not everyone and every institute can pay for Open Access, but you know what's a great workaround? Posting preprints!
And I would be very happy to see more people in social sciences and the humanities doing that.
#OpenScience #Preprints
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2026-07-12 16:12:28 UTC

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Seems to be indeed the white-necked jacobin, based on the references in the captions. e.g. https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article/289/1982/20220332/79500/Intersexual-social-dominance-mimicry-drives-female

2026-07-12 12:18:58 UTC

There is No (scientific) Consensus on Biological Sex. The title and summary of a new paper on how scientists define sex, the lack of unanimity on the topic, and how some of the existing definitions just don't work for all organisms.
Link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.70350
#Biology #Sexuality
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2026-07-05 07:21:35 UTC

As someone who keeps asking odd questions, I often hit a wall of finding no information on a topic.
If you wondered why there might be no answer in the published literature, it might be because no one asked that before. If they asked, no one might have had time to work on it. Even if they had, the resources might not have been there. Even if the resources might have been there, the findings might not have been publishable.
But keep asking, get those chains to close.
#Science #Research
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2026-06-28 14:37:25 UTC

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Just to be a bit on the optimistic side (which I know many of my recent climate-change related posts weren't contributing to), despite it's limitation, policy so far has helped and veered us from the absolut worse case scenario, and as someone on the ground in the field, I can tell you there is a sizable amount being invested into emission reduction and negative emissions.
There is much (MUCH) more still to be done, but there is movement.

2026-06-28 05:59:35 UTC

I rather not sound like the opening of Captain Planet, but Earth isn't doing great. Example this time - plankton in the Northeast Atlantic (base of the marine food web), which aren't doing well across the entire region.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X2600405X
#Ocean #ClimateChange
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2026-06-11 07:11:11 UTC

The nice thing about working on parts of the world that not many people study is that you get to find out a lot of new things simply by observation.
The downside is that no one cares about them since they aren't working on those parts of the world.

2026-06-06 08:14:20 UTC

Is it just me, or is Cloudflare being remarkably uppity recently? I keep running into webpages that reset halfway as I read them to "just checking you're human".

2026-06-02 16:28:46 UTC

Title of the paper: The global distribution of CO2-rich magmas is determined by lithospheric thickness.
Title of the press release: Scientists create global treasure map pointing to hidden rare earth deposits.
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2026-06-02 13:35:23 UTC

It's hard to pull Mg out of seawater, and we know that minerals with it, like dolomite, form along a redox profile. But why?
We decided to look at it a bit differently - with electrochemistry!
What we think is going on is a process called “proton-driven cation pumping,” which pulls out the Mg and pushes it (and Ca) into the mineral phase, driven by the electrical potential gradient.
Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2026.05.034
#Electrochemistry #Dolomite #Redox
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2026-05-29 14:34:27 UTC

What would happen if we stuck a stick to the butt of a chicken 🐔?
The surprising answer - we turn it back into a dinosaur 🦖, sort of.
It reverts their locomotion to something similar to a dinosaur.
Link: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?reqmod=%27b%27&id=10.1371/journal.pone.0088458
#dinosaurs #birds
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2026-05-27 17:32:29 UTC

I like epi-volcanic atolls, but at times, they find themselves being subducted to the depths of the Earth. That puts a lot of carbon into the asthenosphere and accelerates CO2-rich arc magma ascent (and maybe restarts the cycle).
link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-71536-3
#Volcano #Tectonics #Subduction
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2026-05-04 04:05:43 UTC

The rise and expansion of reef systems in the Indo-Pacific during the warm and CO2 high Miocene (and decline in the aftermath) will never stop being puzzling to me. Now we have evidence that it also had the biodiversity effects expected.
Link: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec7264
#reefs #Miocene #biodiversity #paleontology
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2026-05-03 06:13:11 UTC

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So far, they seem to be migrating mostly to LinkedIn, which is just depressing.

2026-05-02 09:45:45 UTC

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I keep being amazed by how intimidated people are to ask questions. Makes me feel like an asshole sometimes, talking to them as I keep talking while trying to figure out what isn't clear about what I'm saying.

2026-05-02 07:53:41 UTC

Every time I send a copy of a paper of mine on request from someone, be it on ResearchGate or less commonly on email, I tell them in my reply that I'd be happy to answer any question they might have on the text.
To this day, I have yet to receive a single question back.
#AcademicChatter

2026-04-29 20:04:33 UTC

I'm still struggling to find my footing here on Mastodon. A bit with the platforms and tags, but mostly finding people to follow. I'm a bit all over the place, posting about my #writing, be it academic or fiction (mostly #SciFi), and about cool #Science I ran into, and the more common than it should be - complain about stuff.
I'm interested in #SFF, #publishing, #MiniaturePainting, science, #queer culture, academia, human sexuality, geekish humor, #comics & #EarthSci.
Recommend people to me!

2026-04-27 15:42:05 UTC

Just a reminder, the monster isn't called Frankenstein, and the cat isn't called Schrödinger.

2025-09-27 07:46:35 UTC

We have a new paper (in GEOLOGY!)
Using a new way to look at #sabkha sediments with clumped isotopes, we found that #warming in the Miocene was not that significant in the horse latitudes. Most of the warming was likely in the mid to high latitudes.
#ClimateChange #Paleoclimate
Link: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/doi/10.1130/G53550.1/661417/Limited-warming-of-middle-Miocene-arid-low
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2025-09-04 06:13:09 UTC

Now for a match-up I actually care about in #MinCup25 ! I feared this.
Perovskite is such a potentially important part of our #solarpunk future... but I'm #TeamCalcite through, so there was never really a choice.
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m04
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2025-08-14 07:43:21 UTC

Is anyone in the feed by any chance a European-based economist or sociologist who happens to be working on anything related to climate change and the sea?
We need some input/collaboration on the topic for a project.
#ClimateChange #ocean #sea #marine #SocialImpact

2025-08-03 07:39:01 UTC

About 18 to 14 million years ago, global #temperatures spiked in an event called the Miocene Climatic Optimum. Despite these conditions, we still had #coral reefs. But those corals were pushed to their very limit to survive, at a physiological cost, growing much slower.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02559-9
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2025-07-16 14:05:08 UTC

A thing about #ClimateChange is that it doesn't only occur close to the surface, it's also up in the #atmosphere. One particularly troubling form of it is something called Sudden Stratospheric Warmings, during which stratospheric circulation can rapidly break down and reverse, but weaker. With knock-on effect on how #heat moves between latitudes.
Link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000708
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2025-07-15 05:59:31 UTC

Most people, when they think "reef", think of corals. That might be because that is the only one they heard about, as we lost many of the oyster #reef systems that used to dot the European coastline.
Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01441-4
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2025-07-11 14:00:18 UTC

Haven't done real-world-sci-fi-tech in a while, and this time a #SolarPunk one - bioreceptive #concrete.
These are building materials designed to allow plants, lichen, and moss growth to restore (some) #ecosystem services into urban environments.
Link: https://research.tudelft.nl/en/publications/bioreceptive-concrete-state-of-the-art-and-potential-benefits
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2025-06-29 07:34:42 UTC

Scientific papers that people can find and easily access get cited more (I know, shocking). But that's true even if those papers are on Shadow Libraries ("articles downloaded from Sci-Hub were cited 1.72 times more than papers not downloaded from Sci-Hub").
#Academic | #SciHub | #Bibliometric
Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11192-020-03806-w
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2025-06-17 07:17:44 UTC

We talk a lot about #sea level rise due to #warming and ice melt. That it's not just based on models. We have a robust #geological record of ice melt events to talk about this with relative confidence*.
* Science speak for "we're fairly sure"
Link: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aaa4019
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2025-06-12 13:54:11 UTC

There is something remarkably aggravating about nearly a century-old papers, restricted behind a paywall.
#AcademicChatter

2025-06-03 05:35:55 UTC

If you think getting past a reviewer in something PNAS is hard, I got one for you that might be harder! Frontiers for Young Minds, where the reviewer can be a literal 10 years old.
If you're a science educator, I highly recommend checking out this journal. A lot of eye-level, high-quality texts, written by scientists, reviewed by kids.
#ScieneEducation
https://kids.frontiersin.org/

2025-05-14 14:06:01 UTC

I don't think most people fully understand just how much ice was sitting atop the continents during the last glacial maximum. A good chunk of Eurasia and North America are still rebounding from the removed load.
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264370718301443
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2025-05-03 07:43:43 UTC

Spiders are very sensitive to vibrations, it's how many of them hunt. So they aren't big on background #noise, it drowns the signal they actually look for. Adaptation - #spiders living in urban/loud environments make webs that dampen persistent noise.
Beats earplugs. 🙉
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)00205-2
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2025-04-22 06:18:38 UTC

If you study #marine #ClimateChange, some of your nightmares are about Arctic gas hydrates. These are a sort of ice made of methane and water in the sediment. When temperatures rise, it can melt and release all that #methane to the atmosphere, which is bad.
https://doi.org/10.1155/2013/783969
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2025-03-28 17:05:54 UTC

The words "permanent hydrological regime changes" are something that I could have lived well without ever reading. #ClimateChange
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq6529
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2025-01-17 15:49:28 UTC

The Haber-Bosch process is the main way we make ammonia. It's energy-intensive, the source of ~3% of global #CarbonEmissions and about as much natural gas consumption (a major #ClimateChange driver) If this process could allow for synthesis with nothing but the wind, it could be a game changer.
I can't really communicate how this would affect all of us. Cheaper fertilizers you can make on-site, alternative #fuel for #shipping, lower global hydrocarbon demand...
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.ads4443
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2025-01-01 07:23:45 UTC

These are some rather alarming results for long-duration #spaceflight. Up-regulated bone resorption activity may be a major reason for #BoneLoss in #microgravity, and the sites from which material is lost might not be able to fully recover.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adq3632
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2024-12-31 08:36:19 UTC

There is a subgenre of academic papers that could have originally started as someone’s homework for a #SciFi story or #worldbuilding exercise. This exploration of constraints on #life beyond Earth definitely fits that category.
Also, seriously, #writers , so many excellent resources now to explore and understand how life outside Earth could evolve and function… if you want to go for hard SciFi (or just get some out-of-the-box ideas), just reach out and grab them.
arxiv.org/abs/2409.14477
https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/113/746/513/684/995/524/original/0337412185c0258a.png

2024-12-24 06:34:41 UTC

Back in the day, I was taught that the opening of the Drake Passage in the late #Eocene led to #Antarctica being isolated which initiated rapid global #cooling. But we are seeing more data coming in, which suggests it was a much more gradual process. The connection had to get deep enough, abstractions needed to get out of the way and only then did the #ocean gyres linked up.
https://jm.copernicus.org/articles/43/497/2024/
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2024-12-11 08:13:32 UTC

We usually associate rising temperature with #reef demise (e.g., #coral #bleaching). But it might be that temperature increase was fundamental to the establishment and formation of the Great Barrier Reef. Not a lot, just 2°C, but it brought carbonate production to the sweet spot to grow. But now #climatechange is shifting it out.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ado2058
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2024-12-05 08:09:41 UTC

So, as it turns out, gingerols (the molecule that gives ginger its spiciness) interact and have the same response with our test sensors as capsaicin (the things that make spicy peppers spicy). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1573550/
https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/113/599/195/563/893/103/original/6067730a57381b97.png

2024-11-29 14:21:40 UTC

Microplastics are everywhere (and I do mean EVERYWHERE).
It is easy to discard them as inert; after all, microbes have a hard time degrading them.
But that is far from reality.
#Microplastic has many detrimental #health impacts, including on memelian #fertility (in both sexes).
https://analyticalsciencejournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jat.4510
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2024-11-11 08:06:06 UTC

Before computer models, tectonics people still wanted to #model their observations. Their solution is to make layer cakes (out of materials with known viscosity like clay, wax, and later play-doh) and spin them really, really fast.
The idea was to scale up #Earth processes by using higher gravity and lower viscosity and then scale it all back up.
https://paleoarchive.com/literature/Ramberg1963-ExperimentalStudyGravityTectonicsCentrifugedModels.pdf
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2024-10-31 07:27:12 UTC

We do field #geology with remotely operated vehicles (ROV) on Mars, so why not at the bottom of the #Ocean? With a new method to turn imagery from ROVs ( #photogrammetry ) into #VirtualOutcrops, colleagues from the #USGS and I came back with some new ideas on the evolution of the Mona Rift near Puerto Rico.
https://doi.org/10.1130/GES02762.1
https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/113/400/826/393/317/405/original/422f9d07aaea43c4.png

2024-10-07 06:33:31 UTC

Another interesting bit about #storms and #ClimateChange: it's not just the local features (e.g. warm #ocean surface waters), it's also far-field effects, such as the rapid warming of the high latitudes.
Did anyone order #chaos with their #climate system? It comes pre-baked.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00476-2

2024-09-23 06:23:47 UTC

Time for #TeamCalcite to once again bring in the votes as our home team is up against Titanite on #MinCup24.
https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r2m7

2024-09-22 13:48:39 UTC

Got some personal news to share.
After many (many) years of wandering the globe, I have finally secured a permanent position!
As of sometime in 2025 (still negotiating), I will begin a position as a (senior-ish) researcher at the Oceanographic and Limnological Research Institute.
Expect a lot of cool #marine #research (and some paleo, not going to stop doing that) in the future.
https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/113/181/521/379/477/444/original/2739ce702f44e1c4.png

2024-09-21 08:07:06 UTC

Well, it's about f@#king time.
https://www.authorsalliance.org/2024/09/17/antitrust-lawsuit-filed-against-large-academic-publishers/
The situation with #academic publishers has been a growing issue for years now, and it's good to see some action taken about it. But this should have come long ago from national regulators, not some UCLA professor. Petition your national #antitrust agency to join or replicate locally.
#AcademicChatter

2024-09-20 18:57:47 UTC

So I'm going to give this talk about #ScienceFiction and #ClimateChange. I feel like I have most of my bases covered on the climate change side (need to read more on #geoengineering). But the SF side needs work.
Any recommendations for shows, books and short stories?
Specific things I'm looking for:
1. Good representation of #Solarpunk in this context.
2. #Dystopian depiction based on current trends.
3. Old SF talking about climate change.
4. Bad depictions and failure in science.

2024-08-29 14:16:05 UTC

Someone had to explain to me why #HeatPumps are a novel idea (as it's essentially how we've heated for years). But, when it's really cold outside, that idea appears to be hard for people to process.
So, as a service, here is a good explanation on how heat pumps work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
And you should properly get one if nothing else; it would really help with #ClimateChange resilience.

2024-08-07 22:07:17 UTC

You know what's a cool #SciFi idea? Expediting #Martian #terraforming using engineered #nano particles to enhance its heat retention... No, sorry, my bad - that's a really cool model just published in a major scientific journal.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn4650

2024-08-01 07:12:48 UTC

This is a hybrid #water fountain / bottle filling station. They reduce consumption of bottled water and increase accessibility to drinking water - two things we really need in our public spaces as things keep get warmer.
https://s3.eu-central-2.wasabisys.com/mastodonworld/media_attachments/files/112/885/521/632/430/245/original/b0fea460b3e9ae0f.jpeg