Jon Gertner

www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-g...

This blog post is a bit meta (small m) maybe, I wrote about what I have learned about writing about the Greenland ice sheet mass budget for the @carbonbrief.org with @martinstendel.bsky.social each year ... sternaparadisaea.net/2026/10/27/t...

seems bad www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Tomorrow afternoon (EDT), Japan is set to launch the remarkable MMX mission. It will study Mars's tiny moon Phobos, drop a rover, and bring samples back to Earth. We'll learn a lot: about Mars, the history of the solar system, and about new ways to explore. 🧪🔭 www.mmx.jaxa.jp/en/mission/

I have always liked the word bellwether. It derives from the practice of shepherds hanging a bell around the neck of a wether (a castrated male sheep) to lead and track the flock. The word evolved to be anything that guides or predicts the way forward. When I taught virology, I would

New Horizons is now *three days away* from shutting off its two heliophysics instruments, simply because NASA has not provided the $2M in funding it had promised to the mission last year or this year. There is no science basis for shutting these off. Our earlier coverage:

When Trump launched “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” without ICE facilities to accommodate it, inhumane overcrowding was inevitable. Judge Kaplan’s 9/24 ruling shows the results. Diagrams simulating a NYC holding cell in Aug 2025 look like slave ships. 1/5

Rather unsettling and very close -- detected 2 years after the fact; a once-in-every-132-years event . . . . apnews.com/article/moon... spacecraft discovers a huge new crater on the moon

For decades, berkelium has occupied an unusual place in the periodic table. It is one of the rarest elements on Earth, available only in minute quantities, and has few direct commercial applications. #chemsky 🧪

This was SO much fun. I got to talk to art historians and scientists about science in art! Artists are keen observers of the world, and they may see things others miss. And it was a fab opportunity to dive into beautiful art. www.sciencenews.org/article/hist...

‘This company simply cannot be trusted. Their software is becoming ever more dangerous; their internal security practices leave a lot to be desired; they aren’t being straight with the public; and their proxies are preparing us to swallow the damage...’ garymarcus.substack.com/p/pause-open...

If you want 1.5C, 1.8C, 2C, overshoot, no-overshoot, etc, then they all require the same thing: rapid short-term emission reductions reaching net zero CO2 emissions as soon as possible. This has been clear from the IPCC Special Report on 1.5C, which depicts "overshoot" on its cover! 1/

“Perhaps you might allow Rhyme and Reason to return,” said Milo softly. “How nice that would be,” said Azaz, straightening up and adjusting his crown. “Even if they were a bother at times, things always went so well when they were here.”

#NASARoman is scheduled to launch from from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:26 a.m. ET on Sunday, August 30. Follow along with the launch broadcast and deployment, starting an hour before targeted launch: https://www.spacex.com/launches/roman 🔭 🧪

Hackenburg’s paper is the latest in a string of studies showing the power of AI to sway people. “It’s a whole new field that is emerging,” says @profsanderlinden.bsky.social. “People are very interested in the persuasive powers of AI, I think, both for ethical and unethical reasons”🧪 In @science.org

Years from now, we will look back and say: Why didn't we stop that before things got completely out of hand? www.space.com/space-explor...

The Trump administration has pulled federal funding for the Arctic Report Card. Every year for the past two decades, the report has provided a checkup on the health of the region, which is heating up at several times the pace of the rest of the globe.

"We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now." www.documentcloud.org/documents/28...

File under "Still don't like the look of this" (Posted one week on) climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_dai...

The Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex at Robledo de Chavela municipality in the Community of Madrid, Spain on fire. Burgohondo wildfire. 📷 via Infues Avila

State of the climate: Rapidly developing El Niño raises chance of record-warm 2026 | @zekehausfather.com Read here ➡️ buff.ly/NDJddQS

Guy does not know anything about growing tomatoes, obviously.

Excellent BBC article on the risk of a catastrophic ocean circulation change in the Atlantic. Time to act before it’s too late. #AMOC www.bbc.com/news/article...

This actually rattled me -- most likely a devastating year ahead.

Elon Musk’s cuts to U.S.A.I.D. led to some 700,000 deaths, Atul Gawande says. www.newyorker.com/news/the-new...

“Thwaites is really the biggest player, the biggest wild card in sea level rise in the future. Greenland melting, especially surface melting water running off at the top of the ice sheet into the ocean—another big player.” insideclimatenews.org/news/1107202...

We Didn’t Build the Atomic Bomb This Way www.nytimes.com/2026/07/03/o...

Bethan's Rock is a small grey stone on display at Poole Museum in Poole, England. It was donated to the museum in 2019 by a five-year-old girl named Bethan, and it has since attracted significant attention on social media and become the museum's most famous object. - Wikipedia

Hard to overstate how dramatic this European heatwave is. And then you zoom into other areas around the globe, and you realize there may, just may be something going on that links all these weather extremes around the world. @climatecentral.org's CSI: csi.climatecentral.org/climate-shif...

Shocked not shocked

JFK Terminal 8 last night when Knicks took the lead. (via Renny Gong) #NYC 🏀

Game 3. (via @espn.com)

Top AI executives are joining security experts in calling for Congress to protect against biological threats posed by the technology.

Super important speech here by NYT Publisher AG Sulzberger. Anyone who cares about the role of journalism in our global society-and democracy in the modern world-should read this/reflect on it. AI giants are in the process of wiping out much of the news industry. www.nytco.com/press/a-i-jo...

After seeing the headline "SpaceX IPO: How to Buy and Why You Shouldn't" on @barrons.com, I decided it was time to read the prospectus. I'm only a few pages in and folks... the implications of this document ... Do you want to go on a journey with me? Because I'm about to enter the rabbit hole.

The New York Knicks just played the most dominant 10-game stretch in NBA history, and it's not even remotely close

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

I'm not saying I like how they do this - the pollution alone should get SpaceX fined out of existence - but this part of the test AFAIK went as planned.

Total nonsense:

Based on the prospectus, it would be helpful if the media could start accurately reporting it as the Grok IPO, rather than the SpaceX IPO.

phys.org/news/2026-05... Professor Eloise Marais (UCL Geography) said, "The space industry pollution is like a small-scale, unregulated geoengineering experiment that could have many unintended and serious environmental consequences."

The Trump administration has slashed funding for infectious disease research and has far fewer employees, including disease detectives, to respond to outbreaks. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/h...

Is Pluto a planet? O, let me count the ways in which I do not care. Will we still be able to discover new planets 5 years from now? Right now the magic 8 ball of funding says: Outlook not so good

Love this thread — not too long, and read til you get to Jason’s wisdom at the end.