Yes exactly!
09.03.2026 23:39
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Yes exactly!
What was #ChemTwitter like…
I mean my absolute favorite thing about this is when you *start* there are folks who won’t work with carbon tet🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I'm not complaining because I'm privileged to do what I do. But yes, this is it. It's constantly funny what a lot of people think authors make. "But you must get a lot of royalties from all those books!" 🤣
My latest: in an interview with @science.org, new NASA administrator Jared Isaacman promises a big uptick in lunar robotic missions, another potential Mars 2028 mission beyond comms, and continued support for earth science observation.
(Sorry astro and helio folks, time went fast.)
Anyway when @stuartcantrill.com has a lot of free time, he should make an epic Eras Tour thread of ChemTwitter’s greatest hits with appropriate Taylor Swift tie-ins
😎
Let’s get physical
My name is Marisa Kabas, and I'm an independent journalist who publishes The Handbasket. I'm reaching out about a matter that involves your team and that continues to trouble me. In June of last year, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and I filed a FOIA lawsuit against the DC Metropolitan Police Department to compel them to release body camera footage from the March 17, 2025 DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace. What followed was months of back and forth with their lawyers, arguing why it was in the public interest to release the un-redacted footage in its entirety. Though tiny segments were handed over, that wasn't enough: We wanted all of it. On February 18, 2026, a DC judge ruled in our favor, and your reporter Mark Segraves sent a kind note of congratulations that day. Then on Monday, March 2nd, the footage was handed over to me and excitedly announced I'd received it and would be reviewing it in the coming days and sharing what I learned. When Segraves emailed me this past Thursday asking for my phone number, I didn't think much of it. But when he called me just before 2pm on Friday to let me know NBC4 Washington would be airing a segment at 5pm, I grew concerned. Segraves said he'd obtained some of the footage via a FOIA request that week after he heard the footage had been released to me. He said he'd credit the work of RCFP and me, but it was little comfort. I asked if he'd known the day before when he emailed me for my number, why didn't he tell me then? He didn't have a good answer for that. He acknowledged all the hard work I'd done getting this footage released. I asked him if he could hold the story until Monday, to which he replied that he's "not just a blogger" (implying that that's all I am, presumably) and that he'd have to check with his editor. I said fine. Nearly an hour later he called back to say his editor refused to hold the story, but that they were happy to interview me via Zoom to add to the package, and I said I would.
What followed was two hours of furiously writing and posting clips of the footage to Youtube so I could get something published before the 5pm broadcast, and in the midst of that, recording a quick Zoom interview with a person who was about to take credit for my work. At 4:59pm ET, The Handbasket published a piece titled "Police body cam footage shows DOGE knew Institute of Peace was private property during raid." Then I tuned into NBC4 Washington via your website to catch the broadcast, and my instinct to rush to get something out first was proven right. "It's a story you're seeing first on News4," your newscast began. "For the first time we're getting an inside look at what happened the day the Trump administration took over the US Institute of Peace. News4 obtained more than four hours of police body camera video from that day." What followed was more than six minutes of clips and commentary from Segraves, but it's not until six minutes and 21 seconds into the piece that he mentions my name (mispronounced though he asked for the correct pronunciation on Zoom), "The Handbasket blog," and the RCFP's foundational role in bringing this footage to light. I was angry, but didn't feel there was much I could do. Then I saw the version NBC4 posted to Instagram and TikTok—the video itself made ZERO mention of the RCFP or my work, only briefly acknowledging it in the written caption on Instagram, and not even bothering to do that on TikTok. An average viewer with no background on the case is lead to believe that this footage was released because of your efforts. When I saw that, I decided I couldn't let this go. It's difficult to explain what it's like to spend nearly a year working on a story only to have another reporter and outlet surreptitiously take credit for it; months of work and personal risk only to have another reporter lying in wait to swoop in. What NBC4 did was immoral, unethical, and to be frank, just truly sucked.
I just sent this email to the news director at NBC4 Washington about the unprofessional and disrespectful way they handled publishing the body camera footage of the DOGE raid on the US Institute of Peace that was obtained via my FOIA lawsuit:
My two main controversial opinions are that Fahrenheit is good and Daylight Savings Time is bad. Feel free to express solidarity in appeals😉
A quote by H. Holden Thorp, Editor-in-chief of Science journals, on a black background. The quote is: "… why curtail a program … that cultivates and grows the number of US graduate students and future researchers?"
"There is perhaps no stronger evidence of the [Trump] administration’s objectives to reduce the quality of the US scientific workforce than its treatment of the [NSF]’s flagship Graduate Research Fellowship Program," writes H. Holden Thorp in a new #ScienceEditorial. https://scim.ag/4d0fi3N
Koalas (Phascolarctos cinereus), such as this mother and 7-month-old joey from Queensland, Australia, embody a genetic paradox. Populations rich in diversity are declining, whereas those with little variation are expanding and rapidly reshuffling their genomes. These findings reveal that diversity alone does not determine resilience. Instead, a population’s fate depends on several evolutionary processes unfolding across generations.
According to a new study of Australia’s koala populations, rapid demographic rebound may be able to restore once-lost genetic variation and drive recombination in ways that re-establish long-term evolutionary potential in previously bottlenecked populations.
Learn more: https://scim.ag/4b6hLaE
My daughter and I reviewed Megan Durnford’s terrific book “Our Plastic Problem: A Call for Global Solutions” in this week’s @science.org
chemsky #chemchat
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
🤣🤣🤣
the first meeting of the shark coterie board
Nearing a decade @science.org, this is a point I should stress more. It's only $25/year to support one of the largest science-focused newsrooms in the world. Independent and nonprofit.
Our organocatalytic stereoselective head-to-tail macrocyclization is now out in @science.org! We use a peptide catalyst to access 12- to 18-membered rings featuring various functionalities with catalyst-controlled stereochemical outcome. #chemsky
NSF leaders have just acknowledged what many scientists have long suspected: Presidential directives to boost AI and quantum have upended its traditional way of doing business. www.science.org/content/arti...
In their Perspective, Ziyang Dong and Changgui Zhao note "Rackl et al. provide a way to synthesize macromolecules without a metal catalyst. The approach avoids toxic metal residues on the reaction product and eliminates reliance on scarce precious metal" www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In @science.org for chemsky this week, @wennemersgroup.bsky.social asymmetrically clasp macrocycles using a peptide catalyst
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
In fact quite credible, but still remarkable
Incredible story and reporting in @quantamagazine.bsky.social
www.quantamagazine.org/the-man-who-...
![4-panel comic. (1) [Person with white hat talking to another person.] PERSON 1 with white hat: As Sherlock Holmes said, When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (2) PERSON 2: What about the possibility that you forgot to eliminate a possibility? Or that you eliminated one incorrectly? Both of those remain, too. (3) PERSON 1: You’re being pedantic. It’s just a general rule for deduction. PERSON 2: But it’s a *bad rule*. (4) PERSON 2: How often have you thought, “I can’t find this thing, and I’ve searched the whole house. The only place I haven’t looked is the car, so it *must* be there.” PERSON 2: ...And then it’s never in the car. PERSON 1: *It’s never in the car!*](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreifiy7vve3vnzcdv2ptjmuvd3twrsyuu2s5tkyvonqzk56mvinoxae@jpeg)
4-panel comic. (1) [Person with white hat talking to another person.] PERSON 1 with white hat: As Sherlock Holmes said, When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. (2) PERSON 2: What about the possibility that you forgot to eliminate a possibility? Or that you eliminated one incorrectly? Both of those remain, too. (3) PERSON 1: You’re being pedantic. It’s just a general rule for deduction. PERSON 2: But it’s a *bad rule*. (4) PERSON 2: How often have you thought, “I can’t find this thing, and I’ve searched the whole house. The only place I haven’t looked is the car, so it *must* be there.” PERSON 2: ...And then it’s never in the car. PERSON 1: *It’s never in the car!*
Eliminating the Impossible
xkcd.com/3210/
😭
@alexchoral.bsky.social is partnering with the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic for two concerts on March 8th at the GW Masonic Memorial. Bernstein! Challenging ruminations on humanity's stewardship of our planet! Fun! Tickets on sale now. Do you remember Icarus?
Also when I typed this the first time, choral was accidentally chiral and I should have left it that way🤣
Why did no one tell me @economist.com ran not just an article, but also a whole editorial, bemoaning the choral tenor shortage!!!
They should come hear @alexchoral.bsky.social 🤣
www.economist.com/leaders/2026...
Suprematism, by Nikolai Suetin, 1920-21, 📸 by @tiltoncreative
Reported in @science.org, lithium pentasilacyclopentadienyl complexes.
These silicon analogues of the cyclopentadienyl ligand have a non-planar 5-membered ring and further characterisation shows evidence of aromaticity.
🔗 CSD Entry EXOMUD: dx.doi.org/10.5517/ccdc...
#FeaturedStructureFriday
