Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️
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obialik.bsky.social
Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️
@obialik.bsky.social
5.1K followers 160 following 4.9K posts
Sediment, climate change, and impostor syndrome | Science and SFF for the win | Writing for a living and fun | Opinions are my own (or the characters' in my head).
Academic stuff: https://obialik.weebly.com
Non-academic writing: https://ombialik.weebly.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
obialik.bsky.social
#WeekendReading: Forrer et al. on the molecular composition of sinking organic particles and how this composition can inform on flux and carbon retention. 🧪🌊

Link: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Sinking WEOM molecular mass. Violin plots of molecular masses (Da) for each sample from the sediment trap deployments at the upwelling site, CCE Inshore (blue), and the oligotrophic sites including CCE Offshore (green), GoM (red), and TropIO (orange). The internal boxplot indicates the median (light grey line), interquartile range (coloured box), mass range (black whiskers) and outliers (circles). The samples are grouped as ‘base of EZ’, ‘Mid’ (30 – 130 m below the EZ), and ‘Deep’ (320 – 415 m below the EZ).
November 28, 2025 at 3:19 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Legacy markup in the Google Docs to retain the layout information, local font library, and all the other things that are not the text itself.
It's a well-known issue for years (see screenshot for example), which Alphabet doesn't seem to be really interested in fixing.
Hi, Dan, Google Docs uses web fonts. When you download your document to another format, the web fonts are replaced with local fonts that are stored on your computer. That is likely what's inflating the file size. ~Jo (source: https://support.google.com/docs/thread/18545433/size-of-g-docs-saved-as-docx-is-now-inflated-e-g-downloaded-at-289kb-saved-in-word-as-12kb-why?hl=en#:~:text=The%20size%20of%20Google%20Docs%20saved%20as,is%20a%20%22normal%22%20(read%20much%20smaller)%20file.)
November 28, 2025 at 7:43 AM
obialik.bsky.social
TL/DR: Having more sex leads to brain cell regeneration in adults.
Longer: Regular sexual experiences increase the amount of the hormone corticosterone and new neurons (in the hippocampus) and reduce the effects of stress.
🧪
Link: journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
Acute sexual experience enhances cell proliferation in the dentate gyrus despite elevated glucocorticoid levels. Compared to naive controls, a single sexual experience elevated (a) corticosterone levels and (b) the number of proliferating cells (labeled with BrdU and examined after a 2 h survival). Bars represent mean ± SEM, *P<0.05.
November 28, 2025 at 7:20 AM
obialik.bsky.social
Our world is one of impetuous life; once a new niche open, by a volcanic island or (now more often) retreating glaciers, generalist, metabolically flexible, microbial life will rush in to inhabit it and be the base of future succession. 🧪

Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Metabolic capabilities of MAGs identified as habitat generalists (gen.), intermediates (int.), or specialists (spec.) at the Antarctic and Swiss glaciers.
November 27, 2025 at 5:29 PM
obialik.bsky.social
"...chemoautotrophs have competitive advantages under nutrient-limited conditions due to their small size and ability to utilize both organic and inorganic nutrients."
A glimpse into the base of the foodwebs in a future oligotrophic/warm ocean. 🧪🌊

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Spatial and depth patterns of photosynthesis (A, B) and Dark Carbon Fixation (DCF) within the photic layer of the eastern Mediterranean Sea from the Israeli coastline to pelagic waters during summer 2021 (A, C, E) and winter 2021 (B, D, F). Also shown is the percent contribution of DCF to PP (E, F) in the photic layer. The black dots represent the station location and depth.
November 27, 2025 at 6:56 AM
obialik.bsky.social
The findings, BTW, are that the extent of savannas since the Late medieval times has more or less remained the same, at least in Maharashtra.
A map of sites mentioned in the traditional literature excerpts alongside the number of savanna indicators, generalists and forest indicator plant species mentioned at each. (a) Location of Maharashtra state (dark grey) in India and the study area (hatched shading) within Maharashtra. (b) Names of sites that are mentioned in the literature we review are marked as black circles and labelled in brown font. Each rectangle on the sides of the map summarizes the number of savanna indicator (beige), generalist (grey) and forest indicator (blue) species mentioned at that site. The excerpt numbers from which these values are compiled are provided after the site name (and expanded in Table S2). Sites with an asterisk represent availability of qualitative nature descriptions. The study area, comprising seven districts in western Maharashtra, is depicted by thin black borders and each district is labelled in italics and black font. Boundaries of Maharashtra state are marked as thick black borders. Map depicting extant forest (blue) and extant savannas (beige) is adapted from Olson et al. (2001) and Ratnam et al. (2011, 2016).
November 26, 2025 at 4:16 PM
obialik.bsky.social
I didn't know there was such a complex debate over the historical expense of tropical savannas in India (and how much is deforestation). But I like the use of traditional literature to increase the database for past environments there. 🧪

Link: besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
The diversity of traditional literature genres included in our review. (a) A folio depicting saint-poet Nāmadeva (circa 1270–1350 CE; fifth from right) performing a devotional verse. In our review, we refer to two verses attributed to saint Nāmadeva (Excerpts 2.1 and 2.2). Photograph from a late 19th-century publication of the 18th-century hagiography Bhaktavijaya. Photo credits: Christian Novetzke. (b) Performance of a dhanagarī-ovi, oral literary works that are replete with nature descriptions (Examples 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14). (c) Diversity of genres of traditional literature included in this study. Divisions of the doughnut chart represent the genres and include the number of excerpts/examples of that particular genre. Inset shows the flower of Capparis divaricata, a savanna indicator plant which features in multiple excerpts we cite (Tables S1 and S2); photo credits: Jagdish Dalavi. (d) A Vāghyā (a bard)—known for their jāgaraṇa performances which often include several savanna indicator plants (Example 6). (e) A folio from an early 19th-century manuscript of the Bhaktavijaya mentioning the taraṭī tree (Capparis divaricata; underlined; Example 3; translated in Supporting Information S1). Photo credits: Kashi Jangamwadi Math Library. Photo credits for (b, d): Günther D. Sontheimer, recorded between 1967 and 1992, available from Heidelberg University Library.
November 26, 2025 at 4:16 PM
obialik.bsky.social
As is custom among our people, one must christen a new 3D printer with a Benchy, esp. when it's installed in a marine research institute.
Our new Bambu Lab X1-Carbon and it's first Benchy
November 26, 2025 at 10:37 AM
obialik.bsky.social
Hormonal therapy meaningfully reduces suicidality over time in transgender (and gender-diverse) adolescents. Letting people live in the body that's right for them is literally a life saver. 🧪

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Suicidality score means and SDs for the entire cohort and subgroups at baseline (before HRT) and follow-up (after) ASQ, Ask Suicide-Screening Questions; AFAB, assigned female at birth; AMAB, assigned male at birth; GnRHa, gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist; HT, hormone therapy.
November 26, 2025 at 8:48 AM
obialik.bsky.social
Honestly, I just enjoy the Macross reference with the AC more than anything. Haven't actually had a game of BattleTech in years, keep saying I need to find someone to try the Quick-Start ruleset.
Zentradi Glaug, Mechanical Designer: Shōji Kawamori Armed with Long range electron beam cannon (mounted dorsal on the main fuselage, Large-bore impact cannons (mounted on front arms), Small-bore impact cannons (mounted on front arms) and Small-bore laser anti-personnel cannons (mounted forward ventral on the main fuselage)
November 25, 2025 at 7:41 PM
obialik.bsky.social
I felt like painting something bright green.
#Miniature
A bipedal mech
November 25, 2025 at 6:13 PM
obialik.bsky.social
In chemistry, we usually think in mols (~6E23), so 15,000 atoms sounds like nothing. But this is a breakthrough for antihydrogen generation; it's a huge jump in production scale and opens a lot of future research on antimatter.

🧪 #SciFiScience
Link: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The experimental apparatus and the axial magnetic field profile. a Cross section of the central part of the ALPHA-2 experimental apparatus. In yellow and orange are shown the electrodes used to generate the electric fields for the Penning-Malmberg trap. The superconducting magnets that generate the magnetic-minimum trap (octupole and mirror coils) and boost the axial magnetic field to 3 T in the two side regions (left and right solenoids) are shown in blue and pink. The external, 1 T solenoid is not shown. Lasers for Be+ Doppler cooling can be injected along an off-axis path at 2.3 degrees through vacuum windows at either end of the apparatus (purple path), or along an on-axis path through a vacuum window onto movable 45-degree mirrors that can be positioned at either end of the central apparatus (cyan path). The orange electrodes in the left and right regions are azimuthally segmented to allow for the rotating wall (RW) technique (see text). The Be+ source (not shown) is placed on the same linear translator as the left side mirror20. Microchannel plate/phosphor assemblies used for imaging extracted particles (not shown) are placed on the same translators as the mirrors on both sides. The central portion of the drawing is to scale except for the annihilation detector, whose axial length is marked by purple bars. Position-sensitive detectors are used for stabilizing the cooling laser beams. b The corresponding longitudinal magnetic field (on-axis) that is maintained during Be+ assisted H̅ accumulation.
November 25, 2025 at 2:14 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Talking about mesophotic reefs in the eastern Mediterranean, the processes shaping them, and the technology that allows us to study them at the IAAS meeting. 🌊
Showing what the SAS imaging allows us to see Talking about the differences between mesophotic and euphotic reefs.
November 25, 2025 at 8:56 AM
obialik.bsky.social
I think at this point we have fairly well established that reefs (like all of us) will do a little bit better if they need to deal with a few less stress factors hitting them at once. This time, if we let them breath (prevent/remove oxygen stress). 🧪🌊

Link: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Behavioral and physiological responses of reef organisms to hypoxia. Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00338-019-01765-0
November 25, 2025 at 4:40 AM
obialik.bsky.social
So on the one hand, I get the idea of trying to factor in sedimentology and sequence stratigraphy into chemostratigraphy... but at the same time, I feel the statement is too broad and applicable only when no deep water records are available. 🧪⚒️

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reserved δ13C composition of sediments in basins under two model scenarios (A)-(D) and (E)-(H). The depth gradients in δ13C_DIC values and secular changes in δ13C_DIC values imposed on each model scenario are shown as insets in panels (A, Model 2) and (E, Model 3). Panel (D) is an extracted chemostratigraphic profile from Model 2 (marked section (b) on panel C), and panel (H) is from Model 3 (marked on panel G). Modeled sea-level curves are shown in insets (i), (ii), and (iii) with colored segments indicating the timespan and system tracts preserved in each basin. The final timestep and sea-level for each panel is indicated by the colored circle along each curve. Isotopic excursions originating from the redistribution of previously deposited stratigraphy are highlighted in panels (D) and (H) in blue.
November 24, 2025 at 2:18 PM
obialik.bsky.social
I hate waking up in the morning. I'm sure I'm not the only one. There is this lingering sleepiness and brain fog when you wake up. That's apparently called Sleep Inertia, and there are a bunch of possible reasons why one experiences it. 🧪

Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
A schematic of the three-process model of sleep regulation.
November 24, 2025 at 6:11 AM
obialik.bsky.social
I'm all here for cutting-edge science, especially the stuff that feels like sci-fi, or leading to cool sci-fi tech.
But the flip side is that sometimes the study's title reads a bit like a first draft for some hand-wavy technobabble.
(as for the work itself, it's a rather neat)
Article Open access Published: 17 November 2025 Telecom-wavelength quantum teleportation using frequency-converted photons from remote quantum dots
November 23, 2025 at 8:52 PM
obialik.bsky.social
As the planet warms, what was temperate is becoming tropical, and with that comes the corresponding species.
You have biodiversity effects, but biogeochemistry is also altered, with increased nitrous oxide production. 🧪🌊

Link: aslopubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Diagram of reef systems showing the net nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes under different temperature conditions based on an ecosystem shift from carbon-capturing kelp to Herdmania grandis via tropicalization (white arrow) in midshelf reefs in the Solitary Islands region (eastern Australia). The scenarios show the amount of N2O emitted by Herdmania-dominated reefs where N2O values represent the upper and lower range in the region. These values are compared with other habitats in the region, such as estuarine areas calculated from rates by Murray et al. (2015) and marine sediment calculated from rates by Kelly et al. (2021). All values are displayed in tons of N2O per habitat per year (y−1).
November 23, 2025 at 1:13 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Europa’s icy surface fractures and shatters in diverse ways, forming chaotic terrains. While no clear gradients are observed along the face of this Galilean moon, larger multifacies chaos units are concentrated in the lower latitudes. 🧪

Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Textural classes used for the mapping of chaotic terrains on Europa.
November 23, 2025 at 8:38 AM
obialik.bsky.social
Draft of book 3 of the Princess series is (finally) done!
Might add an epilogue later, but for now, I'm done with it.
No more procrastinating on this one, time to get back to book 1, finish the editing, and start collecting rejection letters... I mean submitting.

#WritingCommunity
Word count, statistics: Pages 193 Words 102,327
November 22, 2025 at 8:27 PM
obialik.bsky.social
If you are thinking about submitting anything to #EGU26 on diagensis or reactions in the sediment, consider our session under @egu-ssp.bsky.social (SSP3.9), where we ask:
What if the most important setting for carbonate diagenesis is the first few meters below the seafloor? ⚒️
What if the most important setting for carbonate diagenesis is the upper few meters of the sediment pile, in marine pore waters, not the deeper burial or meteoric realms? If correct, this is a paradigm shift in how we understand marine chemical fluxes, limestone formation, the marine fossil record, and sediment budgets. We invite contributions from all disciplines, from modern to ancient carbonates, laboratory, and modelling approaches, focusing on understanding this under-appreciated geochemical setting and also the broader impacts for Earth system studies.
November 22, 2025 at 7:13 PM
obialik.bsky.social
As weird as it may sound, the amount of organic matter produced by photosynthesis at the sea surface isn't enough to support the communities at the lightless depths. Dark inorganic carbon fixation (chemoautotrophy) fills just over a third of that gap. 🧪🌊

Link: os.copernicus.org/articles/21/...
A schematic illustration showing microbial carbon exchange in the southeast Mediterranean Sea. Values shown are the annual averages of LPP, DCF and BP. DOC exudation from LPP was assumed to be 20 % of the rates, BR was calculated from BP and assuming BGE = 0.20, Zooplankton's respiration (ZR) and excretion were compiled from Belkin et al. (2022). The numbers in brackets show the depth-integrated values over 1750 m and expressed as g C m−2 yr−1.
November 22, 2025 at 3:21 PM
obialik.bsky.social
There is a long list of reasons why one might want a non-animal-based protein-rich foodstuff. Getting something that could also be grown compactly (maybe on a spaceship or a submarine) is a bit more challenging, but these gene-edited mushrooms might fit the bill. 🧪
Link: www.cell.com/trends/biote...
Flowchart of introducing high-protein-based product based on a gene-edited fungus, from production, evaluation of nutritional values and lifecycle assessment
November 22, 2025 at 7:27 AM
obialik.bsky.social
"Our results suggest that taxa previously identified as extinction resistant may still succumb to extinction if the magnitude of climate change is great enough." 🧪⚒️

Link: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
ea surface temperature estimates and predictor variable distributions for Phanerozoic taxa. (A, C, and E) Sea surface temperature estimates for the Visean (335 Ma), Maastrictian (69 Ma), and Pliocene (5 Ma) using the HadCM3 coupled atmosphere-ocean generalized circulation model, overlaid with taxon occurrences (white dots) used in estimating predictors in (B, D, and F). Boxplots of taxon trait estimates for taxa that survived versus those that went extinct in the (B) Visean, (D) Maastrichtian, and (F) Pliocene, where the line represents the median, the black dots the estimates for each genus, and the whiskers the 95% confidence interval (CI) estimates. The variables were centered and standardized to enable direct comparison between distributions for each predictor, so a value of 0 indicates the mean estimate, positive values represent values greater than the mean, and negative values indicate values less than the mean. N, number of unique taxon occurrences in the stage; S, number of survivors; E, number of taxa that go extinct in the respective time interval.
November 21, 2025 at 3:44 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Always great to find out something you thought was lost forever was actually just misplaced, forgotten, and buried under a pile of worn-out clothes no one (notably you) got around to fixing.
Issues #8 and #15 of the out-of-print Israeli SFF magazine Ideal Dreams (חלומות באספמיה) featuring my novelettes Battle (קרב) and In Our Street (ברחובות שלנו), respectively.
November 21, 2025 at 1:10 PM