RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/117401786422084237
Terrible loss..
Search
37 results for “akatc”
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CW: sexual assault
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Margaret Hamilton obit at the NY Times.
Mentions the incident during the Apollo 11 landing when Buzz Aldrin flipped a switch, that caused a CPU overload. The software survived because Hamilton had anticipated and simulated such a scenario and had added logic to prioritize essential tasks over others.
Paul Curto, who nominated Hamilton for a NASA Space Act Award, called Hamilton's work "the foundation for ultra-reliable software design."
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/obituaries/margaret-hamilton-dead.html
https://archive.ph/kD3F4
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July 18, 2019 - Google created this tribute to Margaret Hamilton with 1.4-square-mile portrait of Margaret Hamilton created with 107,000 mirrors at the Ivanpah Solar Facility in the Mojave Desert positioned to reflect the light of the moon, instead of the sun.
Amazing!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7CnVGtd1_Y
https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/maps/margaret-hamilton-apollo-11-tribute/
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"Margaret Hamilton's life’s work was recognized with many awards and honors, including the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama, whose citation noted: “Hamilton defined new forms of software engineering and helped launch an industry that would forever change human history. Her software architecture led to giant leaps for humankind, writing the code that helped America set foot on the moon.”"
https://news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-hamilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
2/n -
Oh no!
"Margaret Hamilton, a profoundly influential computer scientist best known for leading the software engineering team at MIT during NASA’s Apollo program, died on Sep. 30. She was 90.
A computing pioneer who authored over 130 publications, Hamilton helped to establish software engineering as a dedicated discipline."
We all remember her from these iconic pictures.
https://news.mit.edu/2026/margaret-hamilton-computing-pioneer-dies-1007
https://news.mit.edu/2016/scene-at-mit-margaret-hamilton-apollo-code-0817
1/n -
A horrifying development and a difficult read.
https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/congressional-candidate-is-raped-while-repairing-her-campaign-signs-40705248/
#UsPol
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Stand Up For Science. Virtual rally tonight at 7 pm ET.
Register at https://events.standupforscience.net/stand-up-for-science/virtual-rally-compact-for-higher-ed
https://bsky.app/profile/standupforscience.net/post/3mxcdqzcpkk24
#Science
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"It is one thing to possess the skill necessary to let a molecule seemingly speak for itself through a beautifully clear photograph, but it is another thing to be able to discern which specimen must be heard in order to solve an important scientific puzzle. To flip Watson’s deprecating remark on its head, this does require an interest in theory. It requires knowledge and judgment.
Franklin was an accomplished, creative, and self-directed researcher."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10739-026-09866-7
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"The myth that Franklin had failed to see value in Photograph 51 arose as a consequence of Watson’s 1968 memoir The Double Helix. The book appeared fifteen years after the events in question, ten years after Franklin’s tragically early death from ovarian cancer, and six years after Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize for their studies of DNA. The book caricatured her as both a machine-like researcher and as a woman with emotions she could not control."
😠
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10739-026-09866-7
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RE: https://mastodon.social/@publicdomainrev/117399463565729238
Check out these wonderful illustrations by Irishman Harry Clark of the haunting worlds and characters in Edgar Allan Poe's tales of the macabre.
https://fosstodon.org/@publicdomainrev@mastodon.social/117399464729095293
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/harry-clarke-s-illustrations-for-poe-s-tales-of-mystery-and-imagination-1919/
1/n -
Above-normal water temperatures in the gulf region are fuel for hurricanes.
OTOH, El Niño causes high wind shear in the Atlantic region and hinders hurricane formation.
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Tropical Depression Nine in the Gulf of Mexico is now Tropical Storm Isais. With predicted winds speeds of 110 mph winds in the next 48 hours. We can expect forecasts to further rise as the storm travels north/north-east over warm waters.
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Why does life on Earth exclusively use left-handed molecules (for proteins)? That's another area of research addressed by astrophysicists and astrochemists.
Theories include -
Polarized starlight or radiation in star-forming regions
Magnetic fields on Earth
Spin-polarized electrons
Evolutionary amplification of an initial imbalancehttps://theconversation.com/why-is-life-left-handed-the-answer-is-in-the-stars-44862
https://www.science.org/content/article/breakthrough-could-explain-why-life-molecules-are-left-or-right-handed
https://www.purdue.edu/uns/html4ever/030805.Cooks.chiral.html
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9282223/
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The discoveries by the two Nobel laureates in Chemistry deal with chirality - left-handedness vs right-handedness found in organic molecules.
Both mirrored variants are created in chemical reactions but living cells contain one or the other form.
Molecules with the wrong chirality in drugs are ineffective, sometimes harmful.
Kagan and Soai laid the path for autocatalytic chemical reactions that can create molecules with a preferred chirality.
https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2026/10/popular-chemistryprize2026.pdf
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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2026 has been awarded to -
Henri B. Kagan
Université Paris-Sud, FranceKenso Soai
Tokyo University of Science, Japan“for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis”
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2026/press-release/
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Life's precious moments.
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What a moment for the kids and the family!
😍
https://www.instagram.com/p/DeHp5MthWW2/
9/n -
Tropical Depression Nine has formed in the Gulf of Mexico. Expected to strengthen into Hurricane Isais with 100 mph winds in the next 72 hours as it travels north/north-east over warm waters. Landfall will be near the Mississippi and Alabama border on Friday.
Folks in the path - please stay informed and be prepared.
https://www.polarwx.com/tropical/#al092026
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
https://weather.com/2026/10/06/storms/hurricane/tropical-storm-hurricane-isaias-gulf-coast-louisiana-florida
1/n -
The prescriptions from @anildash -
"For every message you put out, start by saying what you mean. Don’t work backwards from what the algorithm wants or what a platform permits.
Build a presence on every platform you can, even the ones where you have fewer followers or where you’re harder to find.
Build alliances with other artists, activists and people who share your values, and let them know you’re going to start sharing your work uncensored.
..."
Hear, hear!
https://www.anildash.com/2026/10/06/kill-unalive/
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From @anildash
"If we keep accepting the words that are forced upon us by TikTok, Meta, Google and all the rest, while platforms like Twitter/X allow the most hateful and harmful content in the world to be distributed completely unfettered, we’ll only see authoritarianism rise, and the harms against the vulnerable accelerate.
It should make you furious. It is time to kill “unalive”."
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“We are in the happy situation that there are not enough Muppets. We’ve run out of Muppets.”
So said Nobel Laurteate Francs Halzen in 2015 when the number of neutrino detections kept rising.
Jakob van Sante, a Wisconsin graduate student, got tired of referring to the neutrino events by their official numbers and started nicknaming them after Muppet characters.
Such as -
Bert
Ernie
Big Bird
Miss Piggy
Mr. Snuffleupagus
Dr. Strangepork
🙂
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2053764-neutrinos-from-inside-earth-and-deep-space-illuminate-the-cosmos/
https://www.nbcnews.com/sciencemain/alien-neutrinos-reveal-new-frontier-astronomy-antarcticas-icecube-2d11624193
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2026 physics laureate Francis Halzen.
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For more info on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, check out their website and the wiki page.
https://icecube.wisc.edu/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IceCube_Neutrino_Observatory
7/n -
Here is the figure from the seminal paper by Francis Halzen (and John G. Learned) in 1988, illustrating the concept and advantages of a neutrino observatory at the south pole, using detectors buried in clear ice instead of being underwater in lakes and seas.
https://lib-extopc.kek.jp/preprints/PDF/1988/8808/8808035.pdf
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This article has a nice overview of the history of neutrino astronomy and observatories.
The first conceptual ideas started in the late 1950s. Concepts for detectors with a realistic discovery potential came in the 1970s and 1980s. Pioneering projects included DUMAND near Hawaii, NT200 in Lake Baikal, AMANDA at the South Pole and ANTARES in the Mediterranean Sea.
AMANDA, led by Francis Halzen and others, was the precursor to IceCube.
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"Most photons cannot reach us from the most distant points in the universe. And though radio waves routinely travel as far as neutrinos, they are emitted even by rather mundane astronomical objects—the moon, for instance. High-energy neutrinos reach the earth from distant, supremely violent events—gamma-ray bursts or black holes at the center of new galaxies."
Unlike cosmic and gamma ways, neutrinos remain unaffected by dust and magnetic fields in space.
https://annex.exploratorium.edu/origins/antarctica/tools/dreams2.html
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"Neutrinos are small and slippery. They pass through the Earth (and stars and cities and most everything else). Unfazed by magnetic fields or the strong nuclear force, they have to make a direct hit on a proton to be stopped at all—a highly unlikely event. At the same time, neutrinos are about as plentiful in the universe as the photons that constitute light: 3E16 of them pass through our bodies every second."
This is from an outstanding essay by Francis Halzen.
https://annex.exploratorium.edu/origins/antarctica/tools/dreams2.html
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