Dr Keith Walker @SteelFolk@social.cleverlibre.org

This geo-engineering start-up is selling “cooling credits” for unverified, potentially dangerous, and untested attempts to counteract greenhouse warming.

This is a monumentally bad idea.

https://gizmodo.com/make-sunsets-solar-geoengineering-sulfur-climate-change-1849931460

Hidden in past atmospheric electricity measurements are untapped imprints of global climate variations.

A new paper on recovering these data, and their implications, is out today: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aca68c

Led by Giles Harrison, with Keri Nicoll, Manoj Joshi and myself.

My new piece at @themintmag discusses the #Crypto industry's abject failure to live up to its promises, and considers what might become of it. Will it die out - or will it live on in the DNA of the financial institutions of the future? https://www.themintmagazine.com/from-bank-vaults-to-the-crypt/

Three Actias moths, found on high ground around Chiang Mai in the rainy season. Actias maenas, Actias rhodopneuma and Actias selene. Who needs Christmas decorations? #moths #lepidoptera #insects #nature

Fission is in the news, but few recognize that a woman physicist was behind the discovery.

Lise Meitner’s brilliance led to the discovery of nuclear fission. But her long time collaborator Otto Hahn, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry w/o her in 1944, even though she had given the first theoretical explanation.

Albert Einstein called Meitner “our Marie Curie." She also adamantly refused to work on the atomic bomb during WWII. https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201502/physicshistory.cfm #women #history #science #energy

EXTREMELY RARE footage of the elusive box jellyfish Chirodectes. Larger than a soccer ball, this jelly is a true ocean mystery, and this video is one of the only in existence, filmed off the coast of Papua New Guinea in 2021.
📽️Scuba Ventures Kavieng bit.ly/3FE29tL

I have just learned that I have been laid off, three days before Christmas.

I have a lot of emotions right now, but instead of airing those out I'm focusing in a more positive direction. I am looking for a full-stack engineer or back-end/front-end developer position in the information security space. I am proficient in Python, JavaScript (React, Node, Express mainly) and am getting proficient in Rust. I have my GIAC Reverse Engineering Malware (GREM) certification and am comfortable in a systems engineering role with Rust or C/C++ as well.

Contract work welcome, full-time employment preferred. Appreciate the support and hope your holidays are off to a better start than mine!

Did you ever notice students have their own interests and motivations, and that many are not as enamored with your curriculum as you are? I have... and those are the students we must work the hardest to engage with interesting problems and questions. #education #edutoots

Yesterday, I told you the #IronAge was weird.... well, here's the categorical proof!

Yes, a #Torc with a knot in it! Yes, it would appear it's an Iron Age knot. We have absolutely no idea why someone would tie a knot in a torc (there aren't other known examples), but my suspicion is it was done because they could - this is not easy thing to do & my gut feeling is this is a goldsmith showing off their skill set.

But whatever it is, I love it! ❤️

#Archaeology #Gold #Torcs

📷 British Museum

Henrietta Lacks was a poor, Black, young mother diagnosed w cervical cancer in 1951. When her cells were collected w/o consent, scientists saw they multiplied remarkably fast.

“HeLa” cells changed #science. They’re used globally to study viruses, drugs, hormones, genes, diseases & develop vaccines. Lacks passed away at 31 w no recognition.

Rebecca Skloot’s beautiful book about her life & legacy is changing that. Now her statue will replace Robert E. Lee in NC. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/20/us/henrietta-lacks-statue-roanoke-virginia.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare #history

The bit about a lawyer being stopped from entering a music hall in the US because its facial recognition system picked up that she's part of a law company that's suing them is even crazier than I thought.

The law company isn't suing the music hall - it's suing a restaurant, in another state, which is owned by the hall's parent company MSG Entertainment. MSG gone ahead and harvested photos of all the lawyers in the firm and fed it to an image recognition system to ban them from every MSG Entertainment owned location.

People always tell me that if you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to fear. She's got nothing to hide and they still went after her.

If this doesn't start making people worried about facial recognition then there's serious trouble coming.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/facial-recognition-flags-girl-scout-mom-as-security-risk-at-rockettes-show/

A Milanese friar mentions North America in 1345 text #archaeology #history
https://www.zmescience.com/science/history-science/a-milanese-friar-mentions-north-america-in-1345-text-150-years-before-columbus/

Today, President Biden will sign the Respect for Marriage Act. It will nullify the odious act known as DOMA, which had enshrined anti LGBTQ+ prejudice and discrimination into law.
Federal recognition of same sex marriages, by statute, is an important safeguard, but we must still do more. We must now enshrine the protections of Obergefell into law, so that no state can deny same-sex couples the rights and privileges afforded heterosexual married couples.

New research looks at the effects of repeated Covid infections and finds pretty much what you would expect: you not only do not get any kind of superimmunity, you increase your risk of long-term consequences, hospitalization and death. The worse news is that this holds true regardless of vaccination status.

This is not over. Please take care. Mask up.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3

#Covid #CovidIsNotOver #RepeatInfection #WearAMask #MaskUp

Happy Birthday to English mathematician Ada Lovelace, born in London #OnThisDay in 1815. Lovelace, the only child of Lord and Lady Byron, is often called the first computer programmer for her machine algorithm written in the 1840s to be carried out by Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine (which existed only on paper at the time).

#AdaLovelace #OTD #WomenInSTEM #history #histodons #HistoryOfScience #WomensHistory

They should call themselves “alfalfa males” because everything about them is pretty much eventually horseshit.

It's cold & dark, so how about spending a few minutes this evening transcribing weather observations from 1860s ship logs?
We are very close to completing the Weather Rescue At Sea citizen science project: http://www.WeatherRescue.org
Can you join the crew & help finish the voyage?