Lyndie Chiou

@lyndie.bsky.social

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Physics. She/her.

Science writer contributing to | Quanta Magazine | Scientific American | New Scientist | NYTimes.

ZeroDivZero.com

#BlackInSTEM

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A 30s GIF of the Aurora Borealis -- as seen in the Bay Area last night! 🔭🧪

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Lyndie Chiou

A lot of folks are asking if we'll get a repeat of last night's aurora for tonight. No guarantees, but the storm is ongoing so my guess is yes! If it's clear, wait until it's dark (1.5 hours or after sunset) and look north (unless you're in Oz/NZ/etc then look south). 🔭🧪

We have Northern Lights down in California in the Bay Area!!!! Mostly purples, some green near the base. 🔭

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can you actually “set fire to the rain”? stardust episode 13: Magnesium, is now available! youtu.be/Pkb2RS9K77I?...

Stardust episode 13: Magnesiumyoutu.be How to set fire to the rain!

Wandering other worlds while also exploring the science of flight! My latest for Scientific American. #science 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

NASA’s Plans for Next-Generation Mars Helicopters Are Up in the Airwww.scientificamerican.com After the spectacular success of the first-ever “Marscopter,” mission planners have soaring ambitions for follow-up flying machines

A dive into dark matter in 2024! There are many experiments afoot -- planned and running -- but physicists are most excited about a class of smaller and faster experiments to find the elusive stuff. My latest Quanta article! #physics #DarkMatter #science 🧪 www.quantamagazine.org/dogged-dark-...

Dogged Dark Matter Hunters Find New Hiding Places to Check | Quanta Magazinewww.quantamagazine.org Perhaps dark matter is made of an entirely different kind of particle than the ones physicists have been searching for. New experiments are springing up to look for these ultra-lightweight phantoms.

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Interesting article here of new techniques to find where voting is too hard based on how long it takes (# poll vs # people) and also how far away the voting is taking place.

Many people will remember the media coverage of long lines during Georgia's 2020 gubernatorial election. But how do you systematically find voting deserts? I wrote about mathematicians' work to do just that... #MathSky #Math #mathematics #science #politics #🧪#polisci www.wired.com/story/voting...

Here’s a Clever Way to Uncover America’s Voting Desertswww.wired.com Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places poorly served by polling stations.

14 yr old, a minute ago: What mathematician spent a lifetime lying? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fibonacci 🧪🧮♾️

This was maximum eclipse from East Bay, CA! It was exciting if not totality exciting 😜

The eclipse is still under way here! We reach max in about 20 minutes here in California (but no totality here)! #eclipse 🌑

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A couple of days late, but ... our oldest son is a chemistry nerd. You're welcome. 🧪

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Never get tired of this headline + image arstechnica.com/science/2019...

Rats love driving tiny cars, even when they don’t get treatsarstechnica.com It was for a study on how enriched environments can affect stress response.

In the 2020 Georgia elections, voters waited in lines for hours. Their struggles attracted the attention of the press, but how do you systematically go about finding voting deserts? I wrote about recent work by mathematicians to do just that. www.quantamagazine.org/topologists-... 🧪 #math

Topologists Tackle the Trouble With Poll Placement | Quanta Magazinewww.quantamagazine.org Mathematicians are using topological abstractions to find places where it’s hard to vote.

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One year, a student fed all of his lab reports through Grammarly to get suggestions on how to avoid over-used words. It told him he used the word "atom" too much and should replace it with "bit" or "morsel." Also the flame-test lab used the word "flame" too much, so it suggested "sweetheart."

I would like to note again that journals in my field tend to allow up to 10% duplication from other works because of this. There just aren’t that many synonyms to describe “photon.”

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A pleasing evening calculation, prepping for my Introductory Astrophysics class: If the Sun is orbiting the Galactic centre at the typical stellar rotation velocity (~225 km/s), how many times has the Sun been around the Galaxy during its ~5 billion year lifetime? Answer: around 20 times 💃 🔭🧪

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A new conjecture about unexpected patterns in elliptic curves! It was uncovered by AI/ML but required an international collaboration of mathematicians to recognize. My latest for Quanta! #Math #Mathematics 🧪 #AI www.quantamagazine.org/elliptic-cur...

Elliptic Curve ‘Murmurations’ Found With AI Take Flight | Quanta Magazinewww.quantamagazine.org Mathematicians are working to fully explain unusual behaviors uncovered using artificial intelligence.

I turned up the color saturation in this crow. Check out the iridescence that popped out in the wing feathers! By eye, I could only see a little hint of green at the edges, I definitely missed the purples. 🪶

TIL: John Williams (famous for composing the music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter, etc), started out as a jazz drummer and played jazz piano in night clubs. He also released several jazz albums under the name "Johnny Williams".

It's really surprising that we didn't know the universe expansion was accelerating until *1998*.

Happy Chinese new year! Unlike the Western new year, the Chinese new year is based on the position of both the sun and the moon -- it's the 2nd new moon after the winter solstice. 🔭

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Hello BlueSky, we’re the Vera C. Rubin Observatory! 👋 Rubin is a new facility being built on Cerro Pachón in Chile. When complete, Rubin will image the sky every 3-4 nights for 10 years, using an 8.4m telescope & 3200 Mpx car-sized camera 🔭🧪 🔗: rubinobservatory.org

Taken during the commute home around 6:20pm. Thanks to some friends, I know this is a textbook example on an anvil cloud! 🧪

Agreed! I find this place mostly welcoming.

Bluesky is my favorite of the nonTwitters. (I've tried them all.) The density of information is right, and the timeline just feels like it's missing more users. May we make this a smart, welcoming place.

A really brief rainbow during all the rain 🌧️☔

A well placed Lego set helps remind me to not close my laptop while training a new algorithm. The thermal image also makes it look like it's about to launch! Side note: the NVIDIA chip is running ~185F in this photo.

I saw a huge moon halo last night around midnight -- aka a 22-degree halo or winter halo! #astronomy #astrophotography 🔭

Even now it boggles my mind that you can just point a microwave receiver into space and "hear" the noise of the cosmos.

There are a few revolutionary moments in the study of cosmology, points when our understanding of the Universe took dramatic steps forward, and the discovery of the cosmic microwave background is right up there. It also set the stage for a host of future discoveries. 🧪

After a long day of training, a runner's legs ache. But for me, after a long day of coding, my eyes and my brain hurt 🤕👓 Hope we all find time to relax!