iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 11h

I'll believe it when I see it.

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Benne W. Holwerda @benneholwerda.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

In the category “picture that goes surprisingly hard.”

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Unfortunately, while I agree with what is said here, this article has been on my mind for months because it has gotten me thinking if I still want to stay in the field... because most astrophysics is now data science. And I did not become an observational astronomer to do (solely) data science.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This just ensured I had a good weekend. My inner 9-year old is giddy with glee.

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Simkaye 🌈 @simkaye.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

anyone else feel like this

A digital illustration of a quetzalcoatlus perched on telephone wires among a flock of crows

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Chris⚖️Justice @chrisjustice01.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

What measles did to one family

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Let's hope those 219B actually get collected. Now do the same for all other billionaire companies and tech bro influencers.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I always thought Michaelmas was the weird name the British gave to the first semester of Uni.

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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

New @zooniverse.bsky.social paper out: a study of neurodiversity in online citizen science led by the amazing Alisa Apreleva and a host of volunteers. Wonderful stuff: theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org/articles/10....

theoryandpractice.citizenscienceassociation.org

Framework for Neuro-Inclusive Digital Citizen Science: Results From the Neuro(Minorities)Science Collaboration | Citizen Science: Theory and Practice

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I feel I'm getting somewhere professionally, finally: I got my first email calling me "Professor" (which I am not) explaining to me how to solve Dark Matter. Going up in the world.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Any proper governmental institution would probably be facing shut down after so many failures and so much damage to the environment, but we continue, because SpaceX.

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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Update on the AI triage saga 🧪 #academicsky

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

The last paragraph on dark matter is way too important to leave like that...

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I've never disputed this. I just think people who have them should be sent to jail and the equipment given to me. This applies also applies to mounts, cameras and accessories.

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Kevin Kretsch (DrKev) @kevinkretsch.com · 26/09/2026

My feeling is that AI can do this about as well as it can do history. It doesn't understand society, it doesn't understand context, it doesn't actually understand anything at all. This is really bad idea.

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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 25/09/2026

Voyager Instruments xkcd.com/3302/

3-panel comic. (1) [Person with shoulder-length hair gestures at diagrams on wall in front of table with three people.] PERSON 1: As the radioactive power source on *Voyager 1* weakens, we’ve been turning instruments off to conserve power. (2) PERSON 1: Only two instruments remain. Do we want to lose the plasma wave subsystem or the magnetometer? (3) PERSON 2 with ponytail: You know, if we just turned off Greg’s LED underlighting– PERSON 4 with short hair: Absolutely not. PERSON 3: Dammit, Greg. PERSON 4: I will *not* allow us to look uncool in front of aliens.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I don't think I've seen a single one of these shows...

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I really don't have the patience for this crap.

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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Oh for goodness sake. What are we doing?

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

AI doesn't go rogue. Someone at the company tried to get it to break into those websites. Stop shifting the narrative as if there aren't tangible, real people responsible for the crimes.

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Patrick Koppenburg 🐧 @koppenburg.ch · 24/09/2026

A bit of history of particle physics that takes an unexpected turn today. In 2003 the BaBar experiment at SLAC reported a particle decaying to a Ds meson and a neutral pion, with a mass of 2317 MeV. arxiv.org/abs/hep-ex/0...

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Patrick Koppenburg 🐧 @koppenburg.ch · 17/10/2024

Hello to those who found me here. I am a particle physicist at CERN working on the @lhcb.bsky.social experiment and on future accelerators. In particular I worry about sustainability. I'm also chairing the advisory committee of the 12000 CERN users.

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John Stott @jpsastro.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

I am writing to let you know that, unfortunately, your application was not successful.

Review process

As part of the initial triage of the 179 proposals submitted to this call, each was assessed using an AI-based review. Every proposal was read independently by several different AI models against the same seven criteria used to shape this call (including cyber security relevance, research quality and novelty, importance of the problem addressed, feasibility of the project plan, likely outputs and impact, value for money, and responsible research practice), with each model asked to give a score and a written justification with supporting quotations from the text. To guard against any one model's idiosyncrasies, we also ran a second, independent process in which different AI models debated the merits and weaknesses of each proposal before reaching a judgement, again against the same criteria. Scores from both processes were combined to produce an overall ranking.

This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review. Projects selected for funding were drawn from those that progressed to the full human review stage. We recognise that AI-assisted assessment is a new and evolving part of the review process, and we are continuing to evaluate how well it aligns with the judgements of human reviewers on this call. We will soon produce a document detailing our method, so that others can build upon it and improve it.

Feedback on your application

Your application was not selected to progress beyond the AI triage stage. To provide transparency on the outcome of this assessment, we are sharing below the scores (out of 5) from each of the two AI review processes described above, together with the mean score across the two processes.

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Chris Mihos @chrismihos.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I get really annoyed seeing so many people say "Since everyone uses AI to write papers..." or "Referee reports now are just written by AI..." Look: Everything I have written has, for better or worse, been my own writing. Don't project your cynical expectations on my work. Seriously, screw gen-AI.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Great. Because more satellites in orbit is something we need.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

In the last two days I've received around 10 emails saying my research is well matched for their open access journals. I had no idea AGN astrophysics was so well matched with engineering, or that there were so many natural science journals to be honest. A learning experience.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Paper Day! Today on ArXiv is #Euclid AGN day. We use Euclid spectroscopy from the Q1 data release to analyse more than 5000 QSOs and derive physical properties. We provide line emission fluxes, FWHM, as well as Black Hole masses and QSO continuum slopes.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Yesterday I took some pictures with a short focal length instrument (200mm). I had a lot of tilt, because of course I did, so I need to fiddle with the camera's tilt adjuster (this is particularly visible in the Pleiades image). But these are some nice results.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It's really weird to see "Dr. J. Calhau" in the correspondence with A&A when submitting an article. Feels like I'm seeing references to someone else.

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Thomas Broyer @tbroyer.ltgt.net · 17/09/2026

The real question is: if social media platforms are bad for our children, aren't they bad for the grown ups too? How about regulating them for *everyone* rather than limiting their access for kids? Australia tried this already and it failed; now they're trying regulating those platforms instead.

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Dummy Mage @twoint.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I photographed the Elephant's Trunk nebula over the last 3 nights. The dark nebulosity and sharp structures were very fun to process. #astrophotography #photography #space #astronomy

The Elephant Trunk Nebula shot from a wider view. 5 hours each of Sulfur, Hydrogen and Oxygen data on a 2600 mm camera using astronomik filters.

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K.E.M Lindblom @eggstronomer.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

If you're in Sweden you can take part of any Day & Night of Astronomy event near your location this coming weekend, on the 18th and 19th of September! @popularastronomi.se shows the highlights www.popularastronomi.se/2026/09/astr... Find the full program here: www.astronominsdag.se/program

popularastronomi.se

Astronomins dag och natt 2026 – här är höjdpunkterna under rymdfestivalen - Populär Astronomi

I helgen firas Astronomins dag och natt – Sveriges största rymdfestival med evenemang över hela landet! Under temat För rymden i tiden samsas föreläsningar, stjärnskådningsträffar och många andra akti...

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

THIS, I can respect. Bortle 7, from the backyard and using "affordable" tools for amateurs? Magic.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Given the level of organ redundancy I am pretty sure this is a Krogan.

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Benne W. Holwerda @benneholwerda.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The first undergraduate* I taught** a class to is kicking ass in radio Astronomy. Way to go Mpati! *now a tenured researcher. **didn’t get too much wrong I hope.

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Siril @siril.org · 08/09/2026

Buone notizie: la versione italiana del mio libro uscirà il 15 settembre!! Good news: The Italian edition of my book will be released on September 15!! siril.eu

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Chris Lintott @chrislintott.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Any astrophotographers out there? I'm looking for images of people looking at the sky without telescopes. If you can share shots of meteor watching in deckchairs, or anything of you hanging out under the stars that would be fab. 🔭

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Today we're eating toast the way God intended: charred black, because I cut the bread slices thinner than usual and totally forgot to compensate for that when setting the timer.

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João Calhau @astrocalhau.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

I dunno about the second cartoon. Maybe the Alien or It, since they're driven the most by instinct alone, but I get the feeling the others would have standards, especially Lord Vader.

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Prof Jim Wild @jim-wild.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

📢 Calling U.K. astronomers and physicists📢 There is a Westminster Hall debate on “Future of science facilities and laboratories” next Tuesday (1 Sep). Contact your MP and urge them to attend. More details at: ras.ac.uk/news-and-pre...

ras.ac.uk

Astronomy cuts to be discussed at Westminster

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) welcomes an upcoming debate at the Houses of Parliament about cuts impacting astronomy and encourages all Fellows to contact the...

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Micah @rincewind.run · 26/08/2026

the famous line about how michael caine treated the muppets as fellow actors and tim curry treated himself as a fellow muppet keeps running through my head we have a lot of brilliant actors, but how many of them can really pull off 'unhinged muppet' the way curry could? what a tremendous loss

static.klipy.com

Tim Curry Laughing as Pirate Captain

Alt: Tim Curry as Long John Silver in Muppet Treasure Island laughing

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