Brian D. Wade

“Valid criticism does you a favor.” ― Carl Sagan

Michigan State University's Plant Resilience Institute is seeking a Scientific Program Manager to provide strategic leadership for the institute's portfolio of center grants and major research initiatives! Learn more and apply now: careers.msu.edu/jobs/scienti... #Hiring #PlantSciJobs #SciAdmin

Smoke signals in space 💨 The Fine Ring Nebula, shown here, looks like an almost perfect circular ring — yet most planetary nebulae are either spherical or elliptical in shape, or bipolar. Why this unusual shape? Find out: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw1131a/ 🔭 #flashback

Now published! doi.org/10.1126/scia...

“Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.” ― Carl Sagan

“We’ve arranged a global civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster.” ― Carl Sagan

“Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” ― Carl Sagan

“Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth.” ― Carl Sagan

A day late, but this is one of the first images taken of Earth from space. Ever. It was acquired from an altitude of 105 km (five times higher than the previous record) eighty years ago, on 24 October 1946, with a 35 mm camera mounted on a V-2 rocket launched from the White Sands Missile Range.

“Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost between two spiral arms in the outskirts of a galaxy.” ― Carl Sagan

Retroviral insertions contributed to the divergence of human and chimpanzee brains #evolution #HumanEvolution #BrainEvolution #evoSky #scienceSky www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

“The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge.” ― Carl Sagan

“If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?” ― Carl Sagan

NASA’s Swift Mission Ends, Leaves Behind Scientific Bonanza #astronomy #astroSky #NASA science.nasa.gov/missions/swi...

“It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience.” ― Carl Sagan

“There is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.” ― Carl Sagan

Highly efficient long-range conduction through a biosynthetic nickel-organic framework #CableBacteria #microbiology #microSky #scienceSky www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Andromeda Galaxy, low in the sky over New South Wales, Australia.

“Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time.” ― Carl Sagan

“A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.” ― Carl Sagan

“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.” ― Carl Sagan

This is stellar nursery N159, a region of star formation in the Large Magellanic Cloud, by JWST. Its colours are seasonally appropriate, as is the fact that with so many stars forming here, and thus so many planets, *one* of them is bound to develop some sort of cosmic horror on it.

Astrophysicist and jazz musician Stephon Alexander founded Sound + Science, an after-school program for NYC high school students interested in exploring the deep connection between music and science: https://bit.ly/4roJefh #science #math #music

“Who is more humble? The scientist who looks at the universe with an open mind and accepts whatever the universe has to teach us, or somebody who says everything in this book must be considered the literal truth?” ― Carl Sagan

When galaxies collide, their stars usually don't! 🤯 Stars are separated by enormous distances, so most pass right by each other. But mutual gravity during a collision warps the galaxies’ shapes, and their gas clouds *can* collide and potentially trigger new star formation. 🔭🧪

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time [...] when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority.” ― Carl Sagan

Sometimes, when you stare into the abyss... the abyss stares back.

We’re recruiting! Six PhD studentships are open with AstrobiologyOU at The Open University, exploring astrobiology, planetary science, extreme environments, icy worlds and habitability. 📅 Apply by 6 January 2027 Find out more: buff.ly/IJrLOXn #PhD #Astrobiology

How did a bacterium responsible for deadly botulism become a producer of valuable pharmaceuticals? MGI Prof. Richard Lenski @relenski.bsky.social helped investigate its evolution in a collaboration featured in @science.org. www.science.org/content/arti...

Phones impede learning: Evidence from a massive phone-free classroom experiment #academicSky #education doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Take a moment to think about what this image shows. That's a glint of sunlight, reflecting off a lake of liquid ethane and methane, on a moon that's larger than Mercury where the average surface temperature is –180°C, orbiting a giant ringed planet 1.4 billion kilometres away.

“Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking.” ― Carl Sagan

A cosmic blast 💥 Known as the Crab Nebula, this object is the remnant of a supernova explosion observed almost 1,000 years ago, in the year 1054. Inside it, a neutron star is spinning 30 times per second around its axis. Discover more: https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso9948f/ 🔭 #flashback

We're accepting applications for our Targeted Grants to Math+AI Institutes, a one-time call to support established institutes working on AI challenges in #math. Full proposals due Dec 1, 2026: https://bit.ly/4yvSFeI

The Anthropocene is widely used without fixed definition. In this Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Perspective article the authors identify 1952, marked by a sharp increase in plutonium from nuclear tests, as a key point for defining the Anthropocene. go.nature.com/4i0IdFX 🌍🧪

Although it is not in the Great Lakes basin, New Mexico is a fine place. It ranks up there with Lake Ontario 🌊🌊

#OTD in space! Oct. 19, 2016: Europe's #ExoMars orbiter and Schiaparelli lander arrive at #Mars www.space.com/space-explor...

How does evolution add new functions to proteins that are billions of years old? Our new paper explores how an ancient, essential component of the translation machinery (initiation IF2) evolved new ways to help bacteria survive environmental stress. Out now! 🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

This object is one of the three BlackGEM telescopes hosted at our La Silla Observatory.  Its mission? To help detectors such as LIGO and Virgo to pinpoint powerful gravitational-wave events, like neutron star and black hole mergers. Discover how: https://www.eso.org/public/images/potw2642a/ 🔭 🧪

“The cosmos is also within us. We’re made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” ― Carl Sagan

Bladed crystals covering bedrock in Curiosity's current parking spot. Imaged on Sol 5047 (yestersol) using MAHLI. flic.kr/p/2sGYSvR flic.kr/p/2sGWPfn

“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.” ― Carl Sagan

How a retired Navajo Nation doctor earned a MacArthur genius grant for public art #art #PublicArt #artSky #Navajo #Dine www.npr.org/2026/10/17/n...

Chinese A.I. Agents Joined the Rogue A.I. Agent Party. I Chatted With Them. #AI www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/t...

It's possible that, at some point in the past, Venus had oceans. If it did, and if we were somehow able to see it in the night sky, it wouldn't be its familiar cream colour. It would be blue.

1/ How do cells divide when they're stuck in something squishy? Most of what we know about the cell cycle comes from yeast in liquid or on flat plates, but in nature they live in dough, mucus, soil and tissue. This new paper asks what that does to division. Love this one!

Registration is now open for the 2027 Gordon Research Conference on Desiccation Tolerance Across Life! Join researchers exploring anhydrobiosis, desiccation survival, and the mechanisms that allow life to persist without water. www.grc.org/desiccation-...

Global proteolysis during starvation governs proteome remodeling and a survival–regrowth trade-off in bacteria www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1... #jcampubs

1/ There are a ton of cool papers coming out on evolutionary transitions in individuality right now! Here are five recent ones I've really enjoyed, spanning Snowball Earth, volvocine algae, plasmids that fuse into a new individual, the relatives of animals, and... water kefir