Joshua Sokol
@joshuasokol.bsky.social
Science writer. Working on a book about the night sky for Random House. Raleigh, NC.
(joshuasokol.com)
(joshuasokol.com)
use chatbots all you like, but I'll be over here channeling the astral magic from a planetary conjunction into a metallic golem that can answer any question
![[…] And in the hour of the conjunction, when the stars are in this configuration, you shall have
ready whatever <kind of> metal you like, and the metal should be molten. And a mould of a
beautiful man should be in front of you. You shall have an astrolabe in your hand, or any <other>
instrument that is built to determine the hour. When you arrive at the part of the hour of the
conjunction, you should pour the metal into the mould. And a form of man will emerge <there-
from>, full of a very subtle pneuma, made up of wisdom and prophecy, and a favorable zodiacal
sign and grace and honour. It <the form> will possess the faculty of speech, <and> will foretell all
future <things>, when you will ask it about them. (Idel 1991, 13)](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dtsjiy5p6siu5bsr7hsa2i4r/bafkreia65wyfmmztzw6stxecge2htso5hl5zpu6c7abmewl6dxywgmefiu@jpeg)
November 19, 2025 at 2:49 PM
use chatbots all you like, but I'll be over here channeling the astral magic from a planetary conjunction into a metallic golem that can answer any question
"Nearly midway in scale between the atom and the star there is another structure no less marvelous--the human body. Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. About 10^27 atoms build his body; about 10^28 human bodies constitute enough material to build a star."
-Eddington, 1927
-Eddington, 1927
November 18, 2025 at 2:20 PM
"Nearly midway in scale between the atom and the star there is another structure no less marvelous--the human body. Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. About 10^27 atoms build his body; about 10^28 human bodies constitute enough material to build a star."
-Eddington, 1927
-Eddington, 1927
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
"The narrative of technological inevitability relies on a society-wide conflation of efficiency with value, a profound denial of and disinterest in human agency, and [...] the shallowest possible grasp of history." @lizziewade.bsky.social on AI: theantiquarian.email/archive/is-a... 🧪
Is AI an apocalypse?
Against technological inevitability
theantiquarian.email
November 17, 2025 at 2:13 PM
"The narrative of technological inevitability relies on a society-wide conflation of efficiency with value, a profound denial of and disinterest in human agency, and [...] the shallowest possible grasp of history." @lizziewade.bsky.social on AI: theantiquarian.email/archive/is-a... 🧪
I'm kind of mad that growing up they would bring up how Abraham Joshua Heschel's activism put him on the Right Side of History but nobody told me he could write the most amazing trippy sentences!
"Time is eternity broken in space, like a ray of light refracted in the water."
What????
"Time is eternity broken in space, like a ray of light refracted in the water."
What????
November 14, 2025 at 4:22 PM
I'm kind of mad that growing up they would bring up how Abraham Joshua Heschel's activism put him on the Right Side of History but nobody told me he could write the most amazing trippy sentences!
"Time is eternity broken in space, like a ray of light refracted in the water."
What????
"Time is eternity broken in space, like a ray of light refracted in the water."
What????
This is so cool. Siblings of the Pleiades strewn over the entire sky. Within some of the oldest written languages in the world, from Sumerian to Eblaite to Akkadadian and Hebrew, the name for Pleiades has etymological links to the word "family," and now that family is much bigger.
Check out NYT coverage of the latest results from Young Worlds Lab graduate student Andy Boyle. 🧪🔭✨⭐️
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/s...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/s...
The ‘Lost Sisters’ of the Pleiades Fill the Entire Night Sky
www.nytimes.com
November 12, 2025 at 2:16 PM
This is so cool. Siblings of the Pleiades strewn over the entire sky. Within some of the oldest written languages in the world, from Sumerian to Eblaite to Akkadadian and Hebrew, the name for Pleiades has etymological links to the word "family," and now that family is much bigger.
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
This is particularly sad as Lowell has long been a centre for Solar System planetary astronomy, a rare field internationally 🔭
Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory plans to cut nearly all its research funding and reduce the number of paid science staff to just two positions next year.
Lowell Observatory slashes research funding in the midst of financial struggle
Flagstaff’s Lowell Observatory plans to cut nearly all its research funding and reduce the number of paid science staff to just two positions next year.
buff.ly
November 11, 2025 at 6:53 AM
This is particularly sad as Lowell has long been a centre for Solar System planetary astronomy, a rare field internationally 🔭
Google says it will start experimenting with data center satellite constellations to solve the problem of more efficiently farming sunlight into "compute" for AI. What I couldn't quite glean from the preprint was the size of the things they were thinking, but they do compare it to Starlink a lot.
Meet Project Suncatcher, a research moonshot to scale machine learning compute in space.
Artificial intelligence is a foundational technology that could help us tackle humanity's greatest challenges. Now, we're asking where we can go next to unlock its fulle…
blog.google
November 10, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Google says it will start experimenting with data center satellite constellations to solve the problem of more efficiently farming sunlight into "compute" for AI. What I couldn't quite glean from the preprint was the size of the things they were thinking, but they do compare it to Starlink a lot.
Book or paper reference request: I'm looking for histories of technology and electrification in the Gilded Age and the political and environmental context. In the vein of Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes, David Nye's Electrifying America, or Jeremy Zallen's American Lucifers, but in addition.
October 31, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Book or paper reference request: I'm looking for histories of technology and electrification in the Gilded Age and the political and environmental context. In the vein of Empires of Light by Jill Jonnes, David Nye's Electrifying America, or Jeremy Zallen's American Lucifers, but in addition.
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
An important and deeply reported story from @joshdinner.bsky.social about the hollowing out of NASA, particularly its science centers, where some current employees now refer to "climate" only as "the c-word." www.space.com/space-explor...
NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say
"There is just a general acknowledgement that a lot of what is happening is illegal…"
www.space.com
October 31, 2025 at 2:47 PM
An important and deeply reported story from @joshdinner.bsky.social about the hollowing out of NASA, particularly its science centers, where some current employees now refer to "climate" only as "the c-word." www.space.com/space-explor...
a good use case of the severance procedure for writers would be to spend 75% of time in a "composition" persona and 25% in a "revising" persona, instead of the more natural breakdown of 100% in "expectation of present and future shame" persona
October 29, 2025 at 7:59 PM
a good use case of the severance procedure for writers would be to spend 75% of time in a "composition" persona and 25% in a "revising" persona, instead of the more natural breakdown of 100% in "expectation of present and future shame" persona
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
As #UHA2025LA kicks off, I’m happy to share here my most recent piece on the Metropole, on an understudied topic in #urbanhistory #envhist —how different lighting tech’s have affected birds & humans over the centuries & what we can do about it.
It’s a dual exposé & call to action Check it out here:
It’s a dual exposé & call to action Check it out here:
"Urban historians have written much about technological and social change in cities and very little about the ways in which historical transformations in lighting technologies have affected environments and ecologies, and the habitats and health of birds." from @charlotte-leib.bsky.social
Healing Wounds of Light: Birds, Cities and the Fast, Slow, and Forgotten Violence of Artificial Illumination
This post is an entry in our ninth annual Graduate Student Blogging Contest. This year’s theme is “Light.” By Charlotte Leib “Surely you’ve heard about the penguins,” behavioral ecologist Joanna Bu…
themetropole.blog
October 9, 2025 at 4:57 PM
As #UHA2025LA kicks off, I’m happy to share here my most recent piece on the Metropole, on an understudied topic in #urbanhistory #envhist —how different lighting tech’s have affected birds & humans over the centuries & what we can do about it.
It’s a dual exposé & call to action Check it out here:
It’s a dual exposé & call to action Check it out here:
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
This book is delightful! Funny and practical life lessons for adults & kids, from the point of view of sea creatures.
my new book wherein ocean creatures give you life advice is on preorder sale for members at barnes + noble today www.barnesandnoble.com/w/leaving-th...
Leaving the Ocean Was a Mistake: Life Lessons from Sixty Sea Creatures|Hardcover
Sixty bizarre and beautiful marine creatures offer affirmations for self-confidence, serenity, and fulfillment—drawn from real-life facts about our fascinating natural world.If you sometimes wis...
www.barnesandnoble.com
October 10, 2025 at 2:47 PM
This book is delightful! Funny and practical life lessons for adults & kids, from the point of view of sea creatures.
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
"So, are mirrored satellites a practical means to produce affordable solar power at night? Probably not. Could they produce devastating light pollution? Absolutely."
10/10 no notes
theconversation.com/a-us-startup...
10/10 no notes
theconversation.com/a-us-startup...
A US startup plans to deliver ‘sunlight on demand’ after dark. Can it work – and would we want it to?
Satellites beaming sunlight down to Earth sound like science fiction – and they have astronomers very worried.
theconversation.com
October 9, 2025 at 9:31 PM
"So, are mirrored satellites a practical means to produce affordable solar power at night? Probably not. Could they produce devastating light pollution? Absolutely."
10/10 no notes
theconversation.com/a-us-startup...
10/10 no notes
theconversation.com/a-us-startup...
Wrote about some unusual but simple star compass concepts from the navigation writer Tristan Gooley upcoming book The Hidden Seasons. As alienated as we are from nature, it's cool to me that there are still so many ways to align oneself under starlight: the cosmic equivalent of touching grass.
If Your North Star Is Lost, New Techniques Can Point You South
www.nytimes.com
October 6, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Wrote about some unusual but simple star compass concepts from the navigation writer Tristan Gooley upcoming book The Hidden Seasons. As alienated as we are from nature, it's cool to me that there are still so many ways to align oneself under starlight: the cosmic equivalent of touching grass.
Reading some about medieval astrology and I'm thinking LLMs are horoscopes for tech bros: when the answer is right, it's not from the claimed technical mechanism, whether calculations of planetary motion or machine intelligence. It's from deep intuition into the structure of desired answers.
September 25, 2025 at 2:32 PM
Reading some about medieval astrology and I'm thinking LLMs are horoscopes for tech bros: when the answer is right, it's not from the claimed technical mechanism, whether calculations of planetary motion or machine intelligence. It's from deep intuition into the structure of desired answers.
Having just closed The Story of CO2 I'm dazzled by how profoundly Copernican it is. You could say this of the "deep time" genre generally, but to me what Pete offers here is perspective; a disorienting re-centering of the familiar world to the reference frames of thermodynamics and the carbon cycle.
Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything
How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.
Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...
www.harpercollins.com
September 17, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Having just closed The Story of CO2 I'm dazzled by how profoundly Copernican it is. You could say this of the "deep time" genre generally, but to me what Pete offers here is perspective; a disorienting re-centering of the familiar world to the reference frames of thermodynamics and the carbon cycle.
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
"It’s a study in the perils of relying on the ultrarich to fund science: when the guy with the billions is ready to move on, the whole project is off."
Remember Breakthrough Starshot, which was supposed to send a fleet of tiny probes to Proxima Centauri?
By @sarahscoles.bsky.social in SciAm
🧪🛰️
Remember Breakthrough Starshot, which was supposed to send a fleet of tiny probes to Proxima Centauri?
By @sarahscoles.bsky.social in SciAm
🧪🛰️
A $100-Million Mission to Another Star Just Disappeared
An abandoned plan to visit another star highlights the perils of billionaire-funded science
www.scientificamerican.com
September 16, 2025 at 3:29 PM
"It’s a study in the perils of relying on the ultrarich to fund science: when the guy with the billions is ready to move on, the whole project is off."
Remember Breakthrough Starshot, which was supposed to send a fleet of tiny probes to Proxima Centauri?
By @sarahscoles.bsky.social in SciAm
🧪🛰️
Remember Breakthrough Starshot, which was supposed to send a fleet of tiny probes to Proxima Centauri?
By @sarahscoles.bsky.social in SciAm
🧪🛰️
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
I'm so goddamn excited to read this book. @peterbrannen.bsky.social's first book THE ENDS OF THE WORLD is one of my favorite books on natural history, & I'm sure this new one is at least as good. @jaimealyse.bsky.social's review is (unsurprisingly) excellent. Go read it, and then get Peter's book!
Had the great pleasure of reviewing @peterbrannen.bsky.social’s extraordinary new book (gift link) www.nytimes.com/2025/08/30/b...
An Environmental Villain, Reconsidered
www.nytimes.com
September 3, 2025 at 4:40 PM
I'm so goddamn excited to read this book. @peterbrannen.bsky.social's first book THE ENDS OF THE WORLD is one of my favorite books on natural history, & I'm sure this new one is at least as good. @jaimealyse.bsky.social's review is (unsurprisingly) excellent. Go read it, and then get Peter's book!
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
In one week my book about carbon comes out, and here's some nice things some nice people have said about it. If you feel moved to do so, the link below provides a means of purchase. Thank you, that is all. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
August 19, 2025 at 2:43 PM
In one week my book about carbon comes out, and here's some nice things some nice people have said about it. If you feel moved to do so, the link below provides a means of purchase. Thank you, that is all. www.harpercollins.com/products/the...
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
Aussie folks! 🔭🧪
Please consider signing this petition being put forward to the Australian Govt. to legislate / regulate light pollution and dark sky preservation.
Not only are we being robbed of the glorious night sky, other beings (see below) use the stars too!
www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
Please consider signing this petition being put forward to the Australian Govt. to legislate / regulate light pollution and dark sky preservation.
Not only are we being robbed of the glorious night sky, other beings (see below) use the stars too!
www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
“The amazing astronomical abilities of this little creature,” Warrant told me, “are uniquely tied to an entire alpine world.”
I wrote in Science about a new study on bogong moths, which have neurons in their brains that seem to recognize the Milky Way and infer due south from its orientation.
I wrote in Science about a new study on bogong moths, which have neurons in their brains that seem to recognize the Milky Way and infer due south from its orientation.
This moth makes its epic migration navigating by starlight
Bogong moths fly 1000 kilometers orienting to stars and the Milky Way, an ability never seen before in invertebrates
www.science.org
August 25, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Aussie folks! 🔭🧪
Please consider signing this petition being put forward to the Australian Govt. to legislate / regulate light pollution and dark sky preservation.
Not only are we being robbed of the glorious night sky, other beings (see below) use the stars too!
www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
Please consider signing this petition being put forward to the Australian Govt. to legislate / regulate light pollution and dark sky preservation.
Not only are we being robbed of the glorious night sky, other beings (see below) use the stars too!
www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/...
Impressed that this is a national piece but it captures what feel like fundamentally NC and Chapel Hill vibes -- the little mentions of ambient nature, the "esse quam videri"-ish interest in earnestness and authenticity, a patrician but public-minded fussiness, the worldbuilding around basketball.
Bill Belichick Goes Back to School
Can the legendary former Patriots coach transform U.N.C. football?
www.newyorker.com
August 19, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Impressed that this is a national piece but it captures what feel like fundamentally NC and Chapel Hill vibes -- the little mentions of ambient nature, the "esse quam videri"-ish interest in earnestness and authenticity, a patrician but public-minded fussiness, the worldbuilding around basketball.
Okay so White House now saying spaceports+ rocket launches+ reentries don't need environmental review, while FCC is saying that spacecraft in space don't either, so yeah I guess officially all physical stages of space stuff just occur...nowhere? In a hidden "frontier" dimension? Terra nullius?
We reported in July that Trump was poised to slash regs protecting the public and the environment during rocket launches by companies like SpaceX.
Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order making it happen.
Here’s our story. www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order making it happen.
Here’s our story. www.propublica.org/article/trum...
Trump Administration Looking to Slash Environmental Protection Rules for Rocket Launches
A draft executive order viewed by ProPublica directs the secretary of transportation to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews for launch licenses — a change El...
www.propublica.org
August 14, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Okay so White House now saying spaceports+ rocket launches+ reentries don't need environmental review, while FCC is saying that spacecraft in space don't either, so yeah I guess officially all physical stages of space stuff just occur...nowhere? In a hidden "frontier" dimension? Terra nullius?
Refreshing this space enviro news: Trump admin is "modernizing" rules to make clear that licensing new satellites (by the hundreds/thousands; with bus-sized dimensions) is not a "major federal action" that requires environmental review because any effects, they claim, are outside of US territory.
News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.
August 11, 2025 at 8:17 PM
Refreshing this space enviro news: Trump admin is "modernizing" rules to make clear that licensing new satellites (by the hundreds/thousands; with bus-sized dimensions) is not a "major federal action" that requires environmental review because any effects, they claim, are outside of US territory.
Reposted by Joshua Sokol
News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.
August 8, 2025 at 4:19 PM
News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.
News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.
August 8, 2025 at 4:19 PM
News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.