Matt Davenport
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mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Matt Davenport
@mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
150 followers 300 following 91 posts
"You ask too many questions, boy."
he/him
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mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
The transportation piece is super interesting, too, and I probably didn't do it justice with the release. Fortunately, though, Sophie Kevany did an excellent job for @sentientmedia.org. sentientmedia.org/meat-consump...
A text excerpt reads: The study also finds that emissions from transportation are a small fraction of overall livestock emissions, as has been shown in other research. For consumers eager to make a dent in their own climate emissions from what they eat, that means that eating locally, while appealing, does not in fact have much impact on emissions. “Food miles and related emissions are largely a myth,” Goldstein writes to Sentient. “Emissions from transporting food account for around 10% of total emissions related to producing and distributing food products to retail.” By and large, he adds, “most emissions occur during production, especially in the case of meat which requires lots of feed and generates lots of on-site emissions” that come mainly from enteric fermentation, primarily cattle burps, and the manure lagoons used to hold animals’ urine and feces.
October 22, 2025 at 6:42 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Along those lines, the beef consumption per capita scatter plot is similar to the picture for meat consumption on the whole, where the intensity of producing the meat is evident in the stratification of hoofprints.

public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...
A plot shows there's a substantial scatter in the relationship between a city's per capita meat consumption and its carbon hoofprint, or greenhouse gas emissions associated with its meat supply.
October 22, 2025 at 6:35 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Assuming I did this right—and I can't stress enough that I'm a writer and not a researcher—the answer to your question is not exactly (the following link will take you to an interactive version of the image). public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...
A plot shows there's a substantial scatter in the relationship between a city's per capita beef consumption and its carbon hoofprint, or greenhouse gas emissions associated with its meat supply.
October 22, 2025 at 6:35 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Then I think about his quote we used as the kicker for the episode a ton and probably still not enough. Just really great advice, I think. Congratulations to Professor Yaghi, Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and the MOF community. (all done)
A quote from Omar Yaghi reads, "So along each step there was criticism and detractors, but the nice thing about the life of a scientist is that there’s always some people out there that appreciate what you do and they’re not afraid to stand up and say, “This is interesting work. This is worthwhile work.” So I learned, now that I am a senior professor, senior researcher, that whenever I see something nice that a young, emerging scholar or assistant professor or somebody starting out their career, when they are doing something truly groundbreaking is to say, “This is nice work. Keep going.” And and I was fortunate to have that. There were people out there just like I had that CEO come into my office and propelled me to take these materials to applications. So this is this would be my advice for any anybody doing research. It’s research in itself is a very difficult endeavor because you fail a lot. And the reason you keep going is because of the potential success that you might get along the way. But during this process you will have a lot of detractors, but don’t forget that you will also have supporters. And that’s what counts. The detractors you have to listen to what they’re saying because you have to address any weakness in your work that you might have. But there’s always people out there who do make constructive contribution to your research by simply talking to you about the good and the bad in what you’re doing."
October 9, 2025 at 1:02 AM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
He even turned my lame, but I maintain chucklesome, joke about American football into a really memorable part of the interview, I thought. (4/one more)
A screen shot from an interview transcript between Omar Yaghi and Matt Davenport contains the following exchange. Matt Davenport: When you say in one gram, there’s the surface area of a football field, is that American football or the international football? Omar Yaghi: It’s actually more. It’s actually more than one football field. So either one would work. It’s more than a soccer field or the American football field. In one of the MOFs, we call it the Queen of MOFs, MOF-177, had of porosity of about 5,000 meters squared per gram. And we showed that in fact in a tank filled with MOF-177, you could store double the amount of hydrogen that you would store in a tank that does not have the MOF. And so even though the MOF was occupying volume, the MOF pores were acting to compact the gas molecules within the pores. And so this was, this was amazing.
October 9, 2025 at 1:02 AM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Early replicants could be somewhat easily be identified by an unfamiliarity with regional ads that aired before the digital television transition. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lV-...
Google's AI overview for a search on "Rip Hamilton and lasik" reads: Richard "Rip" Hamilton is not known to have had LASIK or LASEK eye surgery. The rumor may stem from confusion between two different stories involving medical procedures and the name "Hamilton." Here are the facts: Rip Hamilton's mask was for his nose, not his eyes. The famous clear mask he wore throughout his career was to protect his nose after he broke it multiple times. He first started wearing it during the 2003-2004 season after breaking his nose twice and was advised to wear it to avoid reconstructive surgery. The mix-up likely involves Dr. Rex Hamilton. There is a renowned Beverly Hills ophthalmologist named Dr. Rex Hamilton who is known for performing LASIK and other vision correction surgeries on athletes and celebrities. Other famous athletes have had LASIK. The confusion may also be partly fueled by the fact that other notable basketball players, such as LeBron James, have undergone LASIK surgery.
September 4, 2025 at 5:47 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
It's like inbox zero, only more metal.
Matt's inbox has 666 messages.
June 16, 2025 at 7:46 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Outwardly: Oh look, East Lansing is in today's Sports Connections.

Inwardly: ON THE BANKS OF THE RED CEDAR

www.nytimes.com/athletic/con...
The New York Times'/Athletic's Connections Sports Edition puzzle for June 16, 2025. The 16 selections to group into 4 groups of 4 are Augusta, Columbus, Madison, Raleigh, East Lansing (which is highlighted), Realmuto, Goose Egg, Quail Hollow, Donut, Royal Portrush, College Park, Bagel, Rutschman, NIL, Oakmont and Perez.
June 16, 2025 at 2:30 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Gmail's suggestions have some extra kick today.
A screenshot of an email being written where Gmail has suggested replacing the word "darn" with "damn."
May 27, 2025 at 3:40 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
This interview is just wild. www.science.org/content/arti...
A screenshot from a Q&A in Science magazine with NIH director Jay Bhattacharya. Responding to a news article published in Nature that reported NIH plans to suspend foreign collaborations, Bhattacharya says: "No, that’s false. There’s going to be a policy on tracking subawards. The NIH and the government should be able to see where the money’s going.” “I’m really uncomfortable with this conversation, because you’re like, actually spreading rumors that you don’t know anything about. … Nature also is spreading rumors. Halt foreign collaborations, that’s not true.” “We’re working on the policy, Jocelyn. You shouldn’t be reporting rumors. I know there’s leaks all over here, but the leaks don’t actually reflect what’s happening. Don’t write about rumors. It actually makes the things that you and I care about worse. Like it spreads panic." The final paragraph of the story then reads, "Later that day, NIH released a policy that halted future subawards to foreign scientists and said they will need to apply directly for money under a system still in development."
May 6, 2025 at 5:45 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
I think it's a little unfair to expect dolphins to have an explanation for Spain's blackout. On the other hand, if they've got a gravity hole, maybe I'm not giving them enough credit.
The heading of Scientific American's "Today in Science" newsletter from May 1, which reads "Dolphins have an unusual way of communicating, a gravity hole under the Indian Ocean, and no explanation yet for Spain's blackout."
May 2, 2025 at 1:15 AM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
These two paragraphs. Dang.
A screen capture from a Grist article that reads as follows: “This study really finds that we can keep the grid stable with more and more renewables,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University and lead author of the new paper. “Every major renewable — geothermal, hydro, wind, solar in particular, even offshore wind — is lower cost than fossil fuels” on average, globally. Yet Californians pay the second highest rates for electricity in the country. That’s not because of renewables, but in part because utilities’ electrical equipment has set off wildfires — like the Camp Fire started by Pacific Gas and Electric’s power lines, which devastated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people — and now they’re passing the costs that come from lawsuits and burying transmission lines to their customers. While investigators don’t know for sure what sparked all of the wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles this month, they’ll be scrutinizing electrical equipment in the area. Power lines are especially prone to failing in high winds, like the 100-mile-per-hour gusts that turned these Southern California fires into monsters.
February 21, 2025 at 2:45 PM
mrmattdavenport.bsky.social
Kinda neat that people who are really good at stuff celebrate with the same move I use when I stand up after being seated for a while.
A screenshot shows a post from The Athletic saying the San Francisco 49ers' linebacker Dre Greenlaw will play tonight after being injured for 10 months. Beneath it, a post from The New York Times says that 18-year-old Dommaraju Gukesh won the World Chess Championship. Both Greenlaw and Gukesh are shown standing with their arms outstretched.
December 12, 2024 at 7:51 PM