Wendy W @WendyW@qoto.org

Maynooth College winter wonderland

I popped out to the shops as London's first snowflakes of the year were falling. Two excited cafe staff ran out into the street in their shirt sleeves, laughing and dancing. I asked, "First time?" and they said "yes!". First time for me too, after 23 years in the tropics. It really was magical. A romcom moment. Don't have a photo but I can replay the experience in my head.

Had a tough day on Facebook. I still don’t know what you’re supposed to comment under a photo of a new baby, but I’ve learned it isn’t ‘Yikes’.

How can the EU really become independent of Russian gas? Accelerating energy efficiency (light blue) and renewables (light green) are the big ones!
https://iea.li/3uL2EP3

@BrentToderian @TheGentYYC I think climate policy that relies on any single thing as a magic bullet is a problem. We have a large integrated society/economy and cutting our emissions requires changes in a lot of areas. EV’s will help but we also need changes across the board, not just cars.

Her mother, worried that Lord Byron's poetic temperament might be familial, insisted that Ada be tutored in math, science, and logic. Those things, she reasoned, might counter Ada’s volatile inheritance.

Ada was tutored by the renowned mathematician and astronomer Mary Sommerville, “the Queen of Nineteenth Century Science,” who was nominated for membership in the Royal Astronomical Society at the same time as Caroline Herschel.

Image: Mary Sommerville (self-portrait)

Ada Lovelace, née Augusta Ada Byron, was born #OTD in 1815. A mathematician and the first published computer programmer, she offered a prescient vision of what computing would become.
Portrait: Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1836)

Ouch. Talk about #abandonware. This is why I’m last in the queue for implants. I’ve been involved with #IoT things for far (far) too long. 😱 https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-022-03810-5/index.html

The “E-Bike Effect:” Those who bought e-bikes increased their average daily bicycle use from 2.1km (1.3 miles) to 9.2km (5.7 miles), a 340% increase. The e-bike share of all their transportation increased dramatically too; from 17% to 49%. Via @Treehugger
https://www.treehugger.com/e-bikers-ride-much-farther-and-more-frequently-than-regula-bikers-5076231
#ebikes #bikes #cities #transportation #urbanism #mobility #CityPlanning #Urban

Störche.

Storks.

@matthiasdoering They feel like the best writing I have ever done in my life now ;)

@lakens full 5 lines didn't have comments? Well, I guess I still have a long way to go to get there

Dear early career researchers: I have been writing papers for 17 years. A professional editor just sent back edits on a first draft of a 4 page text. Except for 5 lines, the whole document was red. This is how it goes! Don't feel bad if you get a massive amount of suggested changes on early drafts. The paper will most likely be better for it in the end.

If you enjoy someone's post on #Mastodon go ahead and click the star. If someone tells you that's meaningless because there's no #algorithm, ignore them. Sure, boost the post too if you want others to also see the post, but don't think telling someone you like what they posted is somehow unimportant. In real life I don't tell someone, "good job," or "well said," or "I love that," for the sake of some algorithm, I do it because I'm human and they are too. It's fundamental to being truly social.

Did you know that when the tops of trees grow enough to touch over a street or sidewalk, that’s often nick-named a “kissing canopy?” It creates a beautiful, comfortable & cool street condition, but it ONLY happens when the right design decisions are made. Trees need to be prioritized, not thought about last. #StreetsAreBetterWithTrees #trees #cities #urbanism #KissingCanopies

Wondering which Mastodon app is the best? Some folks may not even know there are different apps for #Mastodon when coming over from #TwitterMigration #TwitterEDUMigration. So hope this chart (which is a teaser from a blog entry later this season, sitting in queue waiting for scheduled publication) may be helpful. I know there are more apps, these are five I've worked with. My personal favs are Toot! and Tusky after long association (what, a month? 🤣 )

Although there are no pain sensors on the brain, we’ve all experienced a headache. So what exactly is a headache and where is that pain coming from? Writer Marissa Maroni answers these questions and more in this week’s post: “What is a headache?”

https://pennneuroknow.com/2022/11/29/what-is-a-headache/

#neuroscience #sciComm #science #blog

We are all stardust.

That oxygen you breath? That comes from dying massive stars, ending their light in a supernova.

The iron in your blood? Some massive stars dying, but mainly white dwarfs, the leftovers of dwarf stars like our own Sun, exploding.

The gold ring on your finger? Mostly merging neutron stars, leftovers from supernovae.

#astrodon #scicomm #astronomy