Geneviève Doyle

Thank you! I hope it’s getting more pleasant there too.

@tonyburkemp.bsky.social
Please see the events👇
I know it occurred in Victoria
So not on your NSW-radar

🙏can this government start acting fairly
The real problem is▫️supremacy rubbish👇
I'd like to see laws to ban #white.supremacy.bullies Wrecking the safety we feel across 🇦🇺
#auspol
#We.are.Many

Yesterday the NHS banned all under 18 prescriptions of HRT for trans young people.

This ban was justified by 10 new studies that largely stated NO EVIDENCE for under 18s HRT exists.

The study underpinning this played one particular trick.

Let's briefly look at how the NHS rigged the game 1/5

Hope it helps with the depression. Well done on pushing through!

Thank you so much! 🥰 Love to you 🩷

Chris is still watching Spartacus, which I now realise is a show. Not sure if I’m funny or just weird making ‘Sportacus’ jokes. Yes, that dude. 😂 ❤️

I’m still enjoying playing a game on my phone. Got another visitor to permanently stay on my island, lol, and saving up from the cafe for more Boba Tea ingredients ☺️.

I’m still limiting my exposure to news. What I do see is infuriating. All I can hope for is that it becomes obvious that we will need to rebuild society in a way that structures higher ideals at every level.

I initially think ‘not much to say here, population inversion in a novel situation’ (for example), but by the time I explain precursor concepts, there’s a lot written. I still enjoy writing them.

I wrote a science article. I find that bouncing off a recent discovery by researchers helps me get past writing blocks. What happens is funny, mostly in that I get surprised when I shouldn’t.

We’re back to how I liked it in the past, we mostly have the house to ourselves during the day.

Photo of the post author. A woman in her 50’s standing outdoors.

Tuesday, March 10th, 2026

We didn’t even see the scattered showers predicted, although it was only this sunny late in the day. 24°C (75°F) and very little breeze was quite pleasant. I’m enjoying the quiet.

Yes, popping it’s head up to check the scene 😂

Astronomers come up with some good acronyms. The cleverness here is that it also distinguishes it from the Australian counterpart and signifies its South African.

This is an enormous release of light of the exact same wavelength, and so, is incredibly bright.

I write these articles aimed at the general population, so they deliberately avoid advanced terminology and subject-specific jargon. I’m a qualified science educator. 17/17

This temporary ‘lifting up’ of particles to higher energy levels is immediately followed by them jumping back down - and emitting the energy as light. Because most of the particles are jumping back across the same energy level gap, then they create exactly the same ‘colour’ of light. 16/17

The ‘ground state’ of atoms and materials is that the energy levels are populated from the bottom up. 15/17

To get a material to emit laser light, some action must add energy in a way that makes a higher energy level be populated with (usually electrons) particles much more than it usually is. 14/17

The most important aspect of a laser happens due to energy levels in the laser material. ‘Energy levels’ is similar to the idea of shells in atoms, but may look quite different in compounds, where atomic energy levels merge and become material specific energy levels. 13/17

Now, diodes are common. There was a period where gas was the medium. 12/17

This means something external is done to a system that then emits light as a response. The early models had a flash tube around a ruby rod that was mirrored at one end and half-silvered at the other. Since then, newer designs were introduced. 11/17

So how is there a giant laser?
A maser is a subset of laser, just in the non-visible (to us) microwave range.
‘Laser’ is an acronym. ‘Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation’. 10/17

The result is an increased chance of collisions between molecules. At these low temperatures, they still may not chemically react, but the collision energy may be briefly absorbed then emitted as light energy (in this case in the microwave band). 9/17

Like giant (we’re talking millions of solar systems worth of mass) clouds of hydroxyl radicals. 8/17

The discovery by radio astronomers of this giant maser/laser is where there is a merger of galaxies. Galaxies are seen to our eyes as giant star cities. Their gravity also hauls a lot of other material that isn’t visible with them. 7/17

Also they can be spread very thinly and still collectively be a huge mass. This low energy environment means that the molecules are very slow, and rarely collide. They don’t get much chance to react. 6/17

But in space, it’s possible for hydroxyl radicals to exist for very long periods. Away from stars and other sources of heat, space is very cold. Barely a few degrees above absolute zero, about -270°C. 5/17

On Earth, hydroxyl radicals are all over the place, but very briefly, as intermediates in chemical reactions, and as an oxidative ‘scrubber’ in the atmosphere. They are extremely reactive and pretty much react with anything that they collide with. 4/17

Just OH, yes, with unused capacity for bonding. It’s often annotated with a dot to indicate an unpaired electron. 3/17

‘Hydroxyl’ here most likely corresponds to the hydroxyl radical molecule. This is an oxygen atom joined to a hydrogen atom. Not the hydroxyl ion OH- that is common on Earth in water-based solutions and in water as the main measure of alkalinity. 2/17

Hydroxyl Gigamaser in Space

This is a great example of how different the space environment is for chemistry than here on Earth. 1/17