Physicist/planetary scientist/astrobiologist based at Harvard. Soccer dad in training. Social media native since 2024.https://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3msghqxt66k2ahttps://www.reuters.com/technology/metas-ai-model-hacked-another-company-during-testing-information-reports-2026-08-05/ Latest from Meta: Look everyone, our AI just hacked into someone else's company too, can we also have another $100 bn please?06 Aug 2026 16:32 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3msghqxt66k2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3mqs4pzt3ps2lVery proud of my student Collin Cherubim for his discovery of an atmosphere on the habitable-zone exoplanet LHS 1140 b! https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aea9708 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/16/science/astronomy-exoplanet-atmosphere.html16 Jul 2026 20:56 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3mqs4pzt3ps2lhttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3mnabn42tqk2iA pretty good idea! https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/opinion/artificial-intelligence-bernie-sanders.html01 Jun 2026 14:20 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3mnabn42tqk2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3mksxemjpl22gWe have a new paper out in PNAS led by Charlotte Minsky! Our research indicates that around 700 million years ago, Earth's climate may have been just One Snowball After Another. https://sciencex.com/news/2026-04-snowball-earth-stranger-climate.html https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.252591912301 May 2026 20:21 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3mksxemjpl22ghttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3mftzdkmius2ghttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/27/hannah-spencer-victory-speech-green-byelection It's inspiring to see this result and speech from the Green party in the UK today!27 Feb 2026 15:23 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3mftzdkmius2ghttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3mfk7sry65c2cNASA Decadal Astrobiology Research and Exploration Strategy (DARES) community webinars are starting this week! Please join if you're interested in contributing to NASA's next astrobiology roadmap. Sign-up link is here: https://science.nasa.gov/astrobiology/strategy/dares/23 Feb 2026 17:53 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfk7sry65c2chttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3ma7vvuskac2dAGU petition to save NCAR. Please share widely! https://agu.quorum.us/campaign/151565/18 Dec 2025 00:23 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3ma7vvuskac2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3m4irxu5dqk27New paper on arxiv led by Prune August on rocky exoplanet atmospheric reinflation! All comments welcome arxiv.org/abs/2510.25896 https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.2589631 Oct 2025 15:26 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4irxu5dqk27https://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3m4gptjk2gk2aMy new essay on the future of life in space just appeared in Noema magazine! Kudos to Satwika Kresna for the lovely artwork. [contains quote post or other embedded content]30 Oct 2025 19:42 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4gptjk2gk2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3lxzg7re3e226https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/9/4/harvard-funding-order/ This is good news for US higher education, although far from the end of the story.04 Sep 2025 15:04 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3lxzg7re3e226https://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3lupz6iyvdk2iIf you could hear in the infrared, what would CO2 sound like? We calculated this recently for a Gen Ed course, and the result is a little eerie. Results were generated by mapping IR frequency in inverse cm to sound frequency in Hz.24 Jul 2025 17:02 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3lupz6iyvdk2ihttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3lrqae3zwyc2nNew work led by Jess Cmiel finds that planets with steam atmospheres may be cooler — much cooler — at the surface than we previously thought. 

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/adcd5f
 arxiv.org/abs/2505.00775 This supports and extends conclusions published last year by Selsis et al. in Nature. 🔭 🧪16 Jun 2025 14:54 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3lrqae3zwyc2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3lqmzrl3m422jThese ‘large igneous provinces’ have formed a few times in Earth history and are terrifying — imagine a huge chunk of the surface turning into Mordor in a geologic blink of the eye02 Jun 2025 14:53 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3lqmzrl3m422jhttps://bsky.app/profile/rdword.bsky.social/post/3lqmzqmpyck2jWhat does it take to turn Earth into a Snowball? Formation of a volcanic plateau about the size of India at the equator, according to our new study led by Charlotte Minsky: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2024JE008701?domain=author&token=QC2WAZADUFSVB3FRWCDN 🔭 🧪02 Jun 2025 14:53 +0000at://did:plc:urojypmm2crv3aybpoxebc6a/app.bsky.feed.post/3lqmzqmpyck2j