Katie Mack Profile picture
Jan 31 5 tweets 1 min read
A short Covid story:

A week ago, I spent about 90 minutes in very close quarters in a very small enclosed space with someone. We’re both vaccinated; neither wore masks.

A couple hours later I heard from them that they felt unwell and just tested positive on a rapid test. 😱
1/5
Having a positive result on a rapid test generally means you have a high viral load & are probably pretty contagious. So, essentially, I had spent 90 minutes sitting inside an infectious-SARS-COV-2 nebulizer! Not good!

But I’m vaccinated & boosted, so I hoped for the best 🤞🏼
2/5
Anyway the conclusion of the story is that I didn’t get it! I tested negative on PCR tests on Wednesday and Friday, and I’ve been negative on a bunch of rapid tests all week. I’ve been extra careful and staying away from people regardless but: the vaccine & booster worked! 💪🏼
3/5
Essentially, my immune system, boosted and ready due to the vaccines, saw Covid coming and said:
Of course my experience is only my own and I absolutely DO NOT recommend hotboxing Covid no matter how vaccinated you are but as for me I say:

Vaccines are amazing! Thank you, medical scientists! 🧪🙏🏼

5/5

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More from @AstroKatie

Dec 7, 2021
🚨 Some news from me! 🚨

I am ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to announce that, as of June 1, 2022, I will be joining the @Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics as the inaugural

Hawking Chair in Cosmology and Science Communication

(auto-CCs at YouTube link)
More about the role: I'll be working with the Cosmology group and the Centre for the Universe at @Perimeter to continue my research into dark matter and the early universe. And I'll ALSO be working with Perimeter's fantastic outreach team to bring physics to the world!
I'm super excited to start my new position at @Perimeter in the spring! I'll still be maintaining my connection with @NCState, who have been extraordinarily supportive of my research and public science work since 2018, but I'll be living in Canada full time starting in June! 🇨🇦
Read 5 tweets
Nov 19, 2021
This piece by @StartsWithABang is a nice explanation of how the mental picture most people have of the “Big Bang” is outdated and wrong (!)

❌ singularity➡️hot dense plasma➡️galaxies etc

✅ [unknown]➡️inflation (probably)➡️hot dense plasma➡️galaxies etc

bigthink.com/starts-with-a-…
I talk a little bit here about what cosmologists CURRENTLY mean when we say “the Big Bang” (a.k.a. “Hot Big Bang”) — the hot dense glowing plasma phase of the early universe. NOT a singularity. We don’t have any evidence a singularity ever happened!

vm.tiktok.com/ZM8gVuDG7/
Here, I talk about the language ambiguity around the term “the Big Bang.” It’s best to think of the Big Bang as the theory that the early universe was hotter, denser, and in some sense smaller than it is today. But a singularity isn’t part of that picture! vm.tiktok.com/ZM8gVfVxr/
Read 5 tweets
Nov 17, 2021
My googling has failed so:

This is the best belt (strong woven canvas with this cool buckle design) and I can’t for the life of me find somewhere to buy another one exactly like it. 😕 Anyone know anyone anywhere who sells these things? The original brand doesn’t anymore. A photo of the underside of a pin or peg-style belt buckle. A view of the belt with the end of the belt looped into the A view of the belt buckle in action, with the pin through a A view of the closed belt buckle from the front, looking ver
I have worn this belt nearly every day for like 20 years; I would love to find another one!
Update: Someone miraculously found exactly this model of belt on eBay! Unfortunately it was a small (32”) and mine is something like 39”. The search continues…
Read 4 tweets
Nov 15, 2021
I know that “experimental astrophysics” & “experimental cosmology” typically refer to research using observatories or detectors for signals other than visible light to learn about the universe but it’s still fun to imagine they’re cooking up stars and black holes in the lab 👩🏼‍🔬🪐
Fusion researchers talk about "creating a star" in the lab (e.g., lasers.llnl.gov/education/how-…) but that's more like triggering the physics behind how stars work, which is not quite the same. Creating a black hole in the lab, though, might actually be possible angelsanddemons.web.cern.ch/faq/black-hole…
If CERN *did* create a black hole in the lab, it would tell us some very interesting things about our Universe! It would confirm some speculative theories about the possibility of higher dimensions of space, and it would even give us hints about the stability of the Universe (!)
Read 7 tweets
Oct 30, 2021
In a couple hours I will be boarding a flight to London on roughly this route and I have a window seat on the left 👀🤞🏼✈️ #AuroraBorealis A topographic map of the region of Earth over the Atlantic,
I will report back as to whether I see any incredible aurora and/or discover any downsides to being airborne at high altitude during a geomagnetic storm 🤩😬
I’m ready. Come on aurora! A photo of an engine and another plane out an airplane windo
Read 4 tweets
Oct 26, 2021
Just spoke with @LBC about the discovery of what might be a planet in another galaxy: bbc.com/news/science-e…

Which is very exciting! But (and I didn't get to this in the interview) there are reasons to be skeptical about this claim.
The astronomers observed a dip in the bright x-ray light from a binary system consisting of a massive star locked in an orbit with a compact stellar remnant: a black hole or neutron star. The claim is a planet passed in front of the system and briefly blocked the x-ray emission.
Such a "transit" event is certainly plausible -- we've detected thousands of exoplanets via transits in our own galaxy! But this case would be a VERY lucky situation. The alignment would have to be perfect and the timing EXTREMELY lucky to have caught it.
Read 4 tweets

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