So what is a #Supermoon? Well, the Moon is typically ~¼ million miles away (30 Earths in a row), but thanks to its elliptical orbit, that distance changes. Tonight the Full Moon is 2-Earths closer than normal (221,823 miles away), making it appear ~15% brighter than usual hence #Supermoon! 🔭🧪
Your regular reminder to rinse and give your cavolo nero a little shake before you cook it, in case it’s harbouring one of these
@royentsoc.bsky.social, what is this guy?
A screenshotted part of an article that reads: When 2 Chainz, a rapper, asked to sample “The Old Dope Peddler” in one of his tracks, Mr Lehrer was keen to help. “I grant you motherfuckers permission to do this,” he supposedly answered. “Please give my regards to Mr Chainz, or may I call him 2?”
Was delighted to discover this titbit about Tom Lehrer, the mathematician who put the chemical elements to music:
(Original article here: www.economist.com/prospero/201...)
Two images sit side by side: one shows a TV screen with the word “Netflix” on it with a male viewer in the foreground and a brick wall in the background, while the other shows an advancing Asian elephant with vegetation in the background. Each has the caption: “big, long memory, knows when you’re watching”.
Asian elephants work out we’re paying attention to them by observing how our face and body are oriented: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
#scicomm 🧪
Oh dang. This is an excellent analogy.
A very fat bear standing in a river. He is brown and furry, with a broken jaw which makes his tongue stick out.
Big congratulations to Chunk for taking the crown as this year's #FatBearWeek winner! Today feels like as good a day as any to tell you all about a little trick that bears have to ensure pregnancy takes place during OPTIMAL FATNESS.
I fell hard for diamonds reporting this feature for #Ingenia – did you know they could play a role in destroying forever chemicals, diagnosing infectious diseases, and making our data centres less energy-hungry?
It's all here: www.ingenia.org.uk/articles/not...
#chemsky #materialsscience 🧪
Sometimes your ideas fail, and other times they turn out better than expected! #sciart
Mind blown
Playmobil figure kitted out as prehistoric iceman Ötzi.
#OTD 19 September 1991, walkers in the high Ötztal alps on the Italian border, found a body melting out of the ice. It turned out to be the remains of a c.5200 year old man preserved with all his kit.
Of course, it was essential to replicate him in Playmobil.
1🧵
#PlaymobilÖtzi
#PlaymobilInfestation
Gah, forgot my alt text! Here it is: A photo of two of the Crystal Palace dinosaur statues, with a speech bubbles appearing above each. One speech bubble reads: “Everything is…”, while the other reads: “Awesome!”
This week's newsletter lands in about 5 minutes! This week's edition features:
✂️ A couple of Galileo's severed fingers
📐 That time trigonometry saved farmers' bacon
🌿 The scientific reason why those who like coriander are wrong
Subscribe here: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/subscribe
#science 🧪
If a group of crows is called a murder then a group of bird watchers should be called an investigation.
The only dating advice book published in the invertebrate world is "How to win friends and protect your sperm during mating"
Tips and life hacks:
Give her a tasty protein tubule for snack
Surrender your own flesh to her gaping maw
Do a sexy dance
🧪🦗
I didn't realise that there was a precursor to Powers of Ten, made in Canada and called Cosmic Zoom 🙂
#PhysicsEd
#iTeachPhysics
#Science 🧪
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vgfw...
💫 Who taught us that the calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood were born in stars — and then fought to open observatories to women?
Born #OTD in 1919, Eleanor Margaret Burbidge changed both science and who gets to do it. 🔭🧪 #Astronomy #WomenInScience
A crudely assembled image of an old motor car, which looks like little more than two bicycles with a seat in the middle, upon a background of a rolling German countryside with different trees. In the foreground is an autobahn sign along with another sign that reads “Nope no autobahn yet. Come back in 40+ years. Danke.”
#Onthisday in 1888, Bertha Benz took the first ever long-distance car journey.
She solved snags as they arose, using a hat pin to clear a blockage, and replacing the brake blocks with leather, effectively inventing brake pads.
More here: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/live-from-...
#histsci
Plot that shows a one-in-X chance of an event occuring to someone or the planet over a human lifetime on x-axis and then the one in X chance of a fatality if that event occurs. Several events are plotted such as contracting rabies, influenze, being hit by a car, being attacked by a coyote or elephant, being struck by lighting, carbon monoxide poisinging and the Earth being struck by an impactor greater than 140m in diameter
Hahaha! This preprint! 🔭🧪
Chance of event happening to you or the planet, and if so, chance it will be lethal?
Turns out .... we are more likely to be hit by an impactor 140m and greater than:
- being struck by lightning
- getting killed by elephants and coyotes
arxiv.org/abs/2508.02418
Need to go to bed but can’t tear myself away from this stream, live from 3,623m under the sea.
Watch this research team 🧪 searching for various invertebrates who call the seafloor home: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uL0...
The following text on a purple background: Under what system does mathematics = DX, logic = CLX, and medicine = DCX?
The teaser from last week's newsletter.
Get the answer here: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/neurotic-r...
A delicious piece of #scicomm that just makes me want to go out and learn everything about bats
Crudely assembled image of a magnifying glass hovering over the planet Mars showing a Venetian vista complete with canals and gondolas through the lens
In this week's newsletter, why some astronomers thought there were canals on Mars as late as the 1950s: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/neurotic-r... #histsci #mars
I am sorry to report to all vying for the title, but the "Best Article Subtitle" award for 2025 has been snatched early by Lauren Wolf with their subtitle "Arsenic and old lakes" www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
Photo of a tv. Onscreen a woman holds an axe with a periodic table visible behind.
Buffy is so old there were only 103 named elements, we’re at 118 now.
(Yes I pause every show that has a periodic table to see if its period accurate)
birb of the day
A crudely assembled image of nine flying bees in the foreground, each with a tiny yellow alarm clock hovering over its head, and an out-of-focus New York skyline in the background
In 1955, a researcher flew bees from a lab in Paris to an identical lab in New York to test their sense of time.
Find out what happened when they arrived: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/space-rice...
#histsci #bees #scienceexperiments
A big black slug has eaten its way inside a puffball mushroom.
Found this slug having a good munch on this puffball mushroom yesterday.
🍄🧪
The following text, on a purple background: "A 1969 song soundtracked the first music video shot in space. What is the second word in its title?"
Here’s the brainteaser from last week’s newsletter. It was teamed with the 1930 Times #crossword clue:
Sounds like a curious song (6)
Answer here: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/dog-tv-dri...
White text on a deep purple background, reading: "What vehicle, unveiled in 1976, would have been named "Constitution" if it weren't for a campaign by Star Trek fans?"
Here's a little brainteaser from the newsletter archive.
Find the answer here: kicksfromscience.beehiiv.com/p/cosplaying...
Well this is fun. The Met Office are taking suggestions for new storm names.
Sure would be a shame if we named them BigOil, BP, Equinor, Exxon, and Shell 👀 www.metoffice.gov.uk/forms/name-o...
