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Ashley Balzer Vigil

@ashleybvigil.bsky.social
138 followers 108 following 35 posts

NASA science writer, freelance environmental writer, mom of three 💙💙🩷

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Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 18/07/2026
This is Comet Leonard during its approach to the Sun, imaged by Gerald Rhemann on Christmas Day 2021. The comet had been discovered earlier that year, and broke apart in 2022. This photo won the overall prize for Rhemann of the Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2022.
A bright point of light at the top of the image is the comet's nucleus; the comet's gas and dust tails trail from the nucleus to the bottom of the image. Complex structures in the dust tail result from outbursts from the nucleus as it undergoes solar heating.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 25/06/2026
1) Open this image up 2) Find the small, blue feature in the very middle Congratulations, you've spotted the Perseverance rover on Mars, photographed from orbit! 3) Trace the rover tracks as they wend their way across the surface
A complex landscape of buttes, hills, hummocks, and sand dunes, in tones of gold and teal. In the middle, a small, beetle-blue feature. Around it, faint parallel tracks.
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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
New favourite paper title? IIb or not IIb: A Catalog of ZTF Kilonova Imposters in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific by Barna et al. 🔭 iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...
Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific

IIb or not IIb: A Catalog of ZTF Kilonova Imposters

Barna et al.
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Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
John Lewis @astrojthe3.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Excited the Nance Grace Roman Space Telescope is Complete!? Pan + Zoom see how much of your favorite object will be captured within a single Roman field of view projects.cosmicds.cfa.harvard.edu/roman-view-f... #astronomy #dataviz
the Roman field of view over the orion nebula. almost the entire orion nebula
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
Why do we need Roman if we already have Webb? ➡️https://science.nasa.gov/roman-and-webb/
science.nasa.gov
Roman and Webb - NASA Science
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will conduct rapid surveys of wide swaths of the universe, unveiling new worlds and clues to mysteries like
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
So glad all the trauma was worth it. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/23/u...
nytimes.com
How Did DOGE Disrupt So Much While Saving So Little?
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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 27/12/2025
From the first sighting of a colossal squid in the wild to a seriously goofy octopus, 2025 delivered some astounding photos from the ocean’s depths
scientificamerican.com
6 Otherworldly Deep-Sea Images from 2025
From the first sighting of a colossal squid in the wild to a seriously goofy octopus, 2025 delivered some astounding photos from the ocean’s depths
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Shout out to @chrislintott.bsky.social for teaching me what the thick disk is a few months ago. Now we included it in a new diagram of the Milky Way! nasa.tumblr.com/post/8033060...
nasa.tumblr.com
Milky Way Anatomy
If we could see our galaxy, the Milky Way, from the outside, it would look like an enormous, bedazzled pinwheel. Vast sprays of stars form spiral arms that curl outward from a bright center that...
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Meet six new species of itty-bitty bats! They’re only about the size of a walnut and as light as a AAA battery, and their leaf-like wings help them blend right in with the trees. Researchers found them lurking in the shadowy forests of the Philippines.
A photo of a bat with outstretched wings that are so thin that they’re almost transparent. They look greenish with pink leaf-like veins. Text below the image says: scientists discover six new itty-bitty bat species.
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Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
An orca pod has been spotted for the first time repeatedly targeting and flipping young great white sharks onto their backs to paralyze and dismember them
scientificamerican.com
First-Ever Footage Shows Killer Whales Attacking Great White Shark Nursery
An orca pod has been spotted for the first time repeatedly targeting and flipping young great white sharks onto their backs to paralyze and dismember them
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed a tidal disruption event, dubbed AT2024tvd, located outside its galaxy’s core. Now, astronomers are trying to understand what the black hole is doing 2,600 light-years from where they expected it to be. www.astronomy.com/science/blac...
astronomy.com
Black hole caught snacking on star far from host galaxy’s center
Astronomers are wondering why a recently discovered supermassive black hole is some 2,600 light-years from where it’s supposed to be.
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
Check out the toads that transform from chocolate pudding brown to lemon meringue yellow, not to attract females but deter other males: www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
nationalgeographic.com
Scientists reveal the secret of toads that can turn neon yellow
The color change, driven by hormones, seems aimed at preventing males from accidentally mating with each other.
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
@leebillings.bsky.social’s book Five Billion Years of Solitude has ruined science writing for me, because how is anything I write ever supposed to compare to this line? 🤩
A photo of the first page of a book with one line starred and underlined: “One by one, the giant stars popped off like firecrackers, ejecting heavy elements that sizzled with radioactivity as they rode shock waves through the murk like so much scattered confetti.” 

The full paragraph for context is: “This story properly begins 4.6 billion years ago, with the birth of our solar system from a cloud of cold hydrogen and dust several light-years wide. The cloud was but a wisp from a much larger mass of primordial gas, a stellar nursery manufacturing massive stars destined to explode as supernovae. One by one, the giant stars popped off like firecrackers, ejecting heavy elements that sizzled with radioactivity as they rode shock waves through the murk like so much scattered confetti. One of those enriching shock waves may have compressed the cloud, our cloud, in its passage. The cloud became dense enough for gravity to seize control, and it collapsed in on itself. Most of its material fell to its…”
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Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 30/09/2025
new gecko just dropped via @ashleybvigil.bsky.social @andreatweather.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/six-...
scientificamerican.com
Mildly Menacing Mating Calls Lead to Discovery of New Gecko Species
Scientists found new gecko species hidden in plain sight in pristine deserts of southern Africa, thanks to their loud, barking mating calls
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
Used to pronounce both Os in Oort ☁️
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
#askethan Would you consider pop II and I stars to be enriched or contaminated by metals?
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NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory @rubinobservatory.org · 23/07/2025
Happy birthday, Vera Rubin! 🥳✨ What better way to celebrate than with NSF–DOE Rubin Observatory's view of galaxies SHE studied? NGC 4343, 4526, 4535, and 4378 are just a few gems from our Cosmic Treasure Chest. Explore them and more at skyviewer.app 🔭🧪
Edge-on spiral galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right. It's glowing with a bright core that's cut with the dark veins of dust clouds. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.A smooth, cigar-shaped galaxy angled pointing lower left to upper right glowing with a bright core. Two bright stars beam just to the upper left and lower right of the galaxy. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space. A face-on spiral with a bright core and sweeping arms knotted with blue clusters of star-forming regions. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.A face-on spiral with a bright core and a single thin arm wrapping all the way around, almost looking like a ring. Two bright blue stars beam above and to the lower left of the galaxy, with a third yellow star to the lower right. The background is peppered with a myriad of colorful stars and distant galaxies in black space.
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Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
The park’s newest hydrothermal feature has an otherworldly milky texture from dissolved silica
spklr.io
New Thermal Hole Opens at Yellowstone National Park
The park's newest hydrothermal feature has an otherworldly milky texture from dissolved silica
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
If some men feel like they’ve been “reduced to ‘walking wallets’ in romantic relationships,” perhaps they should consider bringing something more to the table. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/b...
nytimes.com
‘Who Killed Love?’ A Video Game Plays to Male Resentment in China.
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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
NASA's Parker Solar Probe made the closest-ever studies of the Sun -- and got this unprecedented look at multiple solar eruptions piling up on top of each other. 🧪🔭 science.nasa.gov/science-rese...
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Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social · 02/07/2025
American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history The largest brain drain in history was when thousands of scientists left Nazi Germany; it became known as "Hitler's gift." America's current assault on science is set to surpass that. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #science
bigthink.com
American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history
Over the first half of 2025, the USA has cut science as never before. This disaster for American science is a gift to the rest of the world.
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Something lost a bit in the amazing images released earlier: Vera Rubin Observatory is a steely-eyed asteroid hunter! It's already found thousands of new ones in just a few nights, and is predicted to find *3.7 MILLION* more. THREE POINT SEVEN MILLION badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/vera-rubin... 🔭🧪
badastronomy.beehiiv.com
Vera Rubin Observatory will find millions of asteroids. Millions.
That’s a lot of space rocks.
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/25/o...
A screenshot from the article that says: Mothers have less money in personal retirement accounts, and they also receive less money from Social Security because they're more likely to have gaps in their employment history, and their caregiving isn't valued by society in the way that it should be. Which is to say, caregiving is neither paid nor truly respected.
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John F Wu @jwuphysics.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
My mind is absolutely blown by these stellar halos nearby NGC 4364! Left: DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (DR10) Right: Newly released @vrubinobs.bsky.social imaging!!! #AstroSci 🧪🔭
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James Davenport @jradavenport.com · 03/06/2025
Attn 🔭 fans: the Vera Rubin US Quarter is now available!! www.usmint.gov/american-wom...
usmint.gov
American Women Quarters 2025 Rolls and Bags - Dr. Vera Rubin | US Mint
Check out our American Women Quarters 2025 Rolls and Bags - Dr. Vera Rubin and more from US Mint!
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 02/06/2025
"For every $100 the US government spent, it put 40¢ in the bucket for NASA. And what do we get for that? ✨The Universe ✨" "One of these bills represents, to scale, the federal budget & the other with NASA’s total budget trimmed off the edges. Can you tell the difference?" @philplait.bsky.social
Two 1 dollar bills looking identical.  The caption reads

One of these bills represents, to scale, the federal budget, and the other with NASA’s total budget trimmed off the edges. Can you tell the difference? Credit: Phil Plait
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
From stargazer to storyteller ✨ www.nasa.gov/people/ashle...
A smiling woman with fair skin and dark blonde wavy hair sits at a desk with a pen and notebook. The wall behind her features a framed painting of an astronaut sitting in a field of wildflowers. Bookcases line the wall on either side of it. Photo credit: Moments by MangoA smiling woman with dark blonde wavy hair pulled half up sits at a desk and holds a spacey book up toward an open laptop. Photo credit: Moments by MangoA collage of four photos from a 2012 internship at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Top left: a young Ashley stands beside then-center director Mike Coats; a large model rocket is in the background. Top right: Ashley and Veronica Seyl float in microgravity on the Vomit Comet. Bottom left: Ashley holds a paper up toward an off-screen camera as part of the Weightless Wonders program. Bottom right: Ashley and Veronica pose for a photo together, each in their flight suits.Ashley stands alongside a man who is looking through a camera on a tripod. On the other side of the camera, a man speaks to Ashley animatedly as part of an interview. Photo credit: Patrizia Madiona
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Reposted by Ashley Balzer Vigil
ESA Space Science @science.esa.int · 27/05/2025
Totalling around 120 hours of observing time, this is the longest the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has ever focused on a single target. The deep field aims to probe the Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old. Read more 👉 www.esa.int/ESA_Multimed... 🔭 🧪 ☄️
A field of galaxies in space, dominated by an enormous, bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of a massive galaxy cluster. Many other elliptical galaxies can be seen around it. Also around it are short, curved, glowing red lines, which are images of distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with long spikes around them.
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 22/05/2025
Saturn's icy moons Dione, against a backdrop of the giant planet itself, its rings, and tiny Enceladus at upper right. Goodnight, friends!
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
Late to the party, but astronomers might have (but probably haven’t) found Planet Nine out in the Kuiper Belt 🪨
astronomy.com
Have Astronomers Found Planet Nine?
Old data may hint at a new world beyond Neptune — but not the one astronomers expected.
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Exciting news! Roman is moving right along, with one half fresh out of a successful thermal vacuum test. We’ll have a complete observatory before the end of the year! www.nasa.gov/missions/rom...
This picture looks down into a massive black cylindrical chamber that encloses a large piece of centrally-located space hardware. The core of the space hardware is a gray cylinder, covered in crinkly metallic blanketing and thin strips of copper colored tape. The base of the core, covered in copper metallic blanketing, juts out towards the bottom, becoming more rectangular. The central core is hollow, and in the center several rods form a cone held together at the point by a flat copper blanketed disk. A dark gray visor extends upwards from the back half of the central core, its base arcing around the central circular opening. The visor extends far, stretching across the top half of the image. Symmetrical copper panels stretch outward from either side behind the visor, appearing about halfway down. They continue down the body of the central core and approach the bottom of the chamber. Six people stand to the left and right of the space hardware, divided so that three people stand on each side. One person stands in front of the space hardware. All seven people wear in white head-to-toe clean room suits with blue gloves. Various cables and pieces of hardware adorn the floor and walls of the chamber.A photo inside NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. At center, a large copper colored panel is suspended high in the air, on its way toward a large piece of hardware at the right of the frame (part of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, consisting here of the outer barrel assembly, deployable aperture cover in stowed position, and test solar panels). At the left, several technicians supervise the activity and in the background we see the other major component of the Roman observatory, consisting of the telescope, instruments, and spacecraft bus. The wall in the background at left is covered in a grid of pale pink squares (filters).An infographic of Roman’s two major subsystems — SCIPA, the spacecraft integrated payload assembly (at left) and the OSD, which consists of the outer barrel assembly, solar array sun shield, and deployable aperture cover. SCIPA will slot into the hollow OSD like a pen into its cap.
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Space Telescope Science Institute @stsci.edu · 07/05/2025
Experience the Cosmic Cliffs like never before! #NASAWebb’s iconic image of dusty “mountains” and “valleys” is featured in a new 3D visualization from NASA’s Universe of Learning: webbtelescope.pub/4jRHIh9 🔭 🧪
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
A new study shows the Yellowstone supervolcano is bubbling, but not about to blow. Scientists mapped a “pressure relief valve” beneath Yellowstone that may be keeping the volcano calm www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵
A 2023 photo of a geyser at Yellowstone National Park. A close ish view of a plume of thick, white steam billowing high into the sky. Rocky, mineral-stained ground is in the foreground, and a forest of sparse trees stands in the background at right.
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
Shout out to the @starxiv.bsky.social podcast, where I found out about this paper, and Yuanming Wang + @runningastronomer.bsky.social for the quotes! www.astronomy.com/science/astr...
astronomy.com
Astronomers find a strange pulsar blinking in slow motion
PSR J0311+1402 flashes every 41 seconds — quite slow for a pulsar. It could help bridge the gap between fast- and slow-spinning radio sources.
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Daniel Pomarède @pomarede.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies www.nasa.gov/missions/rom... 🧪🔭 #Cosmology
nasa.gov
NASA’s Roman Mission Shares Detailed Plans to Scour Skies - NASA
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team shared Thursday the designs for the three core surveys the mission will conduct after launch. These observation
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Ashley Balzer Vigil @ashleybvigil.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Why do we need Roman if we already have Hubble? >> science.nasa.gov/roman-and-hu...
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Nadia Drake @nadiadrake.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
About the leaked NASA budget proposal that kills an almost-ready-to-launch flagship mission: "It sets back a program that is clearly the leading program in the world—in a historic fashion. You take that program and shoot it through the head." www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...
scientificamerican.com
NASA’s Next Major Space Telescope Is Ready to Launch. Trump Wants to Kill It and Other Vital Science
Amid harsh cuts, the Trump administration has proposed canceling the nearly ready-to-launch Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 12/04/2025
Just a reminder that Germany led the world in science until the Nazis came to power and fired, exiled, and/or killed all the non-Nazi scientists, which was most of the scientists 🧪 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
theguardian.com
Documents reveal Trump’s plan to gut funding for Nasa and climate science
Critics say Nasa faces ‘extinction-level event’ with budget plan, with climate research funding also to be slashed
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 05/04/2025
thinking about the amount of context necessary to explain to someone from 2010 what people are protesting with signs reading "cheap eggs not measles" or "tax the rich, not the penguins"
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Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 28/03/2025
This is a stunning example of an Einstein ring. The bright, diffuse galaxy in the centre is closer to us—and it's so massive, it's bending spacetime itself, turning light from a far more distant galaxy behind it into a ring. It's bending the very fabric of the Universe.
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Dr Craig R McClain @drcraigmc.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
"A riotous photography collection from a recent underwater mission off the coast of Chile shows new and fascinating deep-sea creatures." Good use of the word riotous. #deepsea #marinelife www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...
scientificamerican.com
Meet Some of the Strangest Deep-Sea Creatures, from ‘Sea Pigs’ to ‘Disco Worms’
A riotous photography collection from a recent underwater mission off the coast of Chile shows new and fascinating deep-sea creatures—including a “mystery mollusk,” a bioluminescent jellyfish and a “s...
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Andrea Thompson @andreatweather.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
In January, an iceberg broke off of Antarctica and some scientists happened to be right there and decided to go see what had been living below it. Kind of like turning over a rock to see what's wriggling underneath. (by @ashleybvigil.bsky.social) 🧪
scientificamerican.com
Stunning Antarctic Sea Creatures Discovered after Iceberg Breaks Away
A calving iceberg exposed a region that never before had been seen by human eyes, revealing a vibrant, thriving ecosystem
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Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 18/03/2025
Who wants some good news? The overwintering monarch population, which had plummeted last winter, has doubled this winter! www.worldwildlife.org/stories/east...
worldwildlife.org
Eastern Monarch Butterfly Population Nearly Doubles
The population wintering in central Mexico's forests occupied 4.42 acres, up from 2.22 acres during the previous winter.
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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 02/03/2025
A perfect comparison from @drshepherd2013.bsky.social about the importance of meteorologists at NOAA. Saying you don't need them..."is like saying, “Why do we need potato farmers when I can just get fries at my fast food place?”" www.forbes.com/sites/marsha...
forbes.com
5 Essential Things To Know About Your Weather Forecasts
With recent cuts at the National Weather Service and NOAA, here are five things to know about your weather forecasts.
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Olivia Campbell @oliviacampbell.bsky.social · 26/02/2025
Sound familiar?? From my shockingly relevant book, SISTERS IN SCIENCE.
Screenshot of my book SISTERS IN SCIENCE detailing the firing of civil servants under Hitler in 1933
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Mike Drucker @mikedrucker.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Government efficiency is when every federal agency has to send a daily emergency email to its workers telling them to ignore another daily email from a different department trying to fire them without knowing what their jobs are.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
I can’t get over the fact that two separate people did Nazi salutes at CPAC and it’s so normalized at this point that it’s barely even notable on TV news. In any halfway normal era that shit would warrant wall-to-wall coverage.
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Kendra "Gloom is My Beat" Pierre-Louis @kendrawrites.com · 23/02/2025
You GUYYYYSSSSSSS The military choir sang Do You Hear the People Sing from Les Mis at the governor's dinner at the white house. Thanks to @beebrookshire.bsky.social for helping me fact check tihs one. As far as I can it's only "officially" been posted on Dan Scavino's FB
youtube.com
2025 Governors Ball US Army - "Do You Hear the People Sing" BRILLIANT TRUMP TROLLING!
YouTube video by Anti Trump
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Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
Mapquest lets you "Name Your Own Gulf" boingboing.net/2025/02/20/m...
boingboing.net
Mapquest lets "Name Your Own Gulf"
While Apple Maps, Google Maps, and Bing have all caved and renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, Mapquest has held fast, along with the Associated Press…
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