iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

This whole Calibri-TNR font issue is annoying. I hate Calibri, it looks awful. And I like TNR. I understand why sans serif is needed, but the govt should use something better like Helvetica or Arial. Calibri is a trash font and needs to die.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Just submitted a session proposal to @goldschmidt-confer.bsky.social. Sought to be topical but broad. Narrow session topics leave members of our community with no place to submit. #EveryoneNeedsAHome at Goldschmidt!

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

A future round includes Cuproskodowskite, a copper uranium silicate mineral named for the brilliant Nobel Prize winner, Marie Skłodowska Curie.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

Mineral cup is on and my dear friend Hematite is in a close race with a crappy sodalite-group mineral, Haüyne. Please consider voting! www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3...

mineralcup.org

Vote in Quarterfinal 1 — Mineral Cup

Click here to vote in Haüyne vs Hematite Photo credits: Jean-François Ferrandon and John Sobolewski

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Reposted by Jeff Catalano

Kris McNeill @krismcneill.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

We are looking for an Assistant Professor (tenure track) in the area of Soil Chemistry. Please spread the word! Application deadline is September 30. ethz.ch/en/the-eth-z...

ethz.ch

Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) of Soil Chemistry

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Well, if they don't know that AI is making up information, then its hard to prove misconduct. People are still discovering AI hallucinations. But using AI without disclosure is definitely misconduct, refs are just a sign of AI usage. Bad all around!

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Fabrication is research misconduct. National Academy report on RCR says this needs to be deliberate to be considered research misconduct (I agree). This is probably negligence not misconduct. Still bad, clearly some sort of negative outcome is needed.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

Just received a survey from "Simon Baker, Chief Editor, Nature Index". The survey has MC questions requiring three picks. Many options are like "I do high-impact research to improve my reputation" or "High-impact research gets me more grant money". I'm out. Shows zero interest in scientific impact.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 31/05/2025

That seems to be from a Broadening Participation section of the budget. Still awful but if you get the full table it looks like this is a tiny component of both GRFP and CAREER. Still awful cuts, but programs will still exist. GRFP is explicitly a 55% cut elsewhere is budget, not set to 0 overall.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Tornado passed just south of my building on campus. Trees snapped but otherwise fine. But it strengthened after that. Went through neighborhoods people are trying to reinvigorate after decades of disinvestment. Like a scar across 20-30 square blocks.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

There is a long path of damage through residential and commercial areas. Big, beautiful trees that lined many streets have now fallen, often destroying parked cars. Substantial damage to homes and businesses. Wood, brick, or steel, they all lost roofs and walls to a likely EF3 tornado…

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

The tornado in St. Louis yesterday started near my campus @washu.bsky.social. We were spared the worst, with mostly tree damage and power outages but the dormitories may have some roof damage. Semester is over, students are gone. We’ll recover quickly. But for the rest of St. Louis…

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Reposted by Jeff Catalano

Sonja Geilert @xsteinlausx.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Ever wondered what the Hadean ocean looked like? 🌊🌊🌊 Come work with us on 🧪silicate weathering experiments🧪 simulating the geochemistry of the first ocean and be part of a large consortium investigating the origin of life #prelife. @ingeloes.bsky.social Apply here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

And people wonder why papers sometimes get rejected without review...

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

I'm sure Elsevier has a clause like "We can do whatever we want with your paper and you have no choice but to comply."

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 07/05/2025

That is the expected declaration statement for the use of AI. Far better to require disclosure than for this to be in the dark. Further, some scientists lacking English proficiency used to pay for language editing of their papers. AI can do this for free. Disclosure is a good thing!

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

As a US scientist, I also agree with this. France, and Europe overall, has abundant scientific talent that needs more support. There may be specific opportunities to encourage a few individuals with unique expertise to move, especially those originally from Europe, but those cases should be limited.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Any US-based folks have recommendations for best place to rent a satellite phone for international travel? A colleague is taking a course to Madagascar. They are using a network of sites operated by a local partner, and each location has phone service, but university wants them to have a sat phone.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

People like this are frustrating, and we all want to say "Look what you caused with your vote!" But in the bigger picture, the Tesla driver showing even a tiny bit of empathy is an opening. We need to create as many cracks in Republican support as possible.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Super shitty! They had an old system like this and spun it off into a company. Elsevier kept using the original system and never improved it. Then they spent $$$ buying the company back a few years later and migrating to this “new” system, which was still shitty. Cyclic corporate waste.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 20/04/2025

Elsevier system doesn’t allow a reviewer to be invited without first having an account for that journal. No universal accounts across all journals. If no account exists, a new one is created. Delete your account, some editor will eventually make a new one to then invite you. This is their design.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Fully support this! Disequilibrium is a fundamental chemical property of planetary systems with liquid water. Reaction rates are slow. In now way is that an indicator of life. In fact, life catalyzes movement away from disequilibrium and towards equilibrium. That is how it obtains energy.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Is this about the DMS exoplanet thing? Or Trump’s orange bronzer? Agree on either account.

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Reposted by Jeff Catalano

Sarah Fenske @sarahfenske.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

New at @stlmag.bsky.social: City Hall insiders share their thoughts on what went wrong for Mayor Tishaura Jones this election -- and what comes next for Mayor-elect Cara Spencer www.stlmag.com/news/won-car...

stlmag.com

How Cara Spencer Won The Mayor’s Race—and What Comes Next | St. Louis Magazine

On Tuesday, Cara Spencer was elected mayor of the city of St. Louis in an avalanche, winning nearly two-thirds of the vote. Spencer’s victory was expected,

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Reposted by Jeff Catalano

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 02/04/2025

Jeffries: "It was a terrible week. So what happens on Sunday? Trump says, intentionally, 'I'm serious about running for a third term.' He can't run for a third term! ... why does he say it? ... to distract from the terrible week that they've had. We're not gonna take the bait."

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

The President talking about a third term has proven to be an effective strategy to move on from his team releasing classified military plans to a reporter on Signal. Everyone needs to stop falling for this! Just ignore him, it is purely a distraction. Don't let him move on from tariffs and Signal.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

This is really great! Looking forward to all of the new iron oxide work that will come out of this!

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

Ooof, that sounds like a leading indicator of a contraction or recession.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Agreed, really good, really effective. Took me a second watch to catch the never 51 jersey.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Resubmitting former grad student's paper to ES&T (once he send me the figure files). I have the hardest time finding what sections are counted in word count. ES&T makes this hard to find. I asked Google, it's AI response thing got the right answer. I'm good with that kind of use of AI.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

I did not have “Return of the Dust Bowl” on my 2025 bingo card

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

I’m not there but pretty sure it’s just elemental sulfur found in Gale Crater. Neat, but not earth shattering (or mars shattering) discovery.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 11/03/2025

They screwed up running the airline the original way post-COVID, but now they are just going to be a crappy legacy carrier. They instead needed to go back to basics. There will be even more delayed departures now while everyone tries to cram their baggage into overhead bins.

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Reposted by Jeff Catalano

Colby Moorberg @colbydigssoil.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

This has become an ongoing discussion in my university's faculty senate. Everything in this article is spot on.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

This seems like something Democrats should have figured out a year ago. The economy looked great on paper, but only the top 10% were benefiting. Most democratic advisers were probably on the top 10%. www.wsj.com/economy/cons...

wsj.com

The U.S. Economy Depends More Than Ever on Rich People

The highest-earning 10% of Americans account for almost 50% of all consumer spending.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

Key giveaways of fake/manipulated data are identical noise (look at background signal) and two datasets that are unrelated but track each other. Saw time series data from two parallel experiments where measured concentration over 7 days maintained a fixed ratio to 8 sig figs. That’s impossible!

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

No longer in charge of GCA but still doing some Associate Editor work. Figure looked weird, so I opened data file. Plot was manipulated. Found other examples, also fabrication. Rejected the paper. Big reason a journal must require sharing of numerical data is to check for misconduct.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

False alarm on NSF, proposal status back up for NSF. NSSC still down.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Not trying to raise unwarranted alarms, but the proposal status page for NSF in Research.gov says "Information in Proposal Status is unavailable due to an error." Similarly, the NSSC grant status page for NASA says "This search form is currently under maintenance." Something bad is likely going on.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

I also believe that individual scientists should not bear the costs of publishing OA. Publishers, funding agencies, and institutions need to work out the new funding model for scientific publishing. That is their job! Our job is to create and disseminate new knowledge.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Finally, if you are curious why we published open access, it is solely because @washu.bsky.social has a new contract with Elsevier that makes this possible at no cost to the authors. I won’t pay Elsevier from a research grant. Corporations should not excessively profit from taxpayer-funded research.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

New fundamental studies, including our efforts, should help us understand and predict unconventional occurrences of critical minerals. It is out hope that this will support more sustainable and lower-cost approaches to accessing these key elements.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

As an aqueous geochemist and mineralogist, I have been fortunately to have great thermodynamic data at my disposal for trace metals and radionuclides. For critical minerals, we’re learning that a lot of fundamental data are still absent, and critical assessments of existing data are needed.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

We’re still working to disentangle the processes controlling palladium and platinum mobility during weathering. Its clear that environmental ligands are a huge control on everything. Unfortunately, the thermodynamic data for platinum is in even worse shape that for palladium.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

This was a challenging project! There has essentially been no prior work on palladium adsorption mechanisms, and little on its adsorption behavior. In addition, thermodynamic data for palladium aqueous speciation still has holes and inaccuracies. This makes quantitative predictions difficult.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Emily found that while chloride does strongly complex palladium, decreasing its retention via adsorption to iron oxides, the impact is partially counteracted by palladium adsorbing as mixed Pd-Cl ternary surface complexes. Palladium would be far more mobile if these adsorbed species did not form.

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Jeff Catalano @jeffcatalano.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Iron oxide-rich weathering zones above ultramafic rocks may provide new sources of platinum group elements. Palladium shows greater mobility than platinum during weathering, which has classically been explained by stronger aqueous complexation of palladium by chloride. See: doi.org/10.2113/gsec...

doi.org

Crossref

Choose from multiple link options via Crossref

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