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Patrick Blaser

@paddylaser

climate science, geochemistry, paleoceanography, rare earth elements Marie Curie Fellow @ GEOMAR & Uni Lausanne http://patrick-blaser.github.io

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Latest posts by Patrick Blaser @paddylaser

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A small part of the Brazos river, Texas, USA.

11.03.2026 01:49 👍 35 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 1

Yes, AI prose fails soon after three or four sentences.

And here's an explanation from a computer scientist about why: LLMs smooth out all the concrete texture—the surprising metaphors, the narrative examples—in favor of "semantic ablation," or a bland reversion to the linguistic mean.

10.03.2026 21:04 👍 30 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0
Picture of a possible diogenite: a piece of broken rock, very dark from the inside, light grey from the outside.

Picture of a possible diogenite: a piece of broken rock, very dark from the inside, light grey from the outside.

Eerste goede foto van de meteoriet van gisteren:
First good picture of yesterday's meteorite (found in Koblenz):

09.03.2026 13:40 👍 45 🔁 6 💬 1 📌 1

Historians are quite capable of explaining the hellscape that is the US at this particular minute, and its kind of telling that you imagine we won't because it means you haven't been listening or reading

08.03.2026 16:54 👍 967 🔁 234 💬 25 📌 7
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Meanwhile, Spain's massive investment in renewables is paying dividends now: with prices for Spanish industry and consumers low and stable compared with other European economies.

www.ft.com/content/ac77...

06.03.2026 16:39 👍 1439 🔁 620 💬 23 📌 68

I know that the people who need to read this aren’t here, but here goes:

Rules of engagement aren’t for the enemy. They’re for you. They’re for your soldiers when they’re captured or wounded. They’re for your civilians when they’re in range of the enemy. They’re for your allies, to reassure.

04.03.2026 20:25 👍 4254 🔁 1053 💬 41 📌 46
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U.S. sub sinks Iranian warship off Sri Lanka, killing 87 and expanding war zone A U.S. submarine sank an Iranian warship off the southern coast of Sri Lanka, killing dozens of sailors and dramatically widening Washington's pursuit of the Iranian navy.

A US submarine sinking a lonely, dinky Iranian surface ship an ocean away from the theater of the main conflict—and 9000
miles from North America—makes it pretty clear the US is fighting a general war, without the declaration required by the Constitution. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

04.03.2026 17:40 👍 13503 🔁 4972 💬 543 📌 294
Grid of 12 by 5 small multiple pie charts (with the last row missing the final two charts). It does not do a good job of conveying a trend.

Grid of 12 by 5 small multiple pie charts (with the last row missing the final two charts). It does not do a good job of conveying a trend.

I thought I had found a good use case for some small-multiple pie charts. It turned out, not so much.

03.03.2026 01:01 👍 6 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
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who made this

02.03.2026 14:51 👍 11376 🔁 5192 💬 497 📌 476
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THE DEATH OF US SCIENCE ☠️

01.03.2026 23:57 👍 1763 🔁 698 💬 0 📌 0
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Glob-glob! Absolutely magical sea anemone larva (about 7 mm) from The Lombok Strait, Indonesia 🇮🇩

01.03.2026 13:11 👍 1030 🔁 300 💬 14 📌 21
Oil spills from tankers have fallen by more than 90% since the 1970s.

Stacked bar chart showing annual counts of tanker oil spills from 1970 to 2024, with the vertical axis labeled 0 to 120 spills and the horizontal axis by year. Bars are stacked to show two categories: medium oil spills (7 to 700 tonnes) and large oil spills (greater than 700 tonnes). Only medium and large spills are included; smaller spills are excluded.

Key annotations: a callout at 1974 notes 117 oil spills occurred that year, 27 of them large; a callout at 2024 notes 10 oil spills occurred that year, 5 of them large. Overall the chart shows a sharp peak in the early to mid-1970s, followed by a long-term decline in annual spill counts, with much lower and relatively stable numbers from the 2000s onward and a slight uptick toward 2024.

Data source in the footer: ITOPF (2025); website OurWorldInData.org/oil-spills. License: CC BY.

Oil spills from tankers have fallen by more than 90% since the 1970s. Stacked bar chart showing annual counts of tanker oil spills from 1970 to 2024, with the vertical axis labeled 0 to 120 spills and the horizontal axis by year. Bars are stacked to show two categories: medium oil spills (7 to 700 tonnes) and large oil spills (greater than 700 tonnes). Only medium and large spills are included; smaller spills are excluded. Key annotations: a callout at 1974 notes 117 oil spills occurred that year, 27 of them large; a callout at 2024 notes 10 oil spills occurred that year, 5 of them large. Overall the chart shows a sharp peak in the early to mid-1970s, followed by a long-term decline in annual spill counts, with much lower and relatively stable numbers from the 2000s onward and a slight uptick toward 2024. Data source in the footer: ITOPF (2025); website OurWorldInData.org/oil-spills. License: CC BY.

Oil spills from tankers have fallen by more than 90% since the 1970s—

In the 1970s, oil spills from tankers — container ships transporting oil — were common. Between 70 and 100 spills occurred per year. That’s one or two spills every week.

28.02.2026 20:08 👍 92 🔁 22 💬 1 📌 1
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BREAKING — 51 Iranian children are dead after a strike hits Minab girls elementary school in Iran.

28.02.2026 12:33 👍 3122 🔁 2018 💬 162 📌 744

Nine months ago, the United States "completely and totally obliterated" Iran's nuclear program.

Tonight, we're attacking Iran to disrupt their nuclear program.

A sizable percentage of this country thinks that's normal.

28.02.2026 07:38 👍 13816 🔁 3186 💬 506 📌 137
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“We are falling dangerously behind our competitors.”

ERC President Maria Leptin on the next EU R&I budget:

“Maintaining the Commission proposal is the minimum. Strengthening it would be strategic.”

Listen to the hearing at the European Parliament (9’32’30)
🎥 bit.ly/4scILfc

28.02.2026 12:36 👍 37 🔁 9 💬 0 📌 0
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Six planets due to parade across night sky in rare celestial spectacle Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Neptune and Uranus will all be visible at same time in curved line across sky

Or we can keep staring at our screens.

27.02.2026 17:56 👍 92 🔁 26 💬 5 📌 3
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How to see six planets in the sky at once in rare celestial alignment Nearly all of the solar system’s planets are about to file across the night sky in a planetary alignment, and it will be visible from anywhere on Earth

www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

27.02.2026 22:07 👍 2511 🔁 745 💬 73 📌 60

Warner Bros. und damit auch CNN, der letzte große unabhängige Nachrichten-TV-Sender in den USA, geht an Paramount und damit an die Ellisons, Trump-Buddies und aktuell große Profiteure des KI-Investment-Wahns. Das ist nicht gut.

27.02.2026 06:37 👍 275 🔁 89 💬 14 📌 2

I had a really positive impression of Glasgow. Before visiting, I dreaded the weather. But you can dress for it. The cycle infrastructure wasn’t bad, the people are nice and the food was good. There’s a sense that the city was once great, hit a rough patch, and is on its way back. Would visit again.

27.02.2026 16:46 👍 191 🔁 8 💬 14 📌 0
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KI-Technologie: Anthropic widersetzt sich Forderung von US-Verteidigungsministerium US-Verteidigungsminister Hegseth will Anthropic ohne jede Sicherheitsvorkehrung militärisch nutzen, auch Überwachung von US-Bürgern wäre möglich. Die Firma lehnt das ab.

Das ist bemerkenswert: Anthropic weigert sich, seine KI-Software (u.a. Claude) soweit zu entsichern, dass man damit autonome Kampfsysteme steuern könnte. Damit verzichtet das Unternehmen bewusst auf Milliardenaufträge vom US-Militär, anders als Google, xAi und OpenAI. www.zeit.de/politik/ausl...

27.02.2026 08:55 👍 346 🔁 69 💬 12 📌 2
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So the Telegraph is taking this well

27.02.2026 07:06 👍 5950 🔁 1111 💬 411 📌 289

Exciting #scicomm news tomorrow at 1000 UK time! 😃

25.02.2026 18:19 👍 102 🔁 11 💬 7 📌 1
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Hitler’s Greenland Obsession After creating an economic mess with ill-advised tariffs, Hitler looked north in pursuit of resources and national security.

"Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental"

Hitler’s Greenland Obsession
After creating an economic mess with ill-advised tariffs, Hitler looked north in pursuit of resources and national security.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

26.02.2026 06:28 👍 64 🔁 24 💬 3 📌 0

Saw them in a ‚Premier‘ supermarket near the main station (Renfield str), but maybe they have stores closer to the conference too

24.02.2026 08:51 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Yeah agreed. New saying: 'That's waaay better than a finger in the eye.'

24.02.2026 00:41 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Bild: Ein Mitglied von Aera Tiret (links), in der Mitte Thomas Laschyk von Volksverpetzer, rechts Edeka-Wollny Besitzer, der Thomas 1500€ überreicht in seinem Laden.

Bild: Ein Mitglied von Aera Tiret (links), in der Mitte Thomas Laschyk von Volksverpetzer, rechts Edeka-Wollny Besitzer, der Thomas 1500€ überreicht in seinem Laden.

Der Edeka Wollny in Friedberg bei Augsburg, gegen den NIUS derzeit hetzt, weil sie Fck-AfD-Tassen verkaufen, hat auch schon mal ein Benefiz-Konzert für Volksverpetzer veranstaltet. Der Laden freut sich gerade extrem über die unfreiwillige Werbung durch die Rechtsradikalen – und eure lieben Worte.

23.02.2026 09:59 👍 2889 🔁 683 💬 59 📌 28

4 Jahre =48 Monate =208 Wochen= 1460 Tage = 35040 Stunden=2012400 Minuten= 126144000 Sekunden.

🇺🇦

24.02.2026 07:19 👍 1134 🔁 250 💬 45 📌 4

Konservative Politik bedeutet heute den Vorschlag einer Zuckersteuer wegen „grüner Bevormundungspolitik“ abzulehnen und morgen zu fordern, dass Zahnarztbesuche künftig nicht mehr von der Kasse bezahlt werden sollen, damit die Kosten für das Gesundheitssystem nicht weiter steigen🤦‍♂️

24.02.2026 07:56 👍 1017 🔁 302 💬 28 📌 10

A reminder to those at #OSM26, there's an oceanography feed where your stuff could be seen by thousands, even if you have only one follower. Join, pin, like, post, enjoy.

23.02.2026 20:05 👍 41 🔁 10 💬 0 📌 0

If you're at #OSM26, this town hall is today. Come hear Brandon Jones (President of @agu.org), Margaret Leinen (Director Emeritus of @scrippsocean.bsky.social), Mike Sieracki (Director of Horn Point Lab), Sabrina Speich (Professor at ENS), and Steve Rocliffe (Senior Technical Advisor of ORCA).

23.02.2026 07:58 👍 51 🔁 12 💬 1 📌 0