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Pat MacEwen

@patmac53.bsky.social
53 followers 89 following 218 posts

Dead guys and bones are kinda my thing. I used to work on crime scenes for a central California police department, but left to take a job as a Scene of Crime Officer (SOCO) for the International Criminal Court, working on war crimes investigations.

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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
scim.ag/4g00wLw - This matters. California grows a fourth of the entire country's produce, and without reliable water sources (snowpack, rainfall, rivers, subterranean aquifers and reservoirs) we could all find ourselves in a hole when it comes to groceries. Take a look at where Lake Mead is.
scim.ag
A California aquifer may have crossed the point of no return
Satellite data reveal in unprecedented detail how groundwater reservoirs permanently lose their ability to store water
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
www.sciencenews.org/article/fire... - More about that amazing new extremophile they've found in Lassen Park, near the volcano! This piece describes the work being done right to nail down how and why this particular amoeba is so resistant to high heat...
sciencenews.org
Meet the ‘fire amoeba,’ a record-breaking survivor of extreme heat
Incendiamoeba cascadensis can replicate at 145° F, breaking the heat tolerance record for eukaryotes, a domain of life that includes plants and animals.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
www.livescience.com/animals/dino... - First I've heard of dinosaur fossils found in Japan! Includes a video of this bumpty beast reconstructed from CT scans of the bones.
livescience.com
Rare armored dinosaur found in Japan may have ancestors that migrated across a land bridge 100 million years ago
The newly described dinosaur is only the third nodosaurid fossil found in Asia. Researchers say its ancestors may have migrated from North America.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
science.nasa.gov/science-rese... - An amoeba is quite a bit more complex than bacteria. It's a one-celled life form with a nucleus that contains chromosomes as well as mitochondria that contain bacterial DNA. Cells like it were the start of multicellular life on this planet. Could it happen again?
science.nasa.gov
NASA-Funded Research Finds Complex Life Defying Record Heat - NASA Science
Lee esta historia en español aquí.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Perseverance captured this striking rock formation with dark, branching layers spreading across the Martian surface. Its unusual shape resembles a giant spider, but it is a natural geological feature rather than an actual creature.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
interestingengineering.com/ai-robotics/... - This could open a whole new subsection of genetic engineering ... and using it to design bacteriophages? Could be a whole new approach to making new antibiotics, cuz phages that have infected not-quite-virulent bacteria so often turn them virulent.
interestingengineering.com
Claude scans 200,000 enzymes, uncover CRISPR-like system in phage DNA
950 Claude agents searched DNA for 21 hours and uncovered an enzyme system with unusual CRISPR-like repeat arrays.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
That rover was perfectly named!
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
www.opb.org/article/2026... - Don’t buy the presidents BS on data centers. According to this report, they employ an average of 26 people per center but use a whopping 23% of the state's electricity. Which they want US to pay for. Twice over, cuz they're gonna charge us for the end product too.
opb.org
Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report
A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
5,000 days on Mars, and the nuclear-powered Curiosity rover is still out there sending postcards. NASA just dropped a fresh view of the Red Planet, shot by the rover to mark its 5,000th Martian day on the job.
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Reposted by Pat MacEwen
John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
This is what they've done.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Mrmbb333 STRONGEST STORM ON THE PLANET: POLO SOARS TO CATEGORY 5 Polo just reached the top of the scale. After being a tropical storm with winds of just 40 mph roughly a day and a half ago, Polo has strengthened into a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 160 mph.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A whale in the Sacramento River! "A group of salmon anglers near Rio Vista were expecting a bite... What they got... was a humpback whale rising next to their 21-foot boat... 60 miles inland from the Pacific. One thought he was looking at a submarine. Video hit every NorCal feed within hours.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Active Norcal Re: 🐋 A Whale in the Sacramento River
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - And this is only ONE of the effects global warming will have on food production.
livescience.com
'There are no easy answers here': New study forecasts a dire dip in food production if key Atlantic currents collapse
Researchers have examined how weakening currents in the Atlantic Ocean could impact global agriculture — and the results are concerning.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
www.livescience.com/space/extrat... - Sounds a bit pipe-dreamish to me, but so were interstellar visitors like Oumouamoua, until we built tech that could spot them. Definitely a basis for a different take on alien invasion/first contact stories, don't you think?
livescience.com
Tech from long-lost alien civilizations may be hiding in moon dust, scientists claim — and they have a plan to search for it
Researchers propose that tiny technological remnants from extinct alien civilizations could have landed on the moon after traveling through interstellar space. And it may not take long to find them, t...
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
This infuriates me! "A Colorado DNA analyst deleted male DNA in 32 sexual assault cases, then reported none was found. She was just sentenced to 10 years... as Yvonne "Missy" Woods was handcuffed and led out, people whose cases ran through her lab shouted, "LIAR! LIAR! LIAR!"
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - What d'you mean 'COULD' wake up a sleeping giant? For more than 20 years now, we've had lakes in Siberia that no longer freeze over in winter because they are being stirred year-round by methane. And in some parts, there are giant craters from methane blow-outs!
livescience.com
Arctic warming fuels 2 distinct climate regimes in Siberia that could wake up a methane 'sleeping giant'
New research finds that western Siberia is becoming wetter as the world warms, while eastern Siberia seems to be getting drier. And both these conditions are fueling a rise in methane emissions, spell...
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - I have my doubts about their answer, which is.... Australia! If (and only if) climate change brings out some significant greening of Oz's outback do I think this might be the best choice to sit out a Black Swan event. You?
livescience.com
Where on Earth is safest from global catastrophe?
Researchers have worked out the safest, most resilient country to be in during an apocalyptic event.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I'm trying to post a reel concerning "The Truth about Einstein" by Lauren Hill. I will include the FB link for it but I was told that I have now been banned for another 3 months from reposting anything on FaceFart because I am violating their community standards. By trying to tell the truth.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
arstechnica.com/space/2026/0... - I don't know if this is wise, but wearing the suits while doing most forms of physical labor in vacuum is indeed exhausting. I'm curious to see how this turns out, and hoping it is more comfortable. The big question, tho, is the same. Is it still safe?
arstechnica.com
Wary of Artemis IV timeline, NASA is changing lunar spacesuit design
Requirements are being adjusted to reflect near-term mission needs."
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.livescience.com/archaeology/... - MORE DENISOVAN FOSSILS and artifacts too!! The ghost lineage of early humans that was named after a Siberian cave was at first just a single finger bone. Then came the Harbin skull. And now??
livescience.com
Enigmatic Denisovans lived by cave in what is now China for 100,000 years, rare fossils and handcrafted tools reveal
Anthropologists have discovered the first-ever Denisovan arm bone in a cave in southwest China, which also held thousands of prehistoric animal bones and stone tools.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - This demonstrates the baseline truth about climate change. On this planet, EVERY part of the place is tied to every OTHER part. Monster waves and flooding in SoCal is linked to what's happening on the Tibetan Plateau, t'other side of the planet.
livescience.com
Record-breaking rain in California was caused by abnormally high temperatures on the other side of the world, study finds
Scientists have identified a "climate teleconnection" between the Rocky Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau, where warm spots left a kink in the jet stream that intensifed weather in the western U.S.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
www.livescience.com/animals/squi... - This one is rarely seen in Pacific waters but that may be because it's the deepest-living squid we know of. This one was recorded at a depth of 20,000 feet (3.79 miles) along the Davidson Seamount by MBARI!
livescience.com
Watch the first-ever footage of a rare deep-sea squid in the northeastern Pacific
A rare sighting of a bigfin squid near an underwater mountain off California is the first confirmed live observation of the bizarre animal in the northeastern Pacific, researchers say.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
www.sciencenews.org/article/fibr... - Fibromyalgia has long been a medical mystery, like chronic fatigue syndrome. Now, however, researchers are hot on the trail of the genetics of fibromyalgia. Which, hopefully, will soon lead to effective gene therapies.
sciencenews.org
A massive study unveils the genetic underpinnings of fibromyalgia
The biggest fibromyalgia genetics study yet zeroed in on 26 genetic risk factors for the pain disorder, including one in the Huntington's disease gene.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
www.livescience.com/archaeology/... - Pretty fancy for the Stone Age. The mixture of animals represented by the teeth is also odd... I wonder if they're well enough preserved to allow DNA testing.
livescience.com
Excavation in Poland reveals Stone Age man buried with decapitated heads and a tooth necklace
A Stone Age burial of a man with a toothy necklace and human skulls surprised archaeologists excavating in Poland.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.livescience.com/technology/e... - This sounds like something that would work well in California's Central Valley...
livescience.com
Planting crops in fields of solar panels is more efficient, protects the plants and helps keep workers cool, study finds
A new model simulates the benefits of agrivoltaic farming, in which solar panels and crops share the same land.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - It's a longish read but yes, we absolutely need to focus on these 3 things: food security, climate impacts, and civilizational resilience. The Big Bad will happen, sooner or later, and we aren't ready. Nowhere near it.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.livescience.com/technology/r... - Sounds like the rising price of aviation fuel is not going to be much of a problem for some robots...
livescience.com
Scientists build tiny robots without motors that can fly using sound waves alone
A century-old trick for tuning musical instruments has been repurposed to power robots that fly, float and steer themselves using nothing but sound waves.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.livescience.com/technology/r... - Flying on sound...well, that's one way to avoid the surging price and scarcity of aviation fuel.
livescience.com
Scientists build tiny robots without motors that can fly using sound waves alone
A century-old trick for tuning musical instruments has been repurposed to power robots that fly, float and steer themselves using nothing but sound waves.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.livescience.com/health/neuro... - Okay, I'm all for a fix for either Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. But do we actually know all about what astrocytes do? I don't think so. Could be a bad trade.
livescience.com
Scientists invent a gel that creates neurons from other cells, which could help treat Alzheimer's
Scientists found a way to convert brain cells called astrocytes into neurons. In theory, this could replenish neurons lost in neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's disease.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
issnationallab.org/upward/an-un... - Being an older adult, I found this of particular interest, though how long it will take RFK Jr to try and kill the program I can't say. Soon, I'd guess. Very soon.
issnationallab.org
An Unexpected Space Discovery May Improve Vaccines for Older Adults - ISS National Lab
Share this article
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.space.com/space-explor... - Curiosity is climbing Mt. Sharp. It's a long, slowww process but the rover has now reached an altitude of One Kilometer! That's a first on Mars. Next steps? The other 4 kms between here and the summit!
space.com
Curiosity climbs to new heights on Mars | Space photo of the day for Aug. 28, 2026
Curiosity has now gained a kilometer of elevation on the Red Planet.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
phys.org/news/2026-08... - This little moon has a retrograde orbit around Jupiter and much less albedo than almost all the others...signs of a very different origin?
phys.org
ESA JUICE probe targets dark Jovian moon Kallichore in 2031
Jupiter hosts more than 100 moons, with most attention focused on the four Galilean moons: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. This is primarily due to their active geology, including Io being the most...
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - Unfortunately, this is NOT new. The first report I ran across of a Russian ice breaker bashing through into a polynya AT the North Pole was in 2000.
livescience.com
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Can't help it. I AM excited! This is the first time any kind of detector has picked up something that might really be dark matter and deeply woven into the fabric of the freakin' UNIVERSE! From Quarks to Quasars, Source: "World’s biggest dark matter detector spots a single weird particle." Science
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Canadian engineers have built a flywheel that stabilizes grid frequency in milliseconds...at a wind farm in Alberta. The flywheel rotor spins at supersonic speeds inside a vacuum chamber, storing kinetic energy that can be released almost instantly when grid frequency deviates from normal levels.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
issnationallab.org/case_study/a... - Is there now a genuine fix-it for macular degeneration? Sounds like it's on the way, and it's all happening on the International Space Station!
issnationallab.org
Advancing an Artificial Retina- ISS National Lab
Microgravity improves production of artificial retina to restore sight to those with blindness from macular degeneration.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
From: Hawaii Volcanoes National Park: · "When looking at this map I can't help but feel very small... one hurricane projected to pass to the South of the Big Island, one to the North, and another one on the way.. busy hurricane season this year." And let's not forget Marie, headed toward SoCal...
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The Culture Collective says: "The United Kingdom just deployed the world's first tidal lagoon energy storage system..." This is not quite true. They haven't built it as yet, but it looks pretty definite at this point.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Australia is floating a wild but practical idea: let a 420 km coastal seawall double as a battery. Not chemical. Water. When solar and wind oversupply the grid, pumps would move seawater using height or pressure differences. When demand rises, that stored head would drive turbines, send power back.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Sounds like progress to me... and I had not realized how large the tidal flow in the Severn is. THE largest is the Bay of Fundy, which has had a tidal power plant operating for several years already.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/08/27/w... - Ima call this a bit of good news, and long overdue. Spent some time in the Balkans working on war crimes investigations, and this guy was one the major figures in all that. His ally/boss was Slobodan Milosevic, who also died in custody in The Hague.
nytimes.com
Ratko Mladic, Murderous ‘Butcher of Bosnia,’ Dies at 83
A general during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, he was convicted in the killing of some 8,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, Europe’s deadliest massacre since World War II.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
www.sciencenews.org/article/stat... - I don't know about you, but I live with a with clowder of fluffy cats, and fibers, and other things that build up static electricity, so I'm curious about it... Zap!! And, yes, sometimes, quite annoyed!
sciencenews.org
Static electricity is a mystery, and scientists are all charged up
Scientists are largely clueless about the origins of static electricity. A quirky group of researchers aims to change that.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
www.sciencenews.org/article/spik... - Well, there you have it. The roots of evolution...no one shape is best even for something as basic as this!
sciencenews.org
Spikes, claws and stingers have no single best shape
A study of 143 piercing tools, from tusks to love darts, finds they trade off piercing ability for durability. And no one shape wins out.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
www.sciencenews.org/article/micr... - Microbes, tardigrades, spores and maybe more... it's not that easy to get the things we send up as totally clean as we might want to. And what happens when exposure to radiation and other factors kick off mutations of various kinds? Useful, or big trouble?
sciencenews.org
Microbes might get freeze-dried on the moon’s south pole
Artemis IV will put people on the moon’s surface for the first time in 50 years. NASA research reveals the microbes that might hitch a ride.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
www.livescience.com/health/heart... - Hadn't heard of this one before, tho I knew about "broken heart" syndrome. Makes sense, I guess, since I've had the pleasure of explaining to my granddaughter that people cry for joyful reasons as well as grief, and that my tears were all about my pride in her.
livescience.com
Diagnostic dilemma: A joyful wedding nearly broke a woman's heart in a rare case of 'happy heart syndrome'
A 65-year-old woman arrived at the ER with textbook signs of a heart attack — but the real trigger turned out to be joy, not a blocked artery.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
www.livescience.com/archaeology/... - Mysterious, yes. At a guess, I'd say it has something to do with yokai and/or some of those volcanoes sitting all over the archipelago. Won't be about anything simple, either. Japanese cultural mores are... complex!
livescience.com
Fire-flame vessel: An exquisitely crafted 4,500-year-old pot from a mysterious culture in Japan
Archaeologists aren't sure why prehistoric people in Japan made these elaborate vessels decorated with flames.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
www.livescience.com/space/space-... - Now, there's a phrase I never thought I'd see in a science article: "Cosmic constipation." Hoo-raw! Let's hear it for the astronauts and the things they put up with in reaching out to and exploring the Big Black!
livescience.com
Scientists finally know why astronauts struggle to poop in space — and reveal a hidden risk of long-haul spaceflight
A new NASA-backed study has pinpointed why astronauts often experience constipation in space and how that might affect their health on long-haul missions to Mars and beyond.
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Pat MacEwen @patmac53.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
www.livescience.com/planet-earth... - Has the Indo-Pacific ever been this warm before? Yes, but not in human history. So those models saying things won't get all that serious before 2100 are bunkum, bought and paid for the likes of the Koch bros. Get ready for a rough ride this winter.
livescience.com
Ocean 'under unprecedented strain' as El Niño helps supercharge warming to record levels
The Copernicus Climate Change Service announced that the daily global sea surface temperature has reached its highest level since records began.
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Reposted by Pat MacEwen
Mike Melton @mikemelton.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
#Birds #BirdPhotography #BirdOfTheDay #ThinPerch Anna's Hummingbird, male, Washington state #hummingbirds
A colorful hummingbird perched on a thorny branch, with an iridescent magenta head and throat and a pale gray-green body.
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