ML2 @mathlover@qoto.org

Merry Christmas! The U.S. energy department just declared the Texas grid an emergency again-again!

Every time Ted Cruz flees to Mexico, an angel gets its wings! 🎄

Fuck Greg Abbott, Ted Cruz, John Cornyn, and every Republican, Texas voter. Also, merry Christmas. https://mastodon.social/@flexghost/109572011317991158

Children born today will see literally thousands of animals disappear in their lifetime, as global food webs collapse.
https://theconversation.com/amp/children-born-today-will-see-literally-thousands-of-animals-disappear-in-their-lifetime-as-global-food-webs-collapse-196286

The hack of Piers Morgan's Twitter account comes just a few days after someone claimed to obtained the data of 400 million Twitter accounts in a major breach. That person was trying to sell the data and included Morgan's phone number and email as evidence that the breach data was authentic.

I don't see any great news articles about the breach, possibly because of the holidays, but @briankrebs has recently posted some reliably good info and analysis about it here on Mastodon.

AMAZING RARE sighting of massive phantom jellyfish. These jellies can grow to an astonishing 10 metres (33 ft) in length! This giant was spotted 990m (3,200 ft) below the surface off the California coast.

Video by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

It is so beautiful with parents of autistic children get it. For any parents reading, please note the part where the author decided to limit what they share of their child's good and bad days.

When I learned my child was autistic, I was devastated. But reading about autism from autistic adults changed my whole perspective.

https://www.insider.com/my-child-is-autistic-autistic-adults-changed-my-perspective-2022-12 #Autism #AutisticAcceptance

@elonjet @mmasnick

Looks like Elmo pulled the plug on Datacenter Dynamics’ website!

Not just for communication platforms, either. For many many things, if you don't control it, it isn't yours. You might have found the perfect little program for part of your workflow but oops it's an online app from Google and it's now in the Google graveyard. You might have found the perfect free to use 3d tool, but oops they got bought out and now it's $1000 a year to keep using it. You might have found the perfect iot device for your home but oops, it relies on a third party server and the company went out of business so now you have to throw all the equipment you bought away.

Americans can help defeat a fascist billionaire oligarchy with the choices they make but instead are like “choosing a server is too hard!!” 😩

I've tried not to bring too much baggage with me from COVID Twitter but this NYTimes story is appalling. Not only do they paint those still wearing masks as holdouts, but they somehow couldn't find someone who wears anything in between a handmade cloth mask and an elastomeric P100, giving the impression that the remaining mask wearers are either wearing ineffectual protection or wearing a level of protection that most people were unwilling to adopt even pre-vaccination.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/us/covid-masks-risk.html

My grandfather had the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.

Snowball Earth

Through many posts we have talked about the Great Unconformity (yes, you must capitalize it) and how it occurs worldwide in different rock sections. Why? Scientists believe that at several times in Earth’s history the planet was buried in a blanket of ice. Oceans were nearly frozen. This is what scientists call Snowball Earth, or sometimes Slushball Earth.

The last occurred sometime before 650 million years ago, during the aptly named Cryogenian period. In 200 million years, uplift and the giant erosive conveyor belts of ice eroded continents down to the roots of the ancient mountains and left the land at sea level. Think the Canadian Shield. This scraped bare land is the base of the Great Unconformity. As the glaciers melted, sea level rose and covered the land and deposition of sedimentary layers began. Variations of this happened worldwide. We can focus on the North American continent which looked much different at that time. Forget anything west of Idaho or so. It wasn’t there yet.

Geologist Myron Cook does a much better job then I could of explaining Snowball Earth, the Great Unconformity, and why different gaps, between hundreds of million to billions of years, of time exist in rock section across what was North America at the time in his great video published only 11 days ago. Throw in a master-class in Deep Time, and you have it all put together as only a master story teller can. And there are lots of rocks, yay! Watch this wonderful video. Yes, it’s long, but you’ll absolutely hate yourself if you don’t get to see the Mineral Fork Tillite and how the story ends. Trust me.

https://youtu.be/LXzDfQyUlLg

Follow it up by further findings on Snowball earth using thermochronology by Kalin T. McDannell, et. al. including our own @brenhinkeller as they work to help determine if glaciation or the recent hypotheses of tectonic influence had more impact on denudation of the continent. Spoiler alert: read the title of this post again.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2118682119

Another version here: https://eos.org/articles/erasing-a-billion-years-of-geologic-time-across-the-globe

Pinging @BoxcarMurphy who probably knows all about this already :)

#SnowballEarth #SlushballEarth #Glaciation #Cryogenian #TheGreatUnconformity #NorthAmericanContinent #DeepTime #MyronCook #HowSnowballEarthLeveledTheContinentsAndCreatedTheGreatUnconformity #WatchTheDamnVideo #geology #ScienceMastodon @geology

Big Journalism is still largely unwilling to call things what they are. Today's example is the Washington Post's use of "vaccine hesitancy" to describe a movement that is based on rejecting science and evidence in favor of dangerous and, increasingly, politically motivated lies.

The people who reject vaccines are attacking their communities. They spread disease and death. We should recognize this, and say it out loud.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/12/26/vaccine-hesitancy-measles-chickenpox-polio-flu/

Christmas is a celebration rooted in a very explicit story of migrants seeking shelter, and a strong implicit critique of those who would turn them away.

That white Christian nationalists would leverage the lives of vulnerable immigrants to try & own libs right now says it all

What an idiot

Trump rambles that he has 'total immunity' from any kind of prosecution

#politics #news
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-has-no-immunity/