Dave Eaton

Willowleaf lettuce

Doing a distillation. I thought ‘I’ll bet that stuff fluoresces.’ Yup.

It’s the time of year that holiday decorations start making their appearance

My sister found all these flowers on a walk on the greenbelt around our hometown.

One of the best parts of my job is getting to mentor young people. I learn more than they do, no doubt, but I think passing on passion for exploration is imperative.

Well, damn. RIP www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/u...

Sometimes I make little things.

Pink purslane. Also known as Kiss-Me-Quick…

Orange jewelweed, Impatiens capensis.

Japanese clover

Programming small, WiFi-enabled boards to read temperature and communicate with one another, to monitor the temperature of a furnace remotely and broadcast an alert if things get out of spec. There are lots of commercial ways, but this is fun, inexpensive, and educational for our students.

Field madder. I love little flowers.

Making deep eutectic solvents. You put two solids together and get a liquid. They enable all sorts of weird chemistry; lately I’ve been using them to dissolve biomass and also to plate out aluminum, doing research on batteries.

My lovely wife makes a lot of kidney stones. Here’s a screen pic of a recent one. I have the luxury of immediate access to an SEM, and have followed hers for about a decade.

I hope everyone is having a good day in spite of everything. That’s my approach. I’m not going to be quiet, and not going to go along. But I’m not going to let them disturb my chi.

I’m slowly coming back to social media life here. X is a portal to look into hell, and Facebook is a constant reminder that people I grew up with don’t understand how anything works. Not politics, not science, not arithmetic, not economics. But I’ll keep an account there to see family pics.

I’m just tired of being rage-mined elsewhere, but I agree.

The narrative shifts are whipsawing Maga. The NOLA attack was Biden immigrant mayhem, then the driver was discovered to be a vet and an American born citizen. Then it became Biden’s fault because Islam, or something.

Occasionally I look in at the bird bin to see what idiocy is circulating. It’s depressing, usually. One of the constants is Musk worship. How much is sincere and how much is manipulation, I don’t know or care to discern. But it inspired me to haul out this. www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

go.bsky.app/8dGMEAJ

I’m a fool for the kiddos. And generally. youtu.be/1Q6vyaWfJ5Q?...

the anger in the country is as palpable as I ever remember it being.

Saturn in 2024 & over the last four years👇🏽 Bcos of Saturn’s axial tilt of ~ 27deg, the view of the rings has been changing from our perspective; they will appear edge-on by March 2025. Equinox follows a little later, in May 2025. #astronomy #astrophotography

@lexetamor.bsky.social is there a ball game tonight or something?

Well, this place must be happening for real. I’m getting lots of pr0nbot followers.

Recall what happened with the FBI when Nixon politicized it by appointing Patrick Gray director. The rank and file leaked, leaked and leaked up to the assistant director (aka Mark Felt/Deep Throat) level. They destroyed Nixon. Trump is inviting big trouble with Kash Patel.

we taught our baby sign language and this was how he signed help

There’s a billboard near my child’s school for an AI service with the phrase “Still hiring humans?” I’m not sure how they expected that to go over with the humans who see it.

I’m noticing a few hiccups on the platform. I’m guessing it’s the influx from the Xodous. No worries. Someone will be getting more server space soon, I imagine.

Pheronym is thrilled to be on one of C&EN's #StartUpsOnOurRadar 2024. @Pheronym protects crops with nematode pheromones and provide climate-smart sustainable solutions to the farmers.

One of the fun things I get to do is teach other science and engineering types to use microcontrollers to take data and control experiments.

I love this idea.

Snakeroot. Pretty, but toxic, and the toxin can eliminate in milk if dairy cows eat it. It’s implicated in the death of Abraham Lincoln’s mother.

I feel like we need to do something.

⚒️Salamander we saw on our cave outing in Rockcastle County. Great day, about 4 hours in the cave. I feel like someone beat me with a hammer. But I feel good.

Of course the first thing I post of geological or paleontological interest I leave off ⚒️

Fossil Sponge found by Enrique Clark in the Drakes Ordovician Formation in Taylorsville Kentucky

“Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” ~ William James Durant, American historian, philosopher, and author 1885-1981 🧪 geology ⚒️

Shit just got real! Chemsky chemistry