@njjturner.bsky.social
Work is about a lot more than pay. Most of us want autonomy, respect, and to know we’re helping our community and world. Put those values at the top of the agenda with official economic indicators measuring job satisfaction. www.smh.com.au/business/the...
What if people just want better jobs, not more stuff?
What if, instead of pursuing an ever-higher material living standard, governments focused on improving workers’ job satisfaction? A good way to lose votes? I doubt it.
www.smh.com.au
August 17, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Work is about a lot more than pay. Most of us want autonomy, respect, and to know we’re helping our community and world. Put those values at the top of the agenda with official economic indicators measuring job satisfaction. www.smh.com.au/business/the...
You are free to the extent you can make informed decisions. Humans have discovered ways to free each other by providing reliable information: We pool experiences and carry out controlled experiments. These are processes the administration seeks to disrupt. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Scientists’ role in defending democracy
The United States’ democratic leadership, commitment to freedom of expression, and investment in the pursuit of knowledge have long enabled its preeminence in science and technology. Yet today we are ...
www.science.org
August 17, 2025 at 6:00 PM
You are free to the extent you can make informed decisions. Humans have discovered ways to free each other by providing reliable information: We pool experiences and carry out controlled experiments. These are processes the administration seeks to disrupt. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The amount of tiny plastic fragments incorporated into our brains has grown to about a spoon’s worth per person. Are we so sure these materials are inert that we’re willing to let the amount keep climbing and plastics manufacturers keep mixing in new additives? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...
Opinion | You Are Contaminated
www.nytimes.com
August 10, 2025 at 3:36 PM
The amount of tiny plastic fragments incorporated into our brains has grown to about a spoon’s worth per person. Are we so sure these materials are inert that we’re willing to let the amount keep climbing and plastics manufacturers keep mixing in new additives? www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/o...
Steelmaking’s global emissions can be halved & Australia’s export earnings raised a couple hundred billion dollars a year by replacing overseas coal-fired blast furnaces with local, renewable-fired furnaces. www.smh.com.au/environment/...
The PM talked up green steel. But is it even a thing?
Green steel could boost Australia’s export earnings, reduce emissions and hedge against declining coal exports in a cleaner world economy. If a lot of things go right.
www.smh.com.au
July 14, 2025 at 2:07 PM
Steelmaking’s global emissions can be halved & Australia’s export earnings raised a couple hundred billion dollars a year by replacing overseas coal-fired blast furnaces with local, renewable-fired furnaces. www.smh.com.au/environment/...
Our planet’s equatorial cloud belt has narrowed as mid-latitude clouds shifted poleward, leaving the tropical oceans more exposed to the sun’s light so they warm faster. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/15444...
Earth’s Clouds on the Move
Marine storm cloud zones have shifted poleward and narrowed, and the changes are contributing to our planet’s growing energy imbalance.
earthobservatory.nasa.gov
June 27, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Our planet’s equatorial cloud belt has narrowed as mid-latitude clouds shifted poleward, leaving the tropical oceans more exposed to the sun’s light so they warm faster. earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/15444...
When one toxic organic compound is banned, manufacturers just switch to something similar: Carbon combines with other atoms so many ways. Often, the similar molecule is found years later to have similar effects, and banned only after people's health suffers again. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/w...
I’ve Heard Receipts Are Toxic. Is It Safe to Touch Them?
www.nytimes.com
June 26, 2025 at 12:47 AM
When one toxic organic compound is banned, manufacturers just switch to something similar: Carbon combines with other atoms so many ways. Often, the similar molecule is found years later to have similar effects, and banned only after people's health suffers again. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/24/w...
The US space program draws scientists and engineers from around the world who push the final frontier while developing advanced technologies that strengthen the economy. Today’s leaders aim to end all that to cover part of a huge handout to the wealthiest. www.latimes.com/science/stor...
Trump's plan to kill dozens of NASA missions threatens U.S. space supremacy
NASA’s car-sized Perseverance rover has been roaming the surface of Mars for four years, drilling into the alien soil to collect dirt it places in tubes and leaves on the ground.
www.latimes.com
June 25, 2025 at 4:42 AM
The US space program draws scientists and engineers from around the world who push the final frontier while developing advanced technologies that strengthen the economy. Today’s leaders aim to end all that to cover part of a huge handout to the wealthiest. www.latimes.com/science/stor...
Wildfire & flood relief are costing Australia's most populous state $750/year for every household of four, up tenfold since the 2010s. Would another tenfold increase put relief beyond public ability to provide? www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...
Ten-fold increase in NSW relief spending after horror run of natural disasters
Treasurer Daniel Mookhey is optimistic about the state’s finances as he prepares to hand down his third budget, but climate change is predicted to contribute to soaring disaster relief payments.
www.smh.com.au
June 24, 2025 at 5:28 AM
Wildfire & flood relief are costing Australia's most populous state $750/year for every household of four, up tenfold since the 2010s. Would another tenfold increase put relief beyond public ability to provide? www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw...
Public debt should yield long-lasting public benefits like transportation infrastructure, hospitals, or renewable power technologies. Racking up debt to fund consumption or benefit a few amounts to stealing from our future selves. www.smh.com.au/business/the...
The government can print money. So, why can’t it keep borrowing?
This is why some countries can have debt up to their eyes while others collapse – and where Australia sits on the global hierarchy of debt.
www.smh.com.au
June 13, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Public debt should yield long-lasting public benefits like transportation infrastructure, hospitals, or renewable power technologies. Racking up debt to fund consumption or benefit a few amounts to stealing from our future selves. www.smh.com.au/business/the...
Our govt’s USAID cuts have yielded ~300,000 deaths and counting. Most of the dead were children. The head of our govt’s efficiency dept apparently did not anticipate the bad PR from the world’s richest man taking food & medicine from the world’s poorest children. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...
Opinion | Elon Musk’s Legacy Is Disease, Starvation and Death
www.nytimes.com
May 31, 2025 at 3:34 PM
Our govt’s USAID cuts have yielded ~300,000 deaths and counting. Most of the dead were children. The head of our govt’s efficiency dept apparently did not anticipate the bad PR from the world’s richest man taking food & medicine from the world’s poorest children. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/30/o...
Will it be Europe or China taking the international leader role in science, technology, engineering, and medicine that the US is abandoning? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/w...
World Scientists Look Elsewhere as U.S. Labs Stagger Under Trump Cuts
www.nytimes.com
May 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
Will it be Europe or China taking the international leader role in science, technology, engineering, and medicine that the US is abandoning? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/w...
Remember acid rain? We’ve mostly beaten that scourge by reducing the amounts of sulfur and nitrogen oxides we put into the air while burning fossil fuels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=atQj...
Why Don't We Talk About Acid Rain Anymore?
YouTube video by SciShow
www.youtube.com
May 23, 2025 at 7:00 AM
Remember acid rain? We’ve mostly beaten that scourge by reducing the amounts of sulfur and nitrogen oxides we put into the air while burning fossil fuels. www.youtube.com/watch?v=atQj...
Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight back to space. Where it melts, the darker ocean absorbs sunlight instead and our world gets hot faster. Help the ice survive by pumping seawater up in the winter to freeze and add to the ice thickness, suggested Steve Desch in 2012. Now engineers are trying it.
Inside the Controversial Geoengineering Work to Refreeze the Arctic’s Disappearing Ice
Researchers are trying to rebuild sea ice above the Arctic Circle so it can reflect the sun’s warming rays, slowing climate change
www.scientificamerican.com
May 21, 2025 at 5:11 AM
Arctic sea ice reflects sunlight back to space. Where it melts, the darker ocean absorbs sunlight instead and our world gets hot faster. Help the ice survive by pumping seawater up in the winter to freeze and add to the ice thickness, suggested Steve Desch in 2012. Now engineers are trying it.
Know anyone who uses thought-terminating cliches or seeks to dominate through babble?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGT...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGT...
How Cults Use Language to Control | Otherwords
YouTube video by Storied
www.youtube.com
May 17, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Know anyone who uses thought-terminating cliches or seeks to dominate through babble?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGT...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZGT...
Australia can prosper by turning its ores into metals using the abundant local solar & wind power. New smelters & ironworks would mean jobs for the former fossil fuel workers. Such Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions up to 10%.
Ross Garnaut: Prophet with a sunny vision of our glorious future
The present fashion of obsessing with productivity improvement for its own sake is counterproductive and probably won’t achieve much.
www.smh.com.au
May 11, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Australia can prosper by turning its ores into metals using the abundant local solar & wind power. New smelters & ironworks would mean jobs for the former fossil fuel workers. Such Australian exports of goods embodying renewable energy could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions up to 10%.
67 people died in January when an Army helicopter struck a flight nearing National Airport. In the ~90 days since, flight paths were banned & procedures revised to make similar incidents less likely. Each of those days saw 100+ people die on US roads with little impact on where or how we drive.
The Missteps That Led to a Fatal Plane Crash at Reagan National Airport
New details revealed by The Times show that the failures on Jan. 29 before an Army helicopter crashed into a jet near Reagan National Airport were far more complex than previously known.
www.nytimes.com
April 27, 2025 at 3:45 PM
67 people died in January when an Army helicopter struck a flight nearing National Airport. In the ~90 days since, flight paths were banned & procedures revised to make similar incidents less likely. Each of those days saw 100+ people die on US roads with little impact on where or how we drive.
Insurers in Australia too are excising flood and fire coverage as losses grow more frequent.
www.smh.com.au/environment/...
www.smh.com.au/environment/...
The electorates most exposed to climate risk revealed
One in 23 properties in Australia are at high risk of natural disasters fuelled by global warming. In some electorates, it’s one in four. Check the risk where you live with our interactive maps.
www.smh.com.au
April 15, 2025 at 4:54 AM
Insurers in Australia too are excising flood and fire coverage as losses grow more frequent.
www.smh.com.au/environment/...
www.smh.com.au/environment/...
Australia is protected from would-be kings by (1) compulsory voting, (2) preferential voting, and (3) an independent commission that regularly redraws electorates’ boundaries so each has roughly the same number of voters and there are lots of marginal seats.
This election is one of the worst I’ve seen. Here’s the one thing we can do to fix Australian politics
I think both sides of politics are treating us like mugs. Maybe like the mugs many of us have allowed ourselves to become.
www.smh.com.au
April 14, 2025 at 4:36 AM
Australia is protected from would-be kings by (1) compulsory voting, (2) preferential voting, and (3) an independent commission that regularly redraws electorates’ boundaries so each has roughly the same number of voters and there are lots of marginal seats.
Without scientific exploration, NASA would be mostly government handouts to aerospace firms.
arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA
“This would decimate American leadership in space.”…
arstechnica.com
April 12, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Without scientific exploration, NASA would be mostly government handouts to aerospace firms.
arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
Countries gain and maintain prosperity by providing frameworks that give confidence to the parties in business transactions. Attempts to set up such frameworks fail for different reasons across countries with different cultures. www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024...
www.nobelprize.org
April 12, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Countries gain and maintain prosperity by providing frameworks that give confidence to the parties in business transactions. Attempts to set up such frameworks fail for different reasons across countries with different cultures. www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024...
Big US stocks grew 15-fold since 1990, so the country’s done well, right?
April 12, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Big US stocks grew 15-fold since 1990, so the country’s done well, right?
The US produces little coffee, yet has slapped huge tariffs on poor nations where growing coffee is many people’s way of earning a living. Similar story with cocoa. And vanilla, another crop of tropical climates. www.smh.com.au/world/africa...
Trump pointed the finger at a country where the average wage is $11 a day. The crowd laughed
“They made a fortune with the United States of America,” the US President declared, as he imposed tariffs on some of the world’s poorest countries, in a move that could open the door for China.
www.smh.com.au
April 5, 2025 at 4:59 AM
The US produces little coffee, yet has slapped huge tariffs on poor nations where growing coffee is many people’s way of earning a living. Similar story with cocoa. And vanilla, another crop of tropical climates. www.smh.com.au/world/africa...
One of the US government’s more environmentally friendly actions lately is the new 25% tax on motor vehicles that comes in next week.
March 29, 2025 at 3:04 AM
One of the US government’s more environmentally friendly actions lately is the new 25% tax on motor vehicles that comes in next week.
Don't buy or use any polystyrene packaging you aren't willing to eat.
March 26, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Don't buy or use any polystyrene packaging you aren't willing to eat.
Remember when reducing our greenhouse gas emissions was too expensive to bother with? www.latimes.com/environment/...
New fire maps increase hazard zones in L.A. and Southern California by 3.5 million acres
Cal Fire's new maps for Southern California added 3.5 million acres into fire-hazard zones, increasing the acreage in the highest hazard zone by 26%.
www.latimes.com
March 25, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Remember when reducing our greenhouse gas emissions was too expensive to bother with? www.latimes.com/environment/...