iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Minister Kolasek mówi o wzroście finansowania nauki i szkolnictwa wyższego o 2.2 procent w kwotach realnych (5.6 procent w kwotach nominalnych) tak: > Możemy mówić o istotnym impulsie rozwojowym dla całej naszej gospodarki Co za kpina - w takim tempie do poziomu europejskiego dojedziemy za 30 lat.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

It's easy to grasp that maths education is just "brain gym" and using AI to solve maths problems is like lifting weights with a forklift. You can take solace in that it's all a "brain gym" - elite brain drivers are driving around a track, not driving somewhere. STEM gains are only a nice byproduct.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

The "AI solved Navier-Stokes" is such an exaggeration - the paper (which OpenAI might have stolen from a human) describes a particular, exotic, configuration of forces under which fluid velocity blows up.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

What a delightful brain teaser! taketest.xyz/multilang-vo...

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Adding Poland to the Economist's comparison of reading scores shows where we could've been with a more resilient education system. There are a lot of downward pressures on the learning outcomes (covid, privatisation, AI), but we lost 24 points in a decade - more than one year of schooling!

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Sven-Erik Volberg @volberg.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Estonian 🇪🇪 crushes #PISA tests. Best in Europe, 3rd in OECD after JP/SK. Formula for success? Difference between wealthy and less affluent is minimal, everyone gets a good education. Mental health is getting better, and is trending up. Cultural belief that intelligence is not a constant set on birth

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

IgNobel prizes for this year are out! 🇵🇱 snatches an Olfaction Prize for showing that parents love the smell of their infants, but less so of their teenagers. This is a second IgNobel prize going to Wrocław Univeristy after kissing-income inequality research in 2020.

Fig 1. from
Croy, I., Frackowiak, T., Hummel, T. et al. Babies Smell Wonderful to Their Parents, Teenagers Do Not: an Exploratory Questionnaire Study on Children’s Age and Personal Odor Ratings in a Polish Sample. Chem. Percept. 10, 81–87 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12078-017-9230-x
CC BY

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The 'no' result of the Island referendum is truly a shame, but can we please get over repeating 'fishing is important for Iceland' like a stuck record. Breakdown of exports: 🏞️ 37% - TOURISM 🐟 21% - FISHING

Exports breakdown. Elaboration by Iceland Chamber of Commerce.

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

In case you missed it, here's Count Binface's appearance on the BBC this morning.

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Count Binface @countbinface.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

On my way, Clacton.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Our paper on poroelastic effects in espresso brewing is out now in Physics of Fluids. ☕ Inside: computer tomography, hydrodynamics and elasticity modelling, and lots of measurements! doi.org/10.1063/5.03...

Analysis of espresso split into 5 second batches

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Wonderfully interdisciplinary crowd at the "Urban elites, rural margins? Comparative perspectives on urban-rural divisions from post-socialist Europe and Latin America" conference at @uclssees.bsky.social Thanks so much to @pbukowski.bsky.social and Jessie Barton Hronešová for organising!

Salience of urban-rural divide increased with linearisation of the political scene in Poland. PCA results for regionally resolved voting outcomes by powiat in two elections.

modernist architecture of London's Camden during the night

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Now out in CEEJ: with @honoratabogusz.bsky.social we show that hourly wage is an inadequate measure for assessing gender equality in Poland. To understand gender in Eastern Europe you have to step out of the workplace and look at patterns of employment and hours worked. doi.org/10.2478/ceej...

mean hours worked as a function of time since first child.
Future mothers work much longer than control group, dropping below the trend just after having a child. At the same time both future and current fathers work more than the control group.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Yesterday's protest of science and higher education community was an unprecedented show of unity: we've seen professors, labour unions, administrative staff and students together in front of the Parliament for the first time since 1990. Political apathy is over, I hope.

Crowd of protesters carrying banners at the scientist's protest in Warsaw.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 12/05/2026

Had a fantastic time in Rudawy mountains with the Warsaw University Soft Matter group (et al) introducing new people to climbing in my favourite region in Poland. 🧗 (with @honoratabogusz.bsky.social)

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Compare just how AI-pilled your academic community is (based on the data from Nautre survey N=5229). Seeing physicists in third place, not far from computer science, is not a surprise, but it still makes me sad.

Own work based on raw data from the Nautre survey.
See doi:10.1038/d41586-025-01463-8

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

In Poland, whether you are secularised or not determines your voting choices (income much less so). This is either obvious (if you don't remember Poland 25 years ago) or not at all (if you remember JP2-Solidarity synergy). My research based on 25 years of regional data now on socarxiv: osf.io/wud4h

Powiaty colored by PiS vote share (left) and religious marriage share (right). One tile represents about 50 thousand people.

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PIK_climate @pik-potsdam.bsky.social · 08/04/2026

Can YOU transform the global food system by 2050? 🍽️ Step into the shoes of a global food policy coordinator and navigate the complex web of food, climate, and politics. Every decision comes with trade-offs and your popularity determines how far you get. Play now: bodirsky.github.io/FoodSystemTr...

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nilay patel @reckless.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Huge result here - the idea that social platforms can be defective products that cause harm is going to send shockwaves through an industry that has claimed essentially blanket protection from liability by saying everything is speech

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Peter Repetti @monstera999.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

If #Tetris & Guitar Hero made a baby while on an @aba.org birding trip in Costa Rica, ChipNotes! might be what hatches out of the egg. Spectrograms flutter down, birds call in your left or right ear, you tap the match b4 time runs out. Free/open source! chipnotes.app #birding #birdingbyear

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

When the remnants of the oceanic plankton fall to the ocean floor, they collide oftener than previously thought. In our new article we offer a unifying perspective on processes that span 10 orders of magnitude. Now in J Fluid Mechanics doi.org/10.1017/jfm....

doi.org

Bridging advection and diffusion in the encounter dynamics of sedimenting marine snow | Journal of Fluid Mechanics | Cambridge Core

Bridging advection and diffusion in the encounter dynamics of sedimenting marine snow - Volume 1031

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samuel mehr @mehr.nz · 19/03/2026

out now in Science: @loganjames.bsky.social collected pairs of sounds in 16 species where we *know* which sound is more attractive (to that species) he played them to ppl on themusiclab.org, asking, in each pair, which was nicer. humans agreed w other animals doi.org/10.1126/science.aea1202

cOMPaRatiVe cOGNitiONHumans share acousticpreferences with other animalsLogan S. James1,2,3,4* Sarah C. Woolley 1,2, Jon T. Sakata1,2,Courtney B. Hilton5,6, Michael J. Ryan3,4, Samuel A. Mehr5,7,8Many animals produce courtship sounds, and receivers prefersome sounds over others. Shared ancestry and convergentevolution may generate similarities in preference across speciesand underlie Darwin’s conjecture that some animals “havenearly the same taste for the beautiful as we have.” In this study,we show that humans share acoustic preferences with a rangeof animals, that the strength of human preferences correlateswith that in other animals, and that humans respond fasterwhen in agreement with animals. Furthermore, we foundgreatest agreement in preference for adorned, ancestral, andlower-frequency sounds. humans’ music listening experiencewas associated with preferences. These results are consistentwith theories arguing that biases in processing sculpt acousticpreferences, and they confirm Darwin’s century-old hunchabout the conservation of aesthetics in nature

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

The prizes that really deserve watching are coming to Europe 🎉 Unlike the boring Nobels - gravestones cementing mainstream status - the Ig Nobels are a celebration of creativity and whimsy, a barometer of true academic freedom.

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Johann Wadephul @aussenminister.diplo.de · 24/02/2026

4 years of bravery. 4 years of sacrifice. 4 years of unbreakable spirit. 4 years of defending freedom. For us. For you. For #Ukraine. For Europe. We 🇩🇪🇫🇷🇵🇱 stand behind you 🇺🇦 - as long as it takes.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

✨☕️✨ Espresso fresh from our Warsaw lab. As you brew, the coffee puck bends, swells, and dissolves, quietly shaping pressure, flow, and what ends up in your cup. Preprint on arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2512.21528

Figure of an espresso shot collected into many small containers over time, with accompanying graphs below that describe the brewing dynamics.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Is this a program targeted at the people who can afford 9k/year fees but not the 38k/year fees? Without student loans it changes very little for EU citizens and quite a lot for UK citizens. What a lopsided deal :( www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

theguardian.com

UK to rejoin EU’s Erasmus student exchange programme

Exclusive: British students will be able to participate in EU-wide scheme from January 2027, sources say

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

In the December issue of the popular science magazine Delta you can read our article about water pressure inside trees, and why it's related to a XVII cent. debate about quicksilver. (published in Polish, machine translation works ok) deltami.edu.pl/2025/12/drze...

deltami.edu.pl

Drzewo, jakie jest, każdy widzi - Delta

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 26/11/2025

Progressive coalition partner (Lewica) was trying to get ahead of the ruling with legal adjustments (civil partnership), but was shut down by the conservative-agrarian coalition partner (PSL). Now Poland is made to look foolish by the EU - either we legislate under duress or we ignore the ruling.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Tomorrow at 10:15 Colloquium on Complex and Biological Systems in Potsdam, Jan Turczynowicz will present our latest research on marine snow. If you're interested in biophysics, marine systems, or fluid mechanics feel free to join 😊 www.uni-potsdam.de/en/biophysik... @complexityup.bsky.social

uni-potsdam.de

Colloquium on Complex and Biological Systems

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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 07/11/2025

Today we celebrate the birthday of not one, but two amazing women in science! 🤗🎉Marie Skłodowska-Curie (1867), who discovered #radium & #polonium & pioneered #radioactivity, & Lise Meitner (1878), whose brilliance uncovered the physics behind #nuclearfission. Happy birthday, trailblazers! ✨

Black-and-white portrait of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 1903. She is seated in a chair, wearing a dark dress with a light, patterned collar, resting her head on one hand and looking directly at the camera. public domain

Lise Meitner around 1906 in Vienna. She is wearing a long dress and a hat, standing among large plants and looking to the side. public domain

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 29/10/2025

Elon is fundamentally misunderstanding Wikipedia. It's not a dataset, it's a village. Its rules and inhabitants change and this is what makes it resilient. If you'd like a longform version of this argument, start with this article 👉 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

doi.org

Rule Ambiguity, Institutional Clashes, and Population Loss: How Wikipedia Became the Last Good Place on the Internet | American Political Science Review | Cambridge Core

Rule Ambiguity, Institutional Clashes, and Population Loss: How Wikipedia Became the Last Good Place on the Internet - Volume 118 Issue 1

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Happy to present our work on motherhood penalties at the Humboldt Award Winners' forum in Bonn :) preprint: doi.org/10.48550/arX... @humboldt-foundation.de @honoratabogusz.bsky.social

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Sander Wagner @sanderwagner.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

New article out in @sociusjournal.bsky.social. It shows how closely linked motherhood penalties 🤰📉 and gender inequalities 👨‍💼💰👩‍💼 are by studying many local labour markets. Thread 👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

We have a new Oberbürgermeisterin in Potsdam! No seat is "a safe seat" when you parachute a candidate and follow it up with a campaign of disrespect. Hopefully SPD will learn something from this 70-to-30 outcome and loss of a office they held for 35 years.

spiegel.de

Potsdam und Frankfurt (Oder): Parteilose gewinnen Oberbürgermeisterämter

35 Jahre lang haben im Potsdamer Rathaus die Sozialdemokraten regiert. Bei der Stichwahl hat sich nun die parteilose Kandidatin Noosha Aubel durchgesetzt. Einen Erfolg gegen die AfD verbuchte die SPD ...

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

Many cool talks at Warsaw Soft Matter Day. Great to see the local community getting together, planting seeds for many more collaborations :)

Photograph of a presentation about marine snow dynamics.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

Nobel prize winner's offline hike with his wife interrupted.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Had a very enjoyable (and productive!) time at a group retreat of @complexityup.bsky.social, especially since it was in the middle of the famous Elbsandstein climbing region.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

Our work "Electrostatic Collapse of Intrinsically Disordered Acid-Rich Protein Is Sensitive to Counterion Valency" which shows how to detect specific protein-cation interactions just got accepted in J. of Physical Chemistry Letters! 🎉 Preprint on biorxiv: doi.org/10.1101/2025... @acs.org

Infographic showing protein interacting differently with monovalent and divalent salts.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Many thanks to Potsdam Graduate School (PoGS) Science Club for organising a networking BBQ with this excellent view of the whole city. 🙂 @unipotsdam.bsky.social

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Max-Planck-Gesellschaft @maxplanck.de · 05/09/2025

On Sunday, 7 September 2025, a total #lunareclipse will take place in the evening hours and can be observed for the most parts of Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Enjoy watching the sky! 🔭😍 (The next total lunar eclipse will not take place until New Year's Eve 2028/29)

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 03/09/2025

What do espresso, marine snow, and disordered proteins have in common? See the connections in our projects and many more at Warsaw Soft Matter Day mini-conference on 10th October! 📢 Speaker registration deadline: this Friday! 👉 sites.google.com/view/warsaw-...

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Starting my Humboldt Fellowship at the University of Potsdam! Excited for new collaborations in @karowiesner.bsky.social group. @humboldt-foundation.de @unipotsdam.bsky.social

Photograph of Potsdam University's physics department.

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Radost Waszkiewicz @radostwaszkiewicz.bsky.social · 22/08/2025

Today I finished my two-month pre-fellowship intensive German course at the B1 level. I'm really grateful that the @humboldt-foundation.de sponsors this! Still so much to learn 🙂

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Honorata Bogusz @honoratabogusz.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

My partner Radost has created fantastic visualizations of yesterday's Polish presidential election results — mapped by both population (~half of Poles live in cities) and territory. Explore all the maps here: radostw.github.io/election_202...

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