Brian D. Wade
LightNews LightNews
banner
astrobrian.bsky.social
Brian D. Wade
@astrobrian.bsky.social
1.2K followers 900 following 510 posts
Father, husband, and scientist. Interested in astrobiology, evolution, microbes, and all things space exploration. he/him/his
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
msobol.bsky.social
🚀 Planning to attend #AbSciCon2026 and study the role of metals in life evolution and life elsewhere? Then consider submitting an abstract to our session #20- Transition Metals in Habitability and Biological Evolution. Details below and at this link: agu.confex.com/agu/abscicon...
December 31, 2025 at 10:01 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Photosynthetic acclimation is a key contributor to exponential growth of a desert plant in Death Valley summer
@msupri.bsky.social
@msudoeplantlab.bsky.social
#ClimateChange #ClimateCrisis #plants #photosynthesis

www.cell.com/current-biol...
Photosynthetic acclimation is a key contributor to exponential growth of a desert plant in Death Valley summer
Extreme heat threatens crops, yet some plants thrive. Prado et al. show how Tidestromia oblongifolia acclimates to extreme heat: photosynthetic optima rise, growth accelerates, cells become smaller, a...
www.cell.com
December 29, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
📷 This NASA/ESA #Hubble Space Telescope image shows the N159 star-forming complex in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is the largest of the small galaxies that orbit our Milky Way 🧪🔭

🔗 esahubble.org/images/potw2...
A field filled with stars and covered by clouds of gas and dust. In the centre, a thick column of dark black dust blocks light from stars that light it up from behind. More clouds behind those stars are illuminated in pale colours. Complex, layered filaments of red dust lie to the left and right. Blue, white and gold stars in various sizes can be seen around, within and through the colourful layers of dust.
December 29, 2025 at 9:02 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
setiinstitute.bsky.social
Top #PPOD of 2025 - Number 5: The Jagged Shores of Pluto’s Highlands

This enhanced color view from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft zooms in on the southeastern portion of Pluto's great ice plains, where at lower right the plains border rugged, dark highlands informally named Krun Macula. 🧪 🔭
Surface of Pluto as seen from the New Horizons spacecraft, focused on a portion of icy plain in the upper left diagonal half and a rough, jagged set of reddish-brown jumbled features in the lower right diagonal half.
December 29, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
jcamthrash.bsky.social
The geometry of cooperation: decoding microbial interactions www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #jcampubs
December 29, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
jcamthrash.bsky.social
Discovery of a chemosynthetic community at the serpentinite-hosted seep on the Quaker Seamount, Mariana Forearc www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... #jcampubs
December 29, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
andrealuck.bsky.social
Hey Martians, did I mention we now also have a video of epic Phobos passing over a Martian dust storm near Pavonis Mons? 🌪️🌋🥔

Video & full info: flic.kr/p/2rNN8wk
Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/AndreaLuck CC BY

@esa.int Mars Express HRSC
300 MP Photo quoted below
Easy zoom: easyzoom.com/image/674026
December 27, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
drlimnology.bsky.social
Check out this great piece about snow algae, featuring my collaborators T Hamilton and P Almela! www.npr.org/2025/12/28/n...
Uncovering the mystery of how algae makes snow green, red or orange
Snow isn't always white; algae can make it look green, red, or orange, and scientists are trying to understand how and why these colorful patches appear.
www.npr.org
December 29, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
pbsnews.org
Scientists in Britain say ancient humans may have learned to make fire far earlier than previously believed, after uncovering evidence that deliberate fire-setting took place in what is now eastern England around 400,000 years ago. https://to.pbs.org/3KUcGsH
Humans were making fire 350,000 years earlier than previously thought, study finds
LONDON (AP) — Scientists in Britain say ancient humans may have learned to make fire far earlier than previously believed, after uncovering evidence that deliberate fire-setting took place in what is ...
to.pbs.org
December 28, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
Mars’s mysterious slope streaks aren’t signs of water after all! 🧪🔭

A study using machine learning and decades of orbital data revealed they are the result of dust sliding down steep terrain.

🔗 esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/05/Streaks_on_Mars
Bright and dark streaks covering the slopes of the Olympus Mons aureole, as seen by the Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard the European Space Agency’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter.
December 28, 2025 at 5:06 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Rapid compensatory evolution within a multiprotein complex preserves telomere integrity
#evolution #evoSky

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Rapid compensatory evolution within a multiprotein complex preserves telomere integrity
Intragenomic conflict with selfish genetic elements spurs adaptive changes in subunits of essential multiprotein complexes. Whether and how these adaptive changes disrupt interactions within such comp...
www.science.org
December 28, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
us.theconversation.com
Seventy years ago, Jonas Salk and his team worked in a lab between a morgue and a darkroom to develop the world’s first successful polio vaccine.

A filmmaker who made a documentary on Salk’s work explains why forgetting life before vaccines has real consequences: buff.ly/VYpqOy4
#vaccineswork
The world risks forgetting one of humanity’s greatest triumphs as polio nears global eradication − 70 years after Jonas Salk developed the vaccine in a Pittsburgh lab
Polio may finally be defeated in the next 5 years. Will the world recognize what an extraordinary achievement that is?
buff.ly
December 28, 2025 at 3:24 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
❄️ Our ExoMars TGO spacecraft revealed water frost inside the summit crater of Mount Olympus on Mars. Before this observation, it was thought improbable for frost to exist in this area. 🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/06/Newfound_frost_atop_Olympus_Mons
This rectangular slice of Mars shows the terrain atop Mars’s volcano Olympus Mons. Rippled, uneven, stepped terrain can be seen, with different illuminations. The right-hand side of the image is blue-toned, representing the newly discovered water ice frost.
December 26, 2025 at 11:59 AM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Infrared radiation is an ancient pollination signal
#evolution #EvolutionaryBiology #evoSky #cycads #beetles

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Infrared radiation is an ancient pollination signal
Color and scent are well-known pollinator cues. Some plants also produce heat, but its role remains unclear. Here, we report that plant-generated thermal infrared radiation serves as a pollination sig...
www.science.org
December 27, 2025 at 6:39 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Biomechanics of the mandibular middle ear of the cynodont Thrinaxodon and the evolution of mammal hearing
#evolution #EvolutionaryBiology #evoSky

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
PNAS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...
www.pnas.org
December 27, 2025 at 5:10 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
‘Artificial stupidity’ made AI trading bots spontaneously form cartels when left unsupervised, Wharton study reveals
#AI #StockMarket

finance.yahoo.com/news/artific...
‘Artificial stupidity’ made AI trading bots spontaneously form cartels when left unsupervised, Wharton study reveals
AI bots told to act as trading agents in simulated markets engaged in pervasive collusion, raising new questions about how financial regulators have previously addressed this tech.
finance.yahoo.com
December 27, 2025 at 5:01 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
👀 Our scientists used Gaia's data to craft the most accurate 3D map of star-forming regions in the Milky Way! 🌌 🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Gaia/Fly_through_Gaia_s_3D_map_of_stellar_nurseries
December 27, 2025 at 1:31 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Earth's radio bubble

earthsky.org/space/earths...
Earth’s radio bubble marks how far our signals have traveled
earthsky.org
December 25, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
🌟 Merry Christmas from a newborn star. Earlier this year the NASA/ESA/CSA #Webb Space Telescope took this stunning image of HH30, an edge-on protoplanetary disc. 🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Webb/Webb_investigates_a_dusty_and_dynamic_disc
A close-in image of a protoplanetary disc around a newly formed star. Many different wavelengths of light are combined and represented by separate and various colours. A dark line across the centre is the disc, made of opaque dust: the star is hidden in here and creates a strong glow in the centre. A band going straight up is a jet, while other outflows form flares above and below the disc, and a tail coming off to one side.
December 25, 2025 at 4:26 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
✨This NASA/ESA/CSA #Webb Space Telescope image shows the Westerlund 1 cluster, a group of massive stars located in our galaxy which are nearly as bright as a million Suns each. 🌌🎄🧪🔭

🔗 esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2024/10/The_exotic_stellar_population_of_Westerlund_1
December 24, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
jessethorn.bsky.social
Study of over twenty five million people over almost four years finds that COVID vaccines reduced COVID deaths by 74% and increased all-cause deaths by zero. I don’t know how much clearer it can get than that.

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
COVID-19 mRNA Vaccination and 4-Year All-Cause Mortality Among Adults in France
This cohort study uses the data from all adults aged 18 to 59 years living in France on November 1, 2021, to evaluate whether there is an association of receipt of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine with long-t...
jamanetwork.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
microgem.bsky.social
‼️And to wrap up 2025 at ASM Journals, here is the December issue of #AppliedandEnvironmentalMicrobiology (#AppEnvMicro #AEM).

An outstanding slate of articles to end the year on a high note, starting with our featured articles.

🧵 Thread in the comments ⬇️

doi.org/10.1128/aem....
Articles of Significant Interest in This Issue | Applied and Environmental Microbiology
This minireview by Zannis-Peyrot et al. (e01766-25) discusses the many roles of phytobacterial extracellular vesicles (EVs) in plant-bacterium interactions, from colonization to interkingdom communication.
doi.org
December 23, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
esa.int
🌪️ Our ExoMars TGO spacecraft captured these images of whirlwinds of dust on the Mars surface.

🔗 www.esa.int/Science_Expl...
A colour satellite image of Mars showing a flat, dusty landscape with a faint, swirling dust devil – a small tornado-like column of dust – casting a subtle shadow as it moves across the surface. The dust devil appears as a light, vertical streak against the reddish-brown terrain, with nearby shallow craters and ridges visible
December 22, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Reposted by Brian D. Wade
drlimnology.bsky.social
It's time to apply for PAID summer internships @umflbs.bsky.social ! Note that our internships are open to all and incl field & lab science as well as data science, marketing, environmental law, journalism, & education. Spread the word! attn @umontana.bsky.social

flbs.umt.edu/newflbs/educ...
Three young people standing on a mountain snow field in a picture with text advertising FLBS summer internships for 2026.
December 22, 2025 at 4:55 PM
astrobrian.bsky.social
Only one country in the world produces all the food it needs. Here's why
#FoodSecurity #FoodSustainability

www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth...
Only one country in the world produces all the food it needs. Here's why | BBC Science Focus Magazine
While hundreds of millions around the world face food insecurity, a nation has managed to become the only country that can entirely feed itself. How did Guyana manage it?
www.sciencefocus.com
December 22, 2025 at 12:06 AM