For the first time, astronomers witness the dawn of a new solar system.
Chinese scientists have developed a smart nano eye drop that can effectively reduce retinal neovascularization in diabetic retinopathy, which can lead to vision loss and even blindness. The non-invasive treatment offers new hope for patients with chronic diabetic complications.

2024 July 21
King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Wayne Pinkston (LightCrafter Photography)
https://waynepinkstonphoto.com/
Explanation:
This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. Perhaps the reason it's not more famous is that it is smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240721.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA
2024 July 5
Mount Etna Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Gianni Tumino
https://www.facebook.com/giovanni.tumino.58
Explanation:
A glow from the summit of Mount Etna, famous active stratovolcano of planet Earth, stands out along the horizon in this mountain and night skyscape. Bands of diffuse light from congeries of innumerable stars along the Milky Way galaxy stretch across the sky above. In silhouette, the Milky Way's massive dust clouds are clumped along the galactic plane. Also familiar to northern skygazers are bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the Summer Triangle straddling dark nebulae and luminous star clouds poised over the volcanic peak. The deep combined exposures reveal the light of active star forming regions along the Milky Way, echoing Etna's ruddy hue in the northern hemisphere summer's night.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240705.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA
2024 May 29
Stairway to the Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Marcin Rosadziński
https://researchinpoland.org/news/polish-astrophotographer-selected-milky-way-photographer-of-the-year-2025/
Explanation:
What happens if you ascend this stairway to the Milky Way? Before answering that, let's understand the beautiful sky you will see. Most eye-catching is the grand arch of the Milky Way Galaxy, the band that is the central disk of our galaxy which is straight but distorted by the wide-angle nature of this composite image. Many stars well in front of the Milk Way will be visible, with the bright white star just below the stellar arch being Altair, and the bright blue star above it being Vega. The air glows green on the left, just above the yellow cloud deck. The featured image was taken last month on Portugal's Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and what happens after you reach the top of these stairs and admire the amazing sky is, quite probably, that you then descend down the stairs on the other side.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240529.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA
2024 July 21
King of Wings Hoodoo under the Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Wayne Pinkston (LightCrafter Photography)
https://waynepinkstonphoto.com/
Explanation:
This rock structure is not only surreal -- it's real. Perhaps the reason it's not more famous is that it is smaller than one might guess: the capstone rock overhangs only a few meters. Even so, the King of Wings outcrop, located in New Mexico, USA, is a fascinating example of an unusual type of rock structure called a hoodoo. Hoodoos may form when a layer of hard rock overlays a layer of eroding softer rock. Figuring out the details of incorporating this hoodoo into a night-sky photoshoot took over a year. Besides waiting for a suitably picturesque night behind a sky with few clouds, the foreground had to be artificially lit just right relative to the natural glow of the background. After much planning and waiting, the final shot, featured here, was taken in May 2016. Mimicking the horizontal bar, the background sky features the band of our Milky Way Galaxy stretching overhead.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240721.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA
2024 July 5
Mount Etna Milky Way
* Image Credit & Copyright: Gianni Tumino
https://www.facebook.com/giovanni.tumino.58
Explanation:
A glow from the summit of Mount Etna, famous active stratovolcano of planet Earth, stands out along the horizon in this mountain and night skyscape. Bands of diffuse light from congeries of innumerable stars along the Milky Way galaxy stretch across the sky above. In silhouette, the Milky Way's massive dust clouds are clumped along the galactic plane. Also familiar to northern skygazers are bright stars Deneb, Vega, and Altair, the Summer Triangle straddling dark nebulae and luminous star clouds poised over the volcanic peak. The deep combined exposures reveal the light of active star forming regions along the Milky Way, echoing Etna's ruddy hue in the northern hemisphere summer's night.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240705.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA
2024 July 29
Milky Way over Uluru
* Image Credit & Copyright: Max Inwood
https://www.instagram.com/max.nti/
Explanation:
What's happening above Uluru? A United Nations World Heritage Site, Uluru is an extraordinary 350-meter high mountain in central Australia that rises sharply from nearly flat surroundings. Composed of sandstone, Uluru has slowly formed over the past 300 million years as softer rock eroded away. The Uluru region has been a home to humans for over 22,000 years. Recorded last month, the starry sky above Uluru includes the central band of our Milky Way galaxy, complete with complex dark filaments of dust, bright red emission nebulas, and billions of stars.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240729.html
#space #galaxy #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy#NASA
2010 August 12
Perseid Prelude
* Credit & Copyright: Tamas Ladanyi (TWAN)
https://twanight.org/profile/tamas-ladanyi/
Explanation:
Each August, as planet Earth swings through dust trailing along the orbit of periodic comet Swift-Tuttle, skygazers can enjoy the Perseid Meteor Shower. The shower should build to its peak now, best seen from later tonight after moonset, until dawn tomorrow morning when Earth moves through the denser part of the wide dust trail. But shower meteors have been spotted for many days, like this bright Perseid streaking through skies near Lake Balaton, Hungary on August 8. In the foreground is the region's Church of St. Andrew ruin, with bright Jupiter dominating the sky to its right. Two galaxies lie in the background of the wide-angle, 3 frame panorama; our own Milky Way's luminous arc, and the faint smudge of the more distant Andromeda Galaxy just above the ruin's leftmost wall. If you watch for Perseid meteors tonight, be sure and check out the early evening sky show too, featuring bright planets and a young crescent Moon near the western horizon after sunset.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100812.html
#space #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA

(14 Jul) Merger of two massive black holes is one for the record books
The event resulted in a new black hole with a mass 225 times larger than our Sun.
https://s.faithcollapsing.com/tc4bz
Archive: ais: https://archive.md/wip/IvH8C ia: https://s.faithcollapsing.com/7j466
#astronomy #astrophysics #black-hole-mergers #black-holes #gravitational-waves #ligo-virgo-kagra #physics #science
2024 August 5
Milky Way Over Tunisia
* Image Credit & Copyright: Makrem Larnaout
https://app.astrobin.com/u/Makrem_Larnaout#gallery
Explanation:
That's no moon. On the ground, that's the Lars Homestead in Tunisia. And that's not just any galaxy. That's the central band of our own Milky Way galaxy. Last, that's not just any meteor. It is a bright fireball likely from last year's Perseids meteor shower. The featured image composite combines consecutive exposures taken by the same camera from the same location. This year's Perseids peak during the coming weekend is expected to show the most meteors after the first quarter moon sets, near midnight. To best experience a meteor shower, you should have clear and dark skies, a comfortable seat, and patience.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lars-homestead
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240805.html
#space #milkyway #astrophotography #photography #science #astronomy #nature#NASA #starwars

Defending science in public we often talk about 'peer reviewed science'. But could this framing contribute to undermining trust in science and holding us back from improving the scientific process? How about instead we talk about the work that has received the most thorough and transparent scrutiny?
Peer review goes a step towards this in having a couple of people scrutinise the work, but there are limits on how thorough it can be and in most journals it's not transparent. Switching the framing to transparent scrutiny allows us to experiment with other models with a path to improvement.
For example, making review open to all, ongoing, and all reviews published improves this. When authors make their raw data and code open, it improves this.
It also gives us a way to criticise problematic organisations that formally do peer review but add little value (e.g. predatory journals). If their reviews are not open and observably of poor quality, then they are less 'thoroughly transparent'.
So with this framing the existence of 'peer reviewed' but clearly poor quality work doesn't undermine trust in science as a whole because we don't pin our meaning and value on an exploitable binary measure of 'peer reviewed'.
It also offers a hopeful way forward because it shows us how we can improve, and every step towards this becomes meaningful. If all we have is binary 'peer reviewed' or not, why spend more effort doing it better?
In summary, I think this new framing would be better for science, both in terms of the public perception of it, and for us as scientists.



Data manipulation within the US Federal Government [1]
👉Government datasets modified without notice.
▪️We gathered metadata from the US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, and Veterans Affairs database harvest sources [... ] that were modified between Jan 20 and March 25, 2025.
▪️We found that 114 (49%) of the 232 included datasets were substantially altered.
⭐SOME CHANGES⭐
- “Social determinants of health” to “non
medical factors”
- “Gender” to “sex”
- “female details” column deleted
▪️The agencies involved have not issued any statements confirming or explaining these changes [...]
▪️Despite Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's (Department of Health and Humana Services) calls for “radical transparency”, unlogged data manipulation moves away from meaningful transparency.
▪️Only 15 (13%) of the 114 altered datasets logged or otherwise indicated that the change had occurred.
[1] 🌐https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01249-8/fulltext
@publichealth @psychology @sociology @datascience #publichealth #datascience #science #research #health #government #criticalthinking #hhs #cdc #va @bicmay