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bookswain.bsky.social
@bookswain.bsky.social
360 followers 930 following 1.1K posts
Starting over, again. Science, history, books, etc.
I share books and other items I collect, one of my hobbies. I was a Jedi once, like my father before me.
All posts protected by the 1st Amendment.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted
echinoblog.bsky.social
For my #AmericanUniversity students who wanted to learn about some cool squids? the one I spoke of today was called MAGNAPINNA! and there's a whole YT channel devoted to it! But here ya go! youtu.be/aOhxex9rcBs?...
Magnapinna Squid High Quality Close Up | New Footage April 2023 - Magnapinna Archive
YouTube video by Magnapinna Archive
youtu.be
February 14, 2026 at 1:16 AM
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xercessociety.bsky.social
Join us to learn about soils, the bugs that live there, & practices to support these important animals! This course is for conservation & agriculture professionals in the Southeast, but everyone is welcome!
🗓️Feb 18 at 6am PT / 9am ET
🔗Register for this free event: us06web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
“Farming with Soil Life Virtual Short Course: Southeast Region” Up close with a, very tiny, bright orange springtail walking on the surface of a fallen leaf.
February 11, 2026 at 10:25 PM
bookswain.bsky.social
Most of our ancestors were a single cell
bookswain.bsky.social bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 2d
i.e. ‘Older persons’ have been out of touch since the beginning of our big-brained species that evolved some 300,000 years ago.
bookswain.bsky.social bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 2d
Groovy. I dig this post, it’s outta sight.
February 14, 2026 at 3:59 AM
bookswain.bsky.social
i.e. ‘Older persons’ have been out of touch since the beginning of our big-brained species that evolved some 300,000 years ago.
bookswain.bsky.social bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · 2d
Groovy. I dig this post, it’s outta sight.
February 14, 2026 at 3:57 AM
bookswain.bsky.social
Groovy. I dig this post, it’s outta sight.
‘R. Crumb's famous "Keep on Truckin'" illustration, one of many pieces by the artist on display at the Contemporary Art Galleries (courtesy of Dale AJ Rose)’ Image and text via UConn.edu
February 14, 2026 at 3:54 AM
Reposted
dieworkwear.bsky.social
if you're an older person who finds words like mogg and maxxing annoying, just starting using them. people over the age of 30 have the superpower to end trends by simply adopting them
February 14, 2026 at 1:50 AM
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tuatha.ie
Early Cross Slab • Clonmacnoise • Offaly • 7th—9th century

There are over 700 examples of cross slabs known to have associations with Clonmacnoise, making it the largest assemblage known from either Ireland or Britain.

#Ireland #SpéirGhorm
A cross slab on display at the Clonmacnoise Visitor Centre. A cross has been carved into the sandstone, with an inscription in insular Irish script.
February 13, 2026 at 8:19 PM
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saimihanma.bsky.social
It's almost Valentine's Day, so let's hear what bugs you love the best. Bonus points if they're red, pink or heart shaped. Extra credit if you tell us in a poem.

Here's one of my favs, the Cardinal Meadowhawk, a common species in the Pacific Northwest and always glorious to see.
An all red dragonfly perched in a stem, facing the camera with big red eyes
February 14, 2026 at 2:16 AM
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bookswain.bsky.social
Two books in my personal library somewhat related to your thread: my copy of Photographic Investigations of Faint Nebulae by Edwin Hubble, his PhD dissertation, published in 1920, and the first French edition of Mary Sommerville’s On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences published in 1837.
A photo of the two books mentioned in the post lying on a table. Sommerville’s book is opened to the title page and there’s an illustration of “Nebuleuses” on the frontispiece.
October 6, 2025 at 4:45 PM
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georgethebaker.bsky.social
turning a simple parlor trick into a rigorous study of combinatorial geometry and graph theory.

I’m here for this 🙌🫶
motivickyle.bsky.social χle Ormsby @motivickyle.bsky.social · 3d
Work tasks today included thinking about a magic trick and Catalan numbers at the same time — living the dream!
First page of 'Paperclip graphs', available at https://mathweb.ucsd.edu/~ronspubs/pre_paperclip.pdf. Figure 1 depicts a magic trick that starts by "Putting two paperclips on a strip of paper shaped as an S curve." Figure 4: From a strip with paperclips to sets of nonintersecting arcs. (a) Strip with paperclips. (b) Starting to pull apart. (c) Making the strip taut. Figure 5: Going from a set of arcs to a strip with paperclips. Figure 6: Circular representation for arc configurations.
February 12, 2026 at 11:47 PM
bookswain.bsky.social
Personally, I’m all for it 👍
Photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt, taken on V-J Day, 1945 (from Life Magazine). Image and description via Wikipedia. Full description link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-J_Day_in_Times_Square#
February 13, 2026 at 2:53 AM
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fakehistoryhunter.net
I am against people showing affection in public, but well, this is such a lovely photo, I'll allow it just this once.

Le baiser blotto, 1950.
By Robert Doisneau, 1912–1994
February 13, 2026 at 12:15 AM
Reposted
karlgalle.bsky.social
Separately, if anyone's interested in a history of censorship that includes several centuries before the Inquisition really picked up steam, I recently finished reading this one and it's quite good: bookshop.org/p/books/defi... #MedievalSky #HistSTM
My copy of Neil Tarrant's book, "Defining Nature's Limits: The Roman Inquisition and the Boundaries of Science."
February 13, 2026 at 12:42 AM
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zacklabe.com
Trends in February #Arctic sea ice concentration from 1979 to 2025... The largest declines are found in the marginal ice zone (e.g., Barents Sea (Atlantic sector)).

Sea ice concentration = fraction of ice-cover. For more information: doi.org/10.1175/BAMS...
Polar stereographic map showing trends in February Arctic sea ice concentration over the 1979 to 2025 period. Decreasing trends are found around the outer perimeter of the Arctic, and there are no areas of increasing sea ice. The data is from the NOAA/NSIDC CDRv6 record.
February 13, 2026 at 1:01 AM
Reposted
press.aas.org
The University of Hong Kong: A Possible First-Ever Einstein Probe Observation of a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf www.hku.hk/press/press-...
HKU Astrophysicists Contribute to Interpreting a Possible First-Ever Einstein Probe Observation of a Black Hole Tearing Apart a White Dwarf - Press Releases - Media - HKU
Figure 1. Artist's impression of the Einstein Probe satellite catching an intermediate black hole, tearing apart a white dwarf, and producing a relativistic jet. Image credit: Einstein Probe Scien...
www.hku.hk
February 11, 2026 at 4:04 AM
bookswain.bsky.social
Global warming continues to spawn effects.
I’m pretty sure ‘normal’ climate no longer exists.
#climatechange #climatecrisis 🌎
en.afp.com AFP News Agency @en.afp.com · 5d
Dwindling snow threatens Greenland's dogsled mushers' ancestral way of life.

Snow has become so scarce on Greenland’s east coast that even short dogsled journeys now break down, making the business of running dogsled tours increasingly economically unviable
February 11, 2026 at 3:56 AM
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en.afp.com
Dwindling snow threatens Greenland's dogsled mushers' ancestral way of life.

Snow has become so scarce on Greenland’s east coast that even short dogsled journeys now break down, making the business of running dogsled tours increasingly economically unviable
February 11, 2026 at 3:46 AM
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artherstory.bsky.social
The National Gallery of Art Acquires 17th-Century Masterpiece by Baroque Painter Artemisia Gentileschi
by Christian Thorsberg for @smithsonianmag.bsky.social
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...
The National Gallery of Art Acquires 17th-Century Masterpiece by Baroque Painter Artemisia Gentileschi
"Mary Magdalene in Ecstasy" is the gallery's first work by the Italian artist, who was one of the most influential female painters of her time
www.smithsonianmag.com
February 11, 2026 at 2:05 AM
Reposted
zacklabe.com
I'm tracking the latest monthly-averaged observations of global methane (CH₄; a potent greenhouse gas)...

October 2025 - 1946.47 ppb
October 2024 - 1940.79 ppb

+ Data: gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends_...
+ Why the change in trends? www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Red colored line graph time series of global atmospheric methane abundance from January 1984 through October 2025. Methane abundance is measured in units of parts per billion. Current levels are 1946 ppb. A seasonal cycle is visible on the graph. There is also decadal variability and a long-term increasing trend.
February 11, 2026 at 2:01 AM
bookswain.bsky.social
Reposts of old posts all
I got
February 11, 2026 at 2:48 AM
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bookswain.bsky.social
I went trout fishing late summer (catch and release of course), and along the banks of the creek were stands of goldenrod mixed with the most pungent native mint you can imagine. Goldenrod has a bad rap.
Of course I paused to take some photos.
A photo of an inflorescence of yellow orange goldenrod. A flying insect is hovering over it dipping its proboscis into the flowers while simultaneously doing a good job of pollinating. #BloomSky 🐝
October 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM
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bookswain.bsky.social
Another post for #SciArtSeptember day 30, another engraving after art by Elizabeth Blackwell from Herbarium Blackwellianum.
Asarum virginicum, aka heart-leaf ginger: these plates are completely colored by hand over the bumpy pattern of the laid paper. 🌱
A colored illustration of a heart-leaf ginger plant with its dark roots visible and two heart-shaped green leafs branching above the root stalk. #Botany #ArtHerstory
September 30, 2025 at 11:38 AM
bookswain.bsky.social
#trilobitetuesday
bookswain.bsky.social bookswain.bsky.social @bookswain.bsky.social · Sep 26
“Fig. 12. Calymene senaria. This fossil occurs in the shell-beds, F. 3, a, of Wisconsin and Iowa, but the specimen here was obtained in Ohio..”

Plate from my copy of a Geological Survey Report by geologist
David Dale Owen published in 1852.
Ring for scale.
#FossilFriday
A page with several very detailed illustrations of fossilized trilobites from the top view with their anatomy clearly visible.
February 11, 2026 at 2:47 AM
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bookswain.bsky.social
Ponderosa pines are one of my favorite trees because of their prevalence where I grew up and currently live, my mother’s studies in the same area (PhD plant physiology), and a childhood fascination with their puzzle bark.
My 📷
A photo looking upward from the base of a very tall ponderosa pine with its branches at the crest framed against a blue sky.
September 24, 2025 at 3:27 AM
Reposted
bookswain.bsky.social
‘The Temptation of St. Anthony,’ someone who is clearly unfazed and not tempted by pesky demons.

A masterpiece engraving created around 1470–75 by Martin Schongauer.
He was also called Hübsch Martin (pretty Martin) during his lifetime. The two decades younger Albrecht Dürer collected his art.
An engraving depicting “grotesque demons swarm around Saint Anthony the Great, bursting with movement and energy as the saint calmly resists their temptations or blows. St. Anthony is shown with some of his signature attributes, dressed in a monk's religious habit and cowl, carrying a staff with a tau-shaped handle and his bound girdle book hanging from his belt. The literary source from which this image derives is debated. The image could depict chapter 65 from Athanasius's Life of St. Anthony, where the hermit has a vision of himself floating through the air and undefined beings prevent him from ascending back to reality, or it could show the ninth chapter of Athanasius's Life of St. Anthony, where St. Anthony is attacked by the devil in the form of animals and beasts in the Egyptian desert and is levitated in the air by his practice of rigorous asceticism.” Description via Wikipedia, image I the public domain. #art #arthistory
November 22, 2025 at 9:52 PM