Chris Rowan
@allochthonous.bsky.social
I like rocks.
I think and talk about plate tectonics, geological hazards like earthquakes, the history of the Earth system, and how we silly humans can live sustainably on our amazing planet.
I think and talk about plate tectonics, geological hazards like earthquakes, the history of the Earth system, and how we silly humans can live sustainably on our amazing planet.
So the Trump DOE is using a loophole to sidestep the normal regulatory authority for nuclear safety, secretly relaxing their own safety rules, and paying startups to rush-build new reactors. What could possibly go wrong???!!!
www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-…
www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-…
January 31, 2026 at 2:14 PM
So the Trump DOE is using a loophole to sidestep the normal regulatory authority for nuclear safety, secretly relaxing their own safety rules, and paying startups to rush-build new reactors. What could possibly go wrong???!!!
www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-…
www.npr.org/2026/01/28/nx-…
So people are willingly installing something that is not only a huge security risk, but is also free to burn as much computation as it likes - that you have to pay for! - generating fake conversations with other chatbots. Can this stupid bubble just pop already?
AI agents now have their own Reddit-style social network, and it's getting weird fast
Moltbook lets 32,000 AI bots trade jokes, tips, and complaints about humans.
arstechnica.com
January 31, 2026 at 2:11 AM
So people are willingly installing something that is not only a huge security risk, but is also free to burn as much computation as it likes - that you have to pay for! - generating fake conversations with other chatbots. Can this stupid bubble just pop already?
This is spot on. When all you have is a mass and an orbit, “Have you met Venus?” remains the best rebuttal overenthusiastic application of the “Earth-like” label.
Ok since I apparently have a little slice of Bluesky's attention regarding planets right now, allow me to rant a little.
This week's newsletter post is all about talking about exoplanets and why we might not want to call any of them "Earth-like" for a few decades 🧪🔭
This week's newsletter post is all about talking about exoplanets and why we might not want to call any of them "Earth-like" for a few decades 🧪🔭
Maybe don't call exoplanets "Earth-like" until the 2040s
A plea and a note on science communication
www.reviewertoo.com
January 29, 2026 at 9:20 PM
This is spot on. When all you have is a mass and an orbit, “Have you met Venus?” remains the best rebuttal overenthusiastic application of the “Earth-like” label.
⚒️ No less than Charles Lyell himself argued that undersea geologists would be the best geologists - and he was more right than he knew!
This is my first new sticker of 2026! He’s just a lil guy who wants to show you his rock collection ✨❤️
January 29, 2026 at 8:21 PM
⚒️ No less than Charles Lyell himself argued that undersea geologists would be the best geologists - and he was more right than he knew!
“The White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs…has expressed concerns over the strength of the scientific and economic analysis of the proposed repeal”
Climate change is real. Green energy is cheaper. “Nu-uh, because reasons” is not a strong counterargument.
How sad.
Climate change is real. Green energy is cheaper. “Nu-uh, because reasons” is not a strong counterargument.
How sad.
Article updates on the repeal of the endangerment finding for CO2. The administration is worried that their case is not strong enough to withstand legal challenges.
Gift link (courtesy of @donboesch.bsky.social): www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Gift link (courtesy of @donboesch.bsky.social): www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Trump’s biggest climate rollback stalls over fears it will lose in court
Trump officials have delayed finalizing the repeal of the agency’s “endangerment finding” over concerns the proposal is too weak to withstand a court challenge.
www.washingtonpost.com
January 29, 2026 at 6:19 PM
“The White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs…has expressed concerns over the strength of the scientific and economic analysis of the proposed repeal”
Climate change is real. Green energy is cheaper. “Nu-uh, because reasons” is not a strong counterargument.
How sad.
Climate change is real. Green energy is cheaper. “Nu-uh, because reasons” is not a strong counterargument.
How sad.
Reposted by Chris Rowan
More serious thoughts about the sand-drama:
"Sand" is a rare example of a technical geology term where the common perception is close to the geologic definition.
Intro classes (and sci comm) get tricky because we use a lot of familiar words, but with different (or at least more precise) meanings.
"Sand" is a rare example of a technical geology term where the common perception is close to the geologic definition.
Intro classes (and sci comm) get tricky because we use a lot of familiar words, but with different (or at least more precise) meanings.
January 29, 2026 at 3:45 PM
More serious thoughts about the sand-drama:
"Sand" is a rare example of a technical geology term where the common perception is close to the geologic definition.
Intro classes (and sci comm) get tricky because we use a lot of familiar words, but with different (or at least more precise) meanings.
"Sand" is a rare example of a technical geology term where the common perception is close to the geologic definition.
Intro classes (and sci comm) get tricky because we use a lot of familiar words, but with different (or at least more precise) meanings.
The thing that always annoys me is that they do not seem to based on anyone real.
As a gestalt of actual conversations he had with actual constituents, I could maybe see the (still weird!) logic. But instead, “the Baileys” are just a way for Chuck Schumer to launder his own preconceptions.
As a gestalt of actual conversations he had with actual constituents, I could maybe see the (still weird!) logic. But instead, “the Baileys” are just a way for Chuck Schumer to launder his own preconceptions.
The more I think about Chuck Schumer & the Baileys, the more indignant I become on behalf of this wholly imaginary couple. How dare Schumer assume the Baileys are solely self-interested, unengaged with any politics outside the purely economic, & are unwilling to stand up on behalf of the vulnerable?
January 29, 2026 at 5:18 PM
The thing that always annoys me is that they do not seem to based on anyone real.
As a gestalt of actual conversations he had with actual constituents, I could maybe see the (still weird!) logic. But instead, “the Baileys” are just a way for Chuck Schumer to launder his own preconceptions.
As a gestalt of actual conversations he had with actual constituents, I could maybe see the (still weird!) logic. But instead, “the Baileys” are just a way for Chuck Schumer to launder his own preconceptions.
Juno Mission Spots Most Powerful Volcanic Activity on Io to Date - a hotspot larger than Lake Superior in infrared, with a blurry visible light image of what could be lava flows.
NASA Juno Mission Spots Most Powerful Volcanic Activity on Io to Date - NASA
Even by the standards of Io, the most volcanic celestial body in the solar system, recent events observed on the Jovian moon are extreme.
www.nasa.gov
January 29, 2026 at 2:35 PM
Juno Mission Spots Most Powerful Volcanic Activity on Io to Date - a hotspot larger than Lake Superior in infrared, with a blurry visible light image of what could be lava flows.
Wait. I somehow missed a social media showdown over the definition of sand?
Kit Kat Panda TV Commercial
YouTube video by lewislloydcreative
m.youtube.com
January 29, 2026 at 11:21 AM
Wait. I somehow missed a social media showdown over the definition of sand?
“Particle physics isn’t dead. It’s just hard.” Good reporting on the “stupendously expensive collider yields no new physics” problem, although this nonsense from someone who jumped from particle physics to co-found Anthropic is…just what you’d expect, I guess.
www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-ph…
www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-ph…
January 28, 2026 at 12:14 AM
“Particle physics isn’t dead. It’s just hard.” Good reporting on the “stupendously expensive collider yields no new physics” problem, although this nonsense from someone who jumped from particle physics to co-found Anthropic is…just what you’d expect, I guess.
www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-ph…
www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-ph…
Reposted by Chris Rowan
The 19th century Struve Geodetic Arc is, to me, one of the most extraordinary properties on the World Heritage List. It crosses 10 countries and was used to determine the size and shape of the world. 🧪 🏺 #ContemporaryArchaeology
Struve Geodetic Arc
The Struve Arc is a chain of survey triangulations stretching from Hammerfest in Norway to the Black Sea, through 10 countries and over 2,820 km. These are points of a survey, carried out between 1816...
whc.unesco.org
January 26, 2026 at 12:01 AM
The 19th century Struve Geodetic Arc is, to me, one of the most extraordinary properties on the World Heritage List. It crosses 10 countries and was used to determine the size and shape of the world. 🧪 🏺 #ContemporaryArchaeology
Reposted by Chris Rowan
Temporary lake at Badwater this week, from flash flooding. Death Valley National Park
January 25, 2026 at 7:08 PM
Temporary lake at Badwater this week, from flash flooding. Death Valley National Park
There aren’t many Republican politicians like Phil Scott any more, but there are surely still Republican-leaning *voters* like him, so this a welcome denunciation, and stand on the correct side of the moral event horizon.
Powerful new statement on MN from GOP Vermont Governor Phil Scott (1/3):
“Enough…it’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government. At best, these federal immigration operations ...
“Enough…it’s not acceptable for American citizens to be killed by federal agents for exercising their God-given and constitutional rights to protest their government. At best, these federal immigration operations ...
January 25, 2026 at 4:51 PM
There aren’t many Republican politicians like Phil Scott any more, but there are surely still Republican-leaning *voters* like him, so this a welcome denunciation, and stand on the correct side of the moral event horizon.
Reposted by Chris Rowan
Kīlauea knows the worst is terrible and is trying to make us feel better
January 25, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Kīlauea knows the worst is terrible and is trying to make us feel better
Reposted by Chris Rowan
There would be no ethical use of generative AI even if it weren't *literally* bankrolling the goddamn gestapo and its concentration camps and providing them the ability to generate infinite nazi propaganda slop. But it is also doing that too.
January 25, 2026 at 5:53 AM
There would be no ethical use of generative AI even if it weren't *literally* bankrolling the goddamn gestapo and its concentration camps and providing them the ability to generate infinite nazi propaganda slop. But it is also doing that too.
Finding out that the BBC North American correspondent’s job was 90% copy-pasting takes from the GOP press office was one of the biggest early shocks of my move to the US.
BBC having a totally normal one again, granting respectability and credence to their sworn enemies.
January 25, 2026 at 12:35 PM
Finding out that the BBC North American correspondent’s job was 90% copy-pasting takes from the GOP press office was one of the biggest early shocks of my move to the US.
Reposted by Chris Rowan
This is a pretty neat tool that helps folks prepare and understand what to do if (when) the power goes out.
alexdobrenko.github.io/storm-prep/
#NCwx #SCwx
alexdobrenko.github.io/storm-prep/
#NCwx #SCwx
Power Out? What to Do
alexdobrenko.github.io
January 24, 2026 at 2:10 PM
This is a pretty neat tool that helps folks prepare and understand what to do if (when) the power goes out.
alexdobrenko.github.io/storm-prep/
#NCwx #SCwx
alexdobrenko.github.io/storm-prep/
#NCwx #SCwx
When you dress like a cartoon villain, ‘dealing with’ is very much not a synonym for ‘care for’.
Bovino: "Here in the US Border Patrol, I will say unequivocally that we are experts in dealing with children"
January 23, 2026 at 11:14 PM
When you dress like a cartoon villain, ‘dealing with’ is very much not a synonym for ‘care for’.
⚒️ For a bit more historical context on how crazy the current craziness is…
www.macrotrends.net/datasets/133...
www.macrotrends.net/datasets/133...
January 23, 2026 at 8:26 PM
⚒️ For a bit more historical context on how crazy the current craziness is…
www.macrotrends.net/datasets/133...
www.macrotrends.net/datasets/133...
Sure would have been nice if the Senate had got around to ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention…
(Yes, I know the current administration would have claimed they weren’t bound by it anyway, but it would have at least raised the activation energy a bit)
(Yes, I know the current administration would have claimed they weren’t bound by it anyway, but it would have at least raised the activation energy a bit)
@noaa.gov has finalized a rule to expedite the permit process for deep sea mining, including applications for exploration and extraction beyond U.S. jurisdictional boundaries. 🧪
eos.org/research-and...
eos.org/research-and...
Trump Administration to Speed Up Permitting for Deep Sea Mining, Even Beyond U.S. Boundaries - Eos
NOAA has finalized a rule that will expedite the permit and license application process for deep seabed mining and allow companies to mine beyond U.S. jurisdictional boundaries.
eos.org
January 21, 2026 at 11:17 PM
Sure would have been nice if the Senate had got around to ratifying the Law of the Sea Convention…
(Yes, I know the current administration would have claimed they weren’t bound by it anyway, but it would have at least raised the activation energy a bit)
(Yes, I know the current administration would have claimed they weren’t bound by it anyway, but it would have at least raised the activation energy a bit)
🧪⚒️ “the first giant organisms on the Earth’s surface were not closely related to anything alive today.”
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Our paper on the mysterious Devonian organism Prototaxites has now finally been published! See the paper here (www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...) and our explainer thread below!
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage
Prototaxites reconstruction by Matt Humpage
January 21, 2026 at 11:11 PM
🧪⚒️ “the first giant organisms on the Earth’s surface were not closely related to anything alive today.”
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Read this whole thread which explains everything wonderfully.
Makes you wonder how many other weird and wonderful lineages have been culled over the long grind of Earth’s geologic history…
Reposted by Chris Rowan
Definitely worth poking your head into the report, which is much less about current or ongoing threats (like data centres, which understandably aren't a focus in this context) and more about the massive irreversible failures we should be learning to avoid
collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10...
collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10...
January 21, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Definitely worth poking your head into the report, which is much less about current or ongoing threats (like data centres, which understandably aren't a focus in this context) and more about the massive irreversible failures we should be learning to avoid
collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10...
collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:10...
Reposted by Chris Rowan
🧪🏺 WOWWWW
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi - Nature
A hand stencil painted on a cave wall on a small island off the coast of Sulawesi more than 67,800 years ago suggests a very early occupation of Wallacea.
www.nature.com
January 21, 2026 at 7:07 PM
🧪🏺 WOWWWW
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
New dates in SE Asia for rock paintings - major implications:
- nature of early aesthetics, innovations
- relationship to oldest known Australian settlement?
- and (IMO) impacts claims that cave art in Europe >50 Ka is necessarily work of #Neanderthals
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Chris Rowan
This really has been lost in all the discourse about alliance relations: Trump wants to annex a place inhabited by Indigenous peoples.
In that sense, his threats very much align with classic American Manifest Destiny and all those white nationalist settler memes shared by the Trump regime.
In that sense, his threats very much align with classic American Manifest Destiny and all those white nationalist settler memes shared by the Trump regime.
I’m guessing some assume that because Iceland is populated by blonde Nordic people that Greenland is the same, and please, I beg of you, spend like 5 minutes reading about what indigenous Greenlanders think of all this insanity:
January 21, 2026 at 5:16 PM
This really has been lost in all the discourse about alliance relations: Trump wants to annex a place inhabited by Indigenous peoples.
In that sense, his threats very much align with classic American Manifest Destiny and all those white nationalist settler memes shared by the Trump regime.
In that sense, his threats very much align with classic American Manifest Destiny and all those white nationalist settler memes shared by the Trump regime.
“We added together imaginary numbers 1000 times” does not a simulation make.
Brooke Rollins is still at it!
"We had run almost 1,000 simulations, and between $3 and $4 is a fair number if you can have access to that food. I just saw new numbers that were run: a full day, meaning 3 full square meals and a snack, is about $15.64."
"We had run almost 1,000 simulations, and between $3 and $4 is a fair number if you can have access to that food. I just saw new numbers that were run: a full day, meaning 3 full square meals and a snack, is about $15.64."
January 20, 2026 at 6:33 PM
“We added together imaginary numbers 1000 times” does not a simulation make.