Gabe

Gabe

@gabefitz.bsky.social

Multimedia SciComm @fqxi.org

76 followers171 following8 posts

Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

Super fun logic puzzle!

FQxI@fqxi.org

@high-fae.bsky.social, one of FQxI’s new Foundational Fellows, explains a maths/logic puzzle. 🧪 🎞️ by @gabefitz.bsky.social #maths #puzzle #science

Gabe reposted

FQxI
@fqxi.org

Is science getting less disruptive? On the FQxI podcast in 2023, @davesmaths.bsky.social explained why a truly new idea can take years or even decades to come together, and why that’s a problem when early-career researchers are pushed to publish fast. 🧪 ⚛️

Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

I didn't expect to spend this week reading about Captain Underpants in a Nature dispute!

FQxI@fqxi.org

Are scientific breakthroughs waning? In 2023, a study on the cover of @nature.com said papers had become far less likely to break new ground. Its critics, including @vincentholst.bsky.social and @sylviawenmackers.be, say that decline is largely down to bad data. 🧪

Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

@katiewhitemp.bsky.social @alecluhn.com The answer is more local production, but the article has just told us the UK had its worst-ever harvest this summer and that a wet winter threatens sowing. Local production is what’s exposed.

New Scientist@newscientist.com

Extreme weather could damage harvests worldwide, but the answer is more local food production, not stockpiling, Katie White said in an interview with New Scientist

newscientist.comOur food system is vulnerable to El Niño, warns UK climate minister | New Scientist
Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

I also do find it hard to square “no plans to deploy” solar geoengineering with £57m researching it. Just having it on the table gives fossil fuel firms an excuse to delay cutting emissions. So rather than using stratospheric aerosols briefly while CO₂ comes down, we’d come to depend on them.

Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

SO2 or chalk will only stay up a year or two, so they’d need topping up indefinitely. If that ever stopped, all the warming they’d been masking would return within about a decade, far faster than people or nature can adapt. All the while, they dim the sunlight crops and ecosystems rely on.

Gabe reposted

DESI Survey
@desisurvey.bsky.social

🔭 This timelapse shows DESI scanning the sky from Kitt Peak. Its efficiency enabled completion of the original survey footprint (in red) ahead of schedule. Moving circle shows where DESI points. 47M+ galaxies mapped so far → the largest 3D map of the Universe ever made. Will continue until 2028.

Gabe
@gabefitz.bsky.social

A survey last year (by @nafshordi.bsky.social and others) asked 1,675 physicists what happens to information that falls into a black hole. I went back to a 2012 FQxI.org article on it, and this time it gets an actual photo of a black hole (thanks, ehtelescope.bsky.social).

FQxI@fqxi.org

In 2012 anilananth.bsky.social wrote for us about whether black holes destroy information. The fourth slide shows what a recent 2025 survey of 1,675 people found. Survey via nafshordi.bsky.social. Carousel by @gabefitz.bsky.social

Gabe reposted

MIT Press
@mitpress.bsky.social

"Mazviita Chirimuuta ... wrote an extraordinarily beautiful book... It made me think about how many idealizations [such as the brain as a computer] are super helpful, even if they’re wrong." A kind shout-out for "The Brain Abstracted" from 2026 MacArthur fellow @felipedebrigard.bsky.social.

scientificamerican.comHow the brain uses memory to imagine what might have beenPhilosopher and 2026 MacArthur “genius grant” recipient Felipe De Brigard explains how our brains use imagination to reconstruct the past

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