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obialik.bsky.social
Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️
@obialik.bsky.social
5.8K followers 180 following 7.8K posts
Sediment, climate change, and impostor syndrome | Science and SFF for the win | Writing for a living and fun | Opinions are my own (or the characters' in my head).
Academic stuff: https://obialik.weebly.com
Non-academic writing: https://ombialik.weebly.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
obialik.bsky.social
Different countries approach regulating sex work very differently, with implications. Criminalization goes with increased risks to sex workers' safety and health, while legalization still leaves them fighting a stigma. 🧪

Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-026-01413-7​
Prostitution legality map of the world. Light Blue - Decriminalization - No criminal penalties for prostitution Green - Legalization - prostitution is legal and regulated Dark Blue - Abolitionism - prostitution is legal, but organized activities such as brothels and pimping are illegal; prostitution is not regulated Orange - Neo-abolitionism - illegal to buy sex and for 3rd-party involvement, legal to sell sex Red- Prohibitionism - prostitution illegal Gray - Legality varies with local laws Source: https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A5:Prostitution_laws_of_the_world2.svg
September 18, 2026 at 2:06 PM
obialik.bsky.social
The actual paper has a much less dramatic title, but the press release feels like it should be read in some stereotypical accent.

(the paper, if you're interested: www.nature.com/articles/s42...)
Rich neighborhoods more likely to burn Wealthy enclaves at higher risk, but bounce back faster Peer-Reviewed Publication University of California - Riverside
September 18, 2026 at 12:02 PM
obialik.bsky.social
#WeekendReading: Barabinot et al. on seasonality of fine-scale turbulence in the Mediterranean Sea. Winters have more eddies... but it's not actually that surprising. 🧪🌊

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-04046-1

​
Eddy kinetic energy 21-day cycle composites from SWOT L3 v3. a Cycle 1 (26 July 2023–11 August 2023) corresponding to the summer minimum and b Cycle 10 (25 January 2024–14 February 2024) corresponding to the winter maximum.
September 18, 2026 at 2:10 AM
obialik.bsky.social
And yes, for those who have seen my last few posts, I did come back from working 24 hours on a ship at sea, sat on a computer, and began to work on a new code.
Why do you ask?
(Also, yes, I do need to be in the lab tomorrow morning to finish processing samples)
September 17, 2026 at 9:05 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Dear software makers,
We don't really care about what's new and fancy in the new version of the program you just updated (without asking us, I might add). If we care, we'll look it up. Don't open more windows for us that we need to spend time closing.
September 17, 2026 at 8:00 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Ho, I got an idea! I need to write a script for it. Maybe this time I'll try doing it in Python. Install Python, spend the next two hours trying to deconflict packages and versions.
September 17, 2026 at 7:27 PM
obialik.bsky.social
So naturally, when I was out at sea sampling and came back home dirty and tired, that's when two reviews for my paper came in.
September 17, 2026 at 5:47 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Water has been pivotal to evolution of life on Earth, but Terra is far from the only planet in the Sol System with water, and the (barely known) chemistry of water on those planets bears on their habitability.

#SciFiScience 🧪

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-74955-4​
This schematic illustration compares two major types of ocean-bearing icy moons: a smaller icy moons, such as Enceladus and Europa, in which a subsurface ocean may directly overlie a poorly differentiated silicate interior; and (b) larger, more strongly differentiated bodies, such as Titan and Ganymede, in which high-pressure ice layers separate the ocean from the deep rocky interior. Chemical species produced at the surface or within the interior may be exchanged through ice-shell recycling or subduction, ocean circulation, plume activity, as well as convection and melting within high-pressure ice layers. These possible transport processes regulate ocean chemistry and, consequently, the habitability of subsurface oceans. The structure is not shown to scale.
September 17, 2026 at 2:14 PM
obialik.bsky.social
A maxim in geology, specifically igneous, is "to complicate, just add water" (aluminum would also work). But where is that water stored in the deep earth? Iron oxyhydroxides might be a reservoirs. 🧪⚒️

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-026-02067-1​
Symbols denote experimental observations: hexagonal Fe5O12Hx (solid circles), Fe7O12Hx (empty circles), the previously reported ‘H-phase’ (empty triangles) and cubic (Fe,Al)O2Hx (empty squares). A mantle geotherm is shown as a dark-yellow band, with a subduction slab profile indicated by the blue arrow. Green- and pink-shaded regions represent the stability fields of dense hydrous magnesium silicates and cubic FeO2Hx, respectively. Coloured dash-dotted lines depict dehydration boundaries of Al-bearing phase H (cyan) and cubic FeO2Hx (orange). Solid coloured lines show solidi for dry pyrolite (green and purple) and wet (blue) pyrolite. The solid black line is the MgSiO3 bridgmanite to post-perovskite transition, and the dashed black line (bottom left) is the phase transition boundary of hydrous phase D to H. Grey and red vertical stripes represent the D″ layer and CMB, respectively. For Fe5O12Hx, Fe7O12Hx, ‘H-phase’ and cubic FeO2Hx, the indicated pressures are those determined at room temperature after laser heating annealing; thermal pressure effects, of up to 10% at ~2,500 K, were not included. Temperature error bars represent ±2σ (standard deviation) of the temporal fluctuations continuously recorded over the entire heating duration.
September 17, 2026 at 2:11 AM
obialik.bsky.social
"... the evidence supports reading for pleasure and engaging in book clubs as scalable interventions, which may promote cognitive reserve, resilience, and lifelong mental well-being." 🧪

Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291726105625​
A bunch of people reading books around a table with some coffee cups around and a cake someone inconsiderate brought since there is only one slice and it's clearly not enough for everyone.
September 16, 2026 at 2:00 PM
obialik.bsky.social
אנחנו מחפשים כימאי אנלטי למעבדה לכימיה ימית (המחלקה שלי) בחקר ימים ואגמים, עבודה בחיפה
קול קורא למשרת כימאי אנלטי בחקר ימים ואגמים, קוח לשלוח לדואל hagarh@ocean.org.il
September 16, 2026 at 8:18 AM
obialik.bsky.social
היות שעברו איזה עשרים שנה, אני לא זוכר את כל הפרטים על מה היה אי אז. היות שזה אני, אני עושה מחקר, שואל אנשים, חופר באינטרנט.
שחכתי כמה פעילות שוטפת (מחוץ לכנסים) האגודה עשתה אז, לדוגמא, היתה סדרת הרצאות חודשים (הרצאות גפן) לציבור הרחב.
obialik.bsky.social Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️ @obialik.bsky.social · 14d
וחוץ מזה חוץ מזה, על עוונות נעורי, נקראתי לדגל לרגל 30 שנה לאגודה להיות אחד מאלו שהיו שם לבני השיער🧑‍🦳ולדבר על הימים המוקדמים של האגודה (אני לא כזה זקן! הייתי אז בתיכון ואיכשהו מצאתי את עצמי מעורב בהרבה התחלות)
4/5 🧵
אומרים שהיה כאן שמח – פסטיבל אייקון 2026אומרים שהיה כאן שמח – פסטיבל אייקון 2026
tickets.sf-f.org.il
September 16, 2026 at 5:25 AM
obialik.bsky.social
We like to keep the fuel on our rockets as cold as possible to save on space, esp. if it's a gas on Earth surface conditions. But keeping things cryogenic in space, where venting heat is challenging, more so moving it between spaceships. 🧪

Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-024-00377-5​
The three operations represented are ballistic phase, docking and transfer. For each phase the most typical physical phenomena occurring is represented: in green the phenomena dominated by a variation in pressure, in red those dominated by a variation in temperature and in yellow those dominated by a variation of velocity.
September 16, 2026 at 2:03 AM
obialik.bsky.social
The promenade next to the coast goes along the road out of the institute. When I leave work a bit late, it's an endless parade of barely dressed hard bodies running along it. It is a nice distraction, but it also ratchets up the guilt that I'm not exercising enough.
September 15, 2026 at 4:22 PM
obialik.bsky.social
You'd be amazed just how much robotic work is done to replicate octopus tentacles (not just for that!)
It's not only limited to the physiological aspects, the distributed sensing is also a key aspect we're trying to mimic.

#SciFiScience 🧪

Link:​ https://www.nature.com/articles/s42256-026-01230-y
September 15, 2026 at 2:12 PM
obialik.bsky.social
שטויות קטנות שעושות לי נחמד - סוף סוף הצלחתי להרכיב צוות דיגום שהשמות של כולם מתחילים ב-א'.
September 15, 2026 at 1:39 PM
obialik.bsky.social
I mean, the study about patches in the atmosphere of Betelgeuse is interesting and all, but it's still mind-boggling for me we can detect spots, in the atmosphere of Betelgeuse, which is at least 640 LIGHT-YEARS AWAY! 🧪

Link; https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/forth/aa60964-26.pdf​
Continuum images of Betelgeuse (around 700 light-years away!) in Band 8 restored with super-uniform uv weighting. Colour tables are illustrated by the colour bars in units of Jy/beam, and use square power law stretches to show the structure in the inner atmosphere. Field of view is 90 mas, and the beam dimensions are shown lower left, with the smallest beam of 7.7×6.6 mas at Band 8. Positional coordinates are equatorial offsets in mas.
September 15, 2026 at 2:04 AM
obialik.bsky.social
The assumption that you're just expected to know something, regardless of your knowledge base, is such a rampant issue that we have children's books specifically explaining why this is a problem.
Try to remember that and not get mad at people for not knowing something you assumed they knew.
"Butterfly, butterfly, can't you see? None of these creatures look like me!" "You never told me she looked like you!" "Of course I didn't! I thought you knew!" "I didn't know, I couldn't! You see... / ... None of my babies look like me." Monkey Puzzle, text by Julia Donaldson art by Axel Scheffler
September 14, 2026 at 6:44 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Good news: Hot weather kills off ~10% of disease-carrying mosquitoes.
Bad news: It speeds up viral replication in survivors.​
🧪

Link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2026GL123990​
A framework for the impact of heat wave and effective precipitation on mosquito-borne infectious diseases.
September 14, 2026 at 3:03 PM
obialik.bsky.social
It's not very visible, but space (specifically Earth's orbit) has become a major part of how we live our lives. As such, it's becoming a domain for potential warfare between Great Powers, which may leave a wasteland in its wake.
🧪 #SciFiScience

Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/10242694.2023.2208020​
An artist's concept of the interception and destruction of nuclear-armed re-entry vehicles by a space-based electromagnetic railgun. The LTV Aerospace and Defense Co. has demonstrated hypervelocity launch technology in the laboratory that is applicable to a ballistic missile defense system.
September 14, 2026 at 1:44 AM
obialik.bsky.social
Me - Manage to use the holiday to catch up on the work stuff I didn't have any time for recently, y'know, with the ongoing situation.
Friend - Did you at least get around to rest a bit over the holiday?
Me - I have learned from the most famous of my people: I died on Friday; I rose on Sunday.
September 13, 2026 at 6:02 PM
obialik.bsky.social
I'm rewriting THE DISPOSABLE PRINCESS, and the main character there has a major story arc about physical activity and dealing with anxiety. So it's fun to run into a study that basically supports that model.

Link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#Writing
www.sciencedirect.com
September 13, 2026 at 3:53 PM
obialik.bsky.social
Cyanobacteria are on my mind a lot recently; I didn't realize just how much carbon they entrap. Despite all the grazing, there is still a large chunk of the carbon getting to the bottom of the ocean originating in them. 🧪🌊

Link: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2025AV002148​
Conceptual illustration of mechanisms driving contrasting carbon sequestration between cyanobacteria and eukaryotic microalgae. Funnel-arrows show export of phytoplankton-derived particulate organic carbon (POC) from the surface to the deep ocean. Blue and green areas indicate fractions derived from cyanobacteria and eukaryotic microalgae, with colored numbers representing both their contributions to primary production and sinking POC at about 1,000 m (POC1000), as well as sequestration efficiencies; black numbers indicate bulk POC efficiency. Depicted areas are schematic rather than quantitative, while all numbers are from this study. Left: low-productivity, cyanobacteria-dominated periods; right: high-productivity, eukaryotic-dominated periods. Despite similar POC1000 composition, eukaryotic microalgae show lower sequestration efficiency than cyanobacteria, especially during periods of eukaryotic dominance, indicating preferential consumption of large eukaryotic particles and protection of small cyanobacterial particles in the twilight zone. Key mechanistic processes: ① aggregation and gravitational settling; ② zooplankton diel vertical migration; ③ bacterial remineralization and CO2 return.
September 13, 2026 at 2:30 PM
obialik.bsky.social
My writing time is extremely limited now (reports being the one exception), so when I finally got some... I prefer to spend it on personal projects I enjoy rather than proposal writing and such.
So naturally, in stolen time this afternoon, I'm writing proposals.

#Writing #AcademicSky
September 13, 2026 at 1:10 PM
Reposted by Dr. Or M. Bialik |📚|🔬|🌊|⚒️
bridgetwade.bsky.social
More on flipping plankton: Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia? www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-these...
September 13, 2026 at 9:02 AM