Katy Huff

Excited to announce Community NEMS, an open-source effort to develop a next-generation successor to EIA's National Energy Modeling System! c-nems.org Why do this? Thread👇 🔌💡

After many months, I finally realized the health app is adaptively moving my weekly cardio target. The audacity.

On a Saturday, about 100 Midwest nuclear engineering students have trekked to @uwmadison.bsky.social to engage with their peers, see research facilities, meet faculty, hear from expert panels, and enjoy our beautiful town. Don't they look brilliant!? What a joy it was to chat with them this morning!

My kid has started a Letterboxd list called Killer Sweaters for films where the killer wears a great sweater and they've asked me to throw it out to Bluesky for more because "that's the kind of thing those weirdos like to do"

I've always thought neutrinos were very cool (as evidenced by my livejournal circa 2000) and accordingly the IceCube Neutrino Observatory developed at UW-Madison & led by Francis Halzen, @uwmadison.bsky.social , quite well named. Congratulations to Prof. Halzen and the whole IceCube team!!

From Physics Today (physicsworld.com/a/francis-ha...): ‘When asked what he will do for the rest of today, Halzen replied “I’m working on a proposal. I hope this prize will help get it approved.”’

Hope your day was better than Darwin’s, on this day 165 years ago

Super interesting article that reveals the extent of what we can know when scientists combine serious nuclear reactor modeling and simulation with a little historic curiosity! Nazi Germany had no hope of making an atomic bomb, uranium cubes reveal | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

Congratulations Backpack!

Russ Vought is Donald Trump's budget director and the most dangerous person you've never heard of. He helped write Project 2025, and he has spent years arguing that a president should be free to ignore spending laws he doesn't like. Now he's doing exactly that.

Delightful coincidence! As I walked the DC streets for meetings today, I ran into none other than NESD, the nuclear Engineering Student Delegation! Good luck with your policy work NESD!

Had fun testifying today at senate EPW regarding used fuel management! www.epw.senate.gov/public/index...

As I assume all nuclear engineers do, I have a longtime favorite photo of Cherenkov radiation. Its creator, Taryn Simon, has a new, wild show in the Guggenheim. This article about her big project is mind-boggling. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/m...

Bye Tim Curry. You made pollution weirdly sexy and confused a lot of millennial kids with that. Sleep well.

Like everyone, I was always inspired by Dolly. Indeed, perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but some core pillars of my personal behavior were formed by the "no-no rules" from a movie about a little place in Texas. Honestly, I could probably quote every word in the VHS. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXHS...

US child vaccination rates have plunged since before the pandemic, with kindergarten classrooms in more than 70% of counties now lacking herd immunity against measles.

This piece very clearly pleads for a ban against AI in higher ed classrooms. But, it ends with a Jonathan Swift reference implying (accidentally?) it may all be satire. Such an approach will surely be received with calm, rational, intellectual engagement by the famously placid readership of T.H.E.

If only AI could fix the audio feedback on this #genesis livestream.

Research at universities, if not grappled by political whims, can do what other institutions can't. For example, independent, modernized impact assessments of federal work: www.nytimes.com/2026/07/10/c.... Congratulations to Prof. S. Philippe at @uwmadisonneep.bsky.social et al. for the effort.

A cute, short, 1964 video on the Advanced Test Reactor (digitized by IAEA's Lise Meitner Library) was just uploaded by @whatisnuclear.com ! It's as clever as all AEC reactor videos, but the star of this one is definitely the music. Eerie, quirky, a real 1960s sci-fi mood. youtu.be/8V0VCCXgSw8?...

Since I did do my PhD in cyanobacteria growth and treatment optimization modeling AND work in the water treatment industry, I’m gonna share my theory as to what’s happening here and how to fix it. People are focusing on the painted bottom of the pool increasing residual heat, and while that 1/19

It's so funny/sad to hear from senior scientists at the end of their career talking about how they regret not spending enough time with their families or on hobbies and then within a few minutes mention the importance of working nights and weekends "to get things done"

Whomever decided this is certainly not aware of the institutional cluster tightness in the network graph of specialized scientific subfields.

Why are so many security questions "Your favorite movie/restaurant/song". First of all, how can you choose? But mostly for me (and I assume every other world-appreciating person) these things are suuuper transient. My favorite song today is mostly out of rotation by next month. Next year, max.

I've reached the age at which an hour must elapse between my morning medicine and my first cup of coffee. On travel days, this creates a narrow but exciting window during which I navigate airports despite being, from a neurological standpoint, only loosely affiliated with consciousness.

Congratulations to Antares for hitting zero power critical yesterday! (www.energy.gov/articles/dep...) This is the first step toward low and high power critical tests. So, it's a great time to review the nice thread from Nick on Low and High Power criticality.

The "shake" too! Manhattan Project lingo was kinda fun.

That means Neanderthal is half-cognate with the term for the buffer between a critical (good, stable) and prompt supercritical (bad, runaway) nuclear reactor! "Dollar" since normal operation is a small % (# of cents) over critical. Slotin, who named it, died in a prompt supercriticality.

dollar and Neanderthal are half-cognates. Thal means a dale or valley. Neanderthal/Neander Valley is where the first remains were found. a popular form of coinage in the 1500s was from Joachimsthal, and were called Joachimsthalers or thalers for short, which became dollars in English.

I like that calculate and calculus come from a word for rock, because even when we're doing advanced maths it's a reminder that our monkey brains were only meant to deal with things like rocks

Big fan of our Welsh word for Hamster - Bochdew, which comes from Boch - cheek and Tew - Fat. Fat cheeks. Perfect. Especially because Hamster itself comes from the German word for 'to hoarde'.

“Vaccinated” is up there for me.

A modern example most nuclear engineers love is the 'barn' as a physical unit of (TINY) cross sectional area (1E-28 sq m). If you're a neutron, this area is huge, and therefore easy to hit, like the broad side of a barn. See related: shed & outhouse. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_(u...

It is really necessary to publish drafts about AI instantly. If you let them sit for two months after getting readers' reports, they become historical documents and you have to revise them from scratch.

What does "going critical" mean? If you shoot a neutron into some uranium ore, some atoms will split by fission, but you haven't made a nuclear reactor. Too many secondary neutrons leak out or get absorbed without splitting neighboring atoms. 1/n

Holy crap.

This home has historic charm as well as some unique renovations ...oh, and a sarcophagus? ...with a landline telephone mounted in it? yeah, ok sure www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

I get more energy questions than I can answer. Should I sign a long-term electricity contract? Do we need tax credits? Starting next week I'm answering your questions on air — every week on @energyempire.bsky.social I want the hard ones. Submit your questions here: octopusenergy.com/ask-jigar

I volunteer to be the astronaut safeguards inspector for space reactors

In case you were wondering, OB/GYNs still don't seem to have access to that fancy suction cup alternative to the tenaculum. You know, the one that's missing the meat hooks. I will not be taking questions at this time. www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/w...