iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 14/09/2026

umm slightly more concerning is the fact that ATel appears to be down?

Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 03/09/2026

A gloriously chaotic night of Sydney’s most wonderfully obscure and strange science, delivered straight from the researchers 🎤🤓 Hosted by your favourite science nerds @raynerexplainer.bsky.social @funfactscience.com and presented by @comedyonedge.bsky.social #science #comedy #sydneyfringe #scicomm

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 14/08/2026

Thrilled to share that we made the cover of @natastron.nature.com!!! 🔭💥☄️ The artwork, designed in collaboration with @ozgrav.bsky.social, features a rendering of the magnetic field simulation from our white dwarf binary paper. Check it out here: www.nature.com/natastron/vo...

Journal cover for Nature Astronomy, August 2026 issue. The background is a textured deep teal field filled with faint white grid lines and loops depicting magnetic fields. On the upper left, a large, textured reddish-orange star is shown. On the lower right, a small, bright white-blue dwarf star is encircled by a dense, flower-like array of magnetic field lines. A stylised, ribbon-like stream of white and blue light connects the two celestial objects across the centre. Bold white text in the lower-left corner reads "White dwarf binaries as long-period radio emitters."

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 11/07/2026

Saturday morning: remote observing + thesis writing. Saturday afternoon: lego + stargate

Background: tv showing Stargate on wooden console with plants.
Foreground: project hail mary lego on wooden table

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 22/06/2026

Advertise your bluesky account with a Simpsons meme.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 08/06/2026

Coming soon, an album of exclusively science-related rap 🧪 🎤

Black and white album art featuring two men posing pensively. The text reads "straight outta science"

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 01/06/2026

TLDR: Astronomers find the Rosetta Stone to decipher weird radio bursts from outer space. I feel pretty lucky to have made this discovery but even luckier to have such an awesome group of collaborators and mentors to help make it a high-impact result. ☄️🔭🧪⚛️ 📸 Carl Knox (@ozgrav.bsky.social)

Photo of man with beard wearing open, short-sleeved shirt covered in star patterns on top of white t-shirt. In the background are simulated magnetic field lines for the binary system. Credit: Carl Knox (OzGrav/Swinburne)

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 01/06/2026

These systems contain extreme conditions like powerful magnetic fields thousands of times stronger than anything humans can create. By learning how LPTs make their radio light, we can use them as remote laboratories to study physics in a regime that we could not recreate here on Earth.

Simulated magnetic field lines for a binary system that is close enough for the stars to interact. Credit: Carl Knox (OzGrav/Swinburne) & Joshua Preston Pritchard (CSIRO)

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 01/06/2026

Our discovery marks the first time we’ve confirmed an LPT to be an accreting white dwarf binary. This is a pair of stars (one of them a white dwarf) spiralling around each other so closely that the gravity of the white dwarf can pull (or accrete) material from its less massive companion.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 01/06/2026

For years, astronomers have been finding sources that produce repeating bursts of radio light, known as long-period radio transients (LPTs). During this time a number of plausible explanations had been put forward but the true nature of LPTs had remained elusive.

Galactic map showing positions of long-period transients (LPTs), including those with evidence of binary systems and galactic centre radio transients (GCRTs). Background image of Gaia stars in Milky Way: ESA/Gaia/DPAC, A. Moitnho

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 29/05/2026

I've also gotta say how thrilled @scienceactually.bsky.social was to be able to put a real astronaut, in a real EVA suit on the duck! (Benjamin and I probably need to decide on a name our iconic duck... any suggestions?)

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 24/04/2026

as I approach the PhD finish line this perfectly encapsulates my family 🧪⚛️🔭 credit: @tomgauld.bsky.social

A comic strip titled "CARDS FOR SCIENTISTS FROM THEIR NON-SCIENTIST RELATIONS" featuring a lineup of three humorous greeting cards.

The first card has a pink border and shows a shooting star with a question mark in the middle. The text reads: "WELL DONE! DOING WELL AT WHATEVER IT IS THAT YOU DO".

The second card has a blue, space-themed background with stars and a planet. The text in the centre reads: "WE STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND YOUR WORK AT ALL, BUT WE ARE VERY PROUD".

The third card features a drawing of a complicated, confusing machine with dials and buttons. The text reads: "CONGRATULATIONS! BUT PLEASE DON'T TRY TO EXPLAIN IT AGAIN".

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 10/04/2026

Just realised that @innaosmol.bsky.social somehow published TWO papers the same week 🤯https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.73429

A two-panel meme featuring Krusty the Clown’s accountant from The Simpsons, edited to joke about academic publishing.

Top Panel:
The character is looking at two nearly identical research article headers from the journal Ecology and Evolution. Both papers appear to be from the same "Forward Series."

The first paper is titled: "Two Species Whose Ranges Are Shifting Uphill Are Not Pollen Limited, But Are More Successful Selfers Than Two Non-Shifting Species."

The second paper is titled: "Leaf Damage Is Not The Answer! Reduced Herbivore Pressure Does Not Underpin Either Downhill or Uphill Range Shifts."

Bottom Panel:
A close-up of the character’s bewildered face with the caption: "I'M SEEING DOUBLE HERE." This references the original show dialogue, "I'm seeing double here—four Krustys!", implying the two papers are so similar in appearance, topic, and journal branding that they are indistinguishable at a glance.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 26/03/2026

A huge thank you to the City of Greater Geraldton for sponsoring the travel grant that supported my participation in #ACAMAR11. I was honoured to be invited to speak about our work with the ASKAP Variables and Slow Transients (VAST) survey and to collaborate with astronomers from Australia and China

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 26/03/2026

Had the pleasure of visiting Geraldton, WA this week to give an invited talk on ASKAP radio transients at the ACAMAR 11 workshop 📡🔭🧪 These ACAMAR events are great opportunities to build and develop astronomical collaborations between Australia and China 🇦🇺🇨🇳 #astronomy #conference #ACAMAR11

A presentation slide titled "Data challenges" featuring a scatter plot of the transient phase space and a meme of a person labeled "Astronomers" getting blasted in the face with water labeled "Data" from a hose labeled "Telescopes".

A selfie of four smiling people wearing ACAMAR conference lanyards, standing outdoors at golden hour near a marina filled with docked boats.

A large group photograph of dozens of conference attendees wearing ACAMAR lanyards, posing together indoors in front of a dark curtain.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 22/03/2026

Took a break from civilisation last week to enjoy the night sky and hike across Mt. Luxmore. Next challenge is to finish writing my thesis (and another paper 😉)

A smiling man with a beard wearing hiking gear, including a green jacket, grey pants, and a bright orange backpack, poses with trekking poles on a mountain trail. Behind him is a scenic view of a deep, lush green valley leading down to a body of water, flanked by steep mountains and partially obscured by low-hanging clouds.

A wide view of a dark night sky densely packed with bright stars. A luminous, hazy band of the Milky Way stretches diagonally across the frame, showcasing glowing star clusters and cosmic dust.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 10/03/2026

New LPT who dis? #radioastro We've found a new long-period radio transient to add to the small but growing population! 📡🔭🧪 In a recently accepted @pasajournal.bsky.social Letter, Joshua Pritchard details the bursts detected from this system during a brief active period. arxiv.org/abs/2603.07857

Lightcurves from all ASKAP, ATCA, and MeerKAT radio observations phase-folded to the radio period of 2147.27 s. Green shading indicates the range of uncertainty in predicted pulse time around the expected pulse phase of 0.5. Pulses are only detected in the ASKAP and ATCA observations between 2025-01-09 and 2025-01-17.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 27/02/2026

Post a pic you took, no context, to bring some zen to the feed.

smiling man with glasses in orange tshirt. next to smiling quokka with no glasses and no tshirt.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 04/12/2025

Tell me about it! Spotify is throwing punches today

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 27/11/2025

Thanksgiving isn't really a thing in Australia but I am certainly thankful to have this majestical floof in my life 🥹

A white fluffy dog with his tongue out sits on a concrete ledge in the foreground on a sunny day. Behind the dog is a wide body of blue water with a large cable-stayed bridge spanning across it, along with docked boats and city buildings in the distance.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 17/11/2025

Nothing like taking in a beautiful sunset after presenting your research, especially when you're at a conference about stars 🌟🔭 📸 @astrolaura.com #astronomy #space #sunset #stars

A long-exposure photograph taken at dusk captures a coastal scene in Newcastle A dark blue and deep magenta sky over the beach and the ocean on the left. On the right, streetlights illuminate a road, a promenade, and the beach below, creating streaks of light from moving vehicles. Buildings are visible on the far right, and a headland with scattered lights extends into the distance.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 14/11/2025

a NEW PAPER led the incomparable Dr. Elizabeth Iles (accepted by PASA) quantifies how astronomers might be biased in how they judge galactic bars Turns out that male astronomers are consistently more optimistic than their peers when it comes to measuring length arxiv.org/abs/2511.09908 #astro

A stellar density map of a barred spiral galaxy viewed face-on. The image shows a dark background with a central bright, elongated feature (the bar) surrounded by fainter spiral arms. The color bar on the right indicates the log10 Stellar Density in units of solar mass per square parsec, ranging from 0 (black/dark) to 4 (white/bright). The x and y axes are labeled in kpc (kiloparsecs), spanning from -10 to 10. Overlaid on the image are several highlighted regions: a central white, bright feature is enclosed by a dashed cyan ellipse representing the full Bar region. A smaller, cyan dashed box labeled Inner-bar is located along the bar's major axis, excluding the ends. Two symmetrically placed, dashed teal boxes labeled Bar-ends are located near the extremities of the bar. This visualization highlights the key components of the galaxy's bar structure.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 07/11/2025

spending Friday night waiting for a thunderstorm to pass so that I can start my telescope observations

mocking spongebob meme with the text "radio telescopes can observe in any weather"

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 29/10/2025

surely this is just a temporary bug, right? RIGHT!?

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 21/10/2025

Yesterday I had the esteemed privilege of presenting my latest research in front of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell at a @sydney.edu.au science symposium. What an incredible honour to speak about my work on unknown radio objects in the presence of the person who discovered pulsars! 📸 @cosmicrami.com

man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows image of a blueish star pulling material from a larger redder star. the title on the screen is "periodic radio and x-ray emission from an accreting white dwarf binary. - demystifying long period transients"

man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows image of kermit the frog with the word "phenomena" above his head. the title on the screen is "what are long period transients" and the text on the screen reads "phenomenon != class"

man in beige shirt and pants standing in front of crowd sitting in auditorium. screen shows still of magnetic field lines from interacting stellar binary system. the title on the screen is "emission mechanism" and the text on the screen reads "electron cyclotron maser, magnetospheric interaction, energetic electron flow"

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 15/10/2025

Hmm I guess they'll have to update this book

Photo of a blue book with the white text title "does it fart?" with farting yellow fish on the cover. In the background is a white fluffy husky dog and wooden floors

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 03/10/2025

any other #astro folks having issues with VizieR? 🔭☄️

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 30/09/2025

When a surprise trip to the pet dentist derails your paper-writing plans, but at least you have the bravest dog in the southern hemisphere

White fluffy Spitz/husky dog sitting on wooden floors with a white background. Next to him a hand is holding a certificate of bravery for "showing great courage and being the best boy"

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 29/09/2025

I might be a smidge biased but I am especially thrilled to see so much great work from Australian astronomers in this review / at the conference, including the awesome new radio stars catalogue compiled by @astrolaura.com - which more than doubled the number of known radio-bright stellar systems!

astronomical HR diagram with grey dots in the background for optical gaia stars and colourful markers showing the radio stars - colour scaled by radio luminosity from yellow (lower) to purpler (higher)

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 24/09/2025

can we have (data)class outside?! thankful to have such a peaceful work environment to write/code today

laptop screen with code next to latte out of focus in foreground. background is courtyard of cafe with tables and chairs along the brick walls. plants hand from the wooden rafters.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 23/09/2025

your annual reminder that @astropy.org let's you define your own silly little units

from astropy import units as u
smoot = u.def_unit('smoot', 1.7018 * u.m)

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 23/09/2025

Just returned from the 6th (and sadly final) data science workshop of my LSST fellowship. I'll eventually write a longer piece describing the program, and its importance in the era of big-data astronomy. But suffice to say that the experience has had a profound impact on the trajectory of my career

Skyscrapers around the Chicago river at night. With reflections of lights from the buildings on the water

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 23/09/2025

Made it back from the US just in time to see @raynerexplainer.bsky.social's show at Sydney Fringe: Atomically Correct. Opening night was hilariously nerdy! If you like science and puns I'd highly recommend getting tickets for the remaining shows: sydneyfringe.com/events/rache...

Autographed (squiggled) tickets from the show. In black and white (which makes everything better). Shows a person sitting in a hula hoop.

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 15/09/2025

get to enjoy this view every day this week

View of the Chicago skyline from the museum campus - foreground is the lake

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 07/09/2025

The clouds cleared just enough for me to see a low-res eclipse

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 16/08/2025

Had a great time talking about our search for radio stars and other transients this afternoon with the @sydmathinst.bsky.social 📡 🔭 Thanks to all who attended and asked great questions! 📸 Credit: @manishacaleb.bsky.social

Man with brown hair and beard in green shirt standing in front of screen presenting to audience

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Fun Fact Science with Kovi @funfactscience.com · 08/08/2025

60 EPISODES OF NERDY SCIENCE! Between the hectic rush of some recent astronomy conferences here in Sydney I completely missed this massive milestone! Our conversation with @kscartist.bsky.social marked the end of Season 6 and nearly two years of this show.

Man in a purple spacesuit riding a rubber duck with a saturn-like ring around it. there are two dogs in spacesuits floating nearby as well as a microphone with solar panels attached like a satellite. the text at the top reads "the nerd and the scientist" the background shows a range of space mission patches

an array of cover art from some of the recent nerd and the scientist episodes

two men with short hair and short beards wearing black tshirts sitting in a bar holding beers and smiling

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