Mike Sowden

Writer (on science, travel & curiosity), Yorkshireman, tedious enthusiast, professional overthinker, Megathreader. Now: Scotland.
Writes Everything Is Amazing.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

It's been 11 days since I came back to X/Tw***er to post about sciencey things - and you've all (ok, *mostly*😄) been extremely kind and welcoming. Thank you! 🙏

Here's a round-up of my threads so far:

(a) New research on one of the greatest of all known floods!

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

A while back, I learned something mindblowing about the geological history of the Mediterranean Sea, and I just can't get it out of my head.

Now I'm going to make it *your* problem too. Sorry.

Hang onto your hat. This gets wild.

1/

[Count Binface @CountBinface]

Here it is: my 2026 manifesto for the #Makerfield By-Election. Makerfield Great Again! #VoteBinface #MakeYourVoteCount

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

@OperaSocialist Absolutely skewering, and so well done.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

https://t.co/2K42y6nleC

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

WHAT THE ACTUAL WHAT

[Kyle 🚄 @KyleTrainEmoji]

PICARD: Data, shields up

DATA: Brilliant! Shields can reduce damage we sustain. Not immunity. Not hubris. Just prudence. It's not precaution—it's strategy.

[camera shakes]

WORF: HULL BREACHES ON NINE DECKS

DATA: Here's what happened: you told me to raise shields, and I didn't

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

FURTHER UPDATE: well, here's someone who didn't learn about pareidolia, I guess. 😄 https://t.co/7sG6pc8E55

[Andrew Bridgen @ABridgen]

NASA posted a picture of “Mars“ online.... Zoom in and see the rat!!! 😂

Please watch and share !
I wonder how they will explain that ? Those rodents get everywhere.

Source: Secrets of Civilizations

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

A while back I wrote about the science of PAREIDOLIA, the "you can't unsee this face in this inanimate thing" bias - & all the examples I found are delightful, ludicrous & worrying!

(It's amazing how completely it hijacks our mind.)

I dare you to unsee the following...

1/

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

https://t.co/5uOg8EqCrN

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

Thanks to the incredible power of pareidolia, good luck with unseeing this fossil, fellow meatbags!

(It's not teeth, but of rows of ancient marine invertebrates called crinoids - discovered by fossil hunter Christine Clark during a Boxing Day walk on Holy Island.)

[Iain Cameron @theiaincameron]

The longest line of sight ever captured in the world was between the mountains Karagöl in Turkey and Shkhara on the Georgia-Russia border, 15th December 2024.

At a distance of 493 km (306.4 miles), it’s the equivalent of seeing Ben Nevis from the hills of central Wales!

[Iain Cameron @theiaincameron]

On the 12th June 2023, a BBC Weatherwatcher sent in a photo of Ben Nevis being struck by lightning. The next day a local guide went to the top and found the exact point where it had hit. If there’d been a group of walkers there it would have resulted in multiple fatalities.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

@invertedfragil1 Fair enough! I'm not that up on economics and I'm a Brit, so I'm honestly just curious about this stuff with no desire to argue.

What do you think could be done about billionaires continuing to use this as a loophole to colossally enrich themselves without paying tax?

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

Oh, this is shabby. I've read enough sci-fi to imagine a pipeline:

--->bottom 50% told they won't pay tax
---> certain rich folk undermining democracy: "what do you people matter? You don't even pay income tax"
--> stripping of civil rights for bottom 50%/non tax-payers.

1/

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

@invertedfragil1 Yes, his wealth, but that the main issue that the article/ProPublica is pointing out? By comprehensively redesignating "income" as "wealth":

"So while the value of their wealth grows enormously through their ownership of shares in their company, that's not recorded as income."

[Rutger Bregman @rcbregman]

This sounds nice, but it's a great way to undermine the welfare state.

The strongest welfare states in the world (the Nordics) tax everyone, including nurses. And they give everyone universal healthcare, childcare, pensions, education in return.

When the middle class has skin in the game, they defend the system. When welfare is 'just for the poor', it becomes a poor program: stigmatized, underfunded, easy to gut.

That's why billionaires keep pushing this idea. The real scandal isn't that this nurse pays $12k.

It's that Jeff Bezos pays $0.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

Also, ProPublica recently investigated Bezos's personal income and found he was paying - wait for it - around 1% in taxes:

https://t.co/qfz6hu9q0h

Vile.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

If a man worth $272 Billion feels bad that his employees are paying tax, maybe up their wages? As that Forbes article notes: "The average hourly pay for Amazon delivery drivers is $19, compared to $35 for unionized UPS drivers."

Also: https://t.co/ZAZ5JQ2M9c

2/

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

@bearmccreary You did incredible work there. The music ratcheted up my nervous system to breaking point. And that dramatic percussive thump just after Adama says "it's another thing to break them" and that whole unbearably tense rollercoaster begins - you're a genius & a monster. 😅 Thank you.

[Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell]

But wait! A new neural-net analysis of faint stars observed by TESS just identified another 10,090 potential planets.

When they're confirmed (and most of them probably will be), they will more than double the number of known worlds beyond Earth.

https://t.co/yJyTP95Z3U

[Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell]

Every blue dot here is a star with known planets.
Every orange dot, one with suspected planets.
Nearly 6,000 total.

Dot by dot, NASA’s TESS mission is filling in our picture of the Milky Way's strange new worlds.

https://t.co/YCoeoyxHbQ

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

@PardonMyPain @rookiemissteak I cured myself of that desire by writing a bit about the Strid, learning enough in the process to put me off for life. 😂 https://t.co/hrsl8XHBA9 All the nopes.

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

It's 2000, & diver Rod Macdonald has discovered something terrifying:

"Dave and I couldn’t resist the temptation to fin over to the edge of the pinnacle & look over the side...into the 200m deep abyss.

[Then] I became aware my exhaled bubbles had stopped rising upwards."

1/

[Mike Sowden @Mikeachim]

Modern borehole and siesmic data has uncovered huge grooves through the rock on either side of the Gibraltar Strait - each around 250 metres deep...

And there's a channel along the bed of the sea floor, carved with unimaginable force.

It's around 200km long.

7/

[Adam M. Ibbotson @AdamMIbbotson]

It turns out the 2025 Google Earth satellite data around Darlington is pretty insane for archaeology. 😵‍💫

Is that a... henge? 🤔 Check the LiDAR and... well, it's certainly something MASSIVE, round, and old. And there are three of them in a row!

#archaeology