Derek Lowe

@dereklowe.bsky.social

16681 Followers 759 Following

Medicinal chemist / chemical biologist, author of “In the Pipeline” at http://science.org/blogs/pipeline. derekb.lowe@gmail.com and on Signal at Dblowe.18 All opinions are mine; I don’t speak for my employer in any way.

An idiotic department store buyer of the future expresses enthusiasm for some pottery, saying that “they are real est’etic”
Two photos of a car dashboard, the upper one reading an outside temperature of -3F and the lower a temperature of 100F.
Description of how the work to produce stripped-down living cells led to one with only 525 genes, and how one-third of them had unknown functions. Another ten years of work and there are still 56 of these genes that are essential, but no one knows why.
A perfectly faked vintage fantasy paperback cover showing some heroic dude in a jumpsuit next to a large mountain-lion-like cat. The title is “Whose Cat Is This?”, subtitled “He gave her a bath and a flea collar but she’s going to need a couple shots”
A large round pizza covered with sauce, cheese, white onions, red bell peppers, mushrooms, and pepperoni
A oddly complex light green flower resembling some sort of hanging lamp, coming off a thick green stem that curves to leave the flower pointing downwards.
A mother robin sitting on a nest of small twigs in the shade inside the bush, tail towards the camera
A yellow-and-pink long-stemmed primrose with three flowers on its stem
Fields of multicolored tulips stretching into the distance
The Muppet Show's "Pigs in Space" crew
Urging people to contact Sen. Michael Rodrigues, Ways and Means Chair (Michael.Rodrigues@masenate.gov), Sen. Karen Spilka, Senate President (Karen.Spilka@masenate.gov), Rep. Aaron Michlewitz, Chair House Ways and Means (Aaron.M.Michlewitz@mahouse.gov) and Rep. Ronald Mariano, Speaker of the House (Ronald.Mariano@mahouse.gov) The idea is to express support for the provisions of the bills and urge them to move these forward in the legislature.
A description of the provisions of H.3494 / S.2243 on light pollution, including reduced electric rates for low-wattage lighting as an incentive, requirements for all new public lighting to be shielded from upward scatter, limited blue-light emissions, bringing lighting in line with environmental mandates (migrations, noctural animals), and requiring MassDOT to update their roadway lighting criteria.
The No Kings rally on Boston Common, with a large display of “in distress” American flags (upside down) and others
Weathered layers of pinkish-grey sedimentary rock, looking like a pile of phyllo dough
A selection of white eggs decorated with abstract designs in multicolored marker ink
A “haftseen” for Persian New Year, with hyacinths, painted eggs, saffron, an apple, vinegar, some candy, dried senjed (oleaster) fruit, a head of garlic, and a dish of newly sprouted greens (in this case lentils).
A light brown wood frog with slightly darker stripes on the legs
A spotted salamander crossing an asphalt road, heading for a vernal pool. Black with vivid yellow spots along the body.
A light brown Wood Frog sitting on top of my shoe as I give him/her a ride across a wet asphalt road during the spring vernal pool migration.
A woman’s hands carefully holding a spotted salamander (black with rows of bright yellow spots) and helping it cross a busy road during the spring vernal pool migration
Location of my account in Bluesky space, far removed from the chemical science cluster
Two backyard bird feeders on poles with squirrel baffles, with a light covering of snow on the ground
A brilliant scarlet-and-white “Danish Flag” poppy seen from the side against a green leafy background
A contents page showing chapters, each with a list of the topics that come up every few paragraphs.
A Cooper’s hawk, brown-winged with rust stripes along his neck that stretch down across his front, bright orange claws gripping the metal of a shepherd’s-crook bird feeder pole
An aluminum snow rake with pole sections making it about 20ft long. At the end is a sort of thin metal plow with wheels built into it, to drag piles of snow off a roof (and especially away from exposed eaves)
A small black and white woodpecker perched on the side a a suet feeder cage
A Carolina wren sits at the edge of a platform feeder, short tail held upwards, with a single seed held in the beak in profile.
A grey squirrel and a red squirrel both eating sunflower seeds in the snow. The former is 3-4x the size of the latter.
Two grey-and-white tabby cats eating canned sardines from green glass dishes on a kitchen floor.
A very well-fed gray squirrel eating a hunk of Basmati rice, holding it in the paws
A red squirrel in the snow stuffing his face with shelled sunflower seeds.
The poster for the 1972 movie “The Godfather”
A screenshot taken by someone on Twitter/X of Elon Musk agreeing with a tweet that shows the EU flag being peeled back to reveal a Nazi one. For Elon’s purposes here Nazis are apparently bad, but you can’t rely on that with him, of course.
A chunky grey squirrel eating a hunk of “tahdig”, the crust from Iranian basmati rice
A classic orange/brown pumpkin pie
A bright pink-red pie in a Graham cracker crust
A multicolored block-letter sign saying “Bring Back the Rule of Law”
Bright green transparent metal-organic framework crystals prepared with copper and a “multipronged” carboxylic acid ligand. The crystals formed blocky roughly rectangular pieces with some very large emerald-like chunks.
The final Talk Talk album, Laughing Stock. It’s a strange and weirdly compelling blend of acoustic and electronic music, and it’s like nothing else I’ve ever heard.
A streetlight pole base on a concrete piling, with over twenty spotted lantern flies sitting on a small area of it
A large (8 or 10 inch) red hibiscus bloom, bright red