Matt Davenport

@mrmattdavenport

"You ask too many questions, boy." he/him

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Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Jun 26

More like Max Blanck, amirite? But seriously, this whole story is bananas.

An excerpt from a Science article about retractions of articles written by Max Planck that reads, "Gingras was especially incensed that Springer Nature deviated from the normal practice of merely slapping the word RETRACTED across the digital version of the paper while still allowing scholars to read the text. Instead, the publisher posted a blank white page with the cryptic phrase, 'This article has been withdrawn due to article violation.' Springer Nature is nevertheless still selling the empty PDF for $39.95."

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Jun 24

Telling my kids that "Levitating" is actually about exoplanet engulfment. www.space.com/astronomy/st...

A screen capture of a June 18 space.com story by Robert Lea entitled "Sun-like star may have swallowed an exoplanet with help from a mysterious companion: 'You are what you eat, right?'" also shows a Canva illustration of what that might look like: A grayish-red planet explodes as it crashes into a larger star that glows like burning coals. Running alongside the story is a Nespresso ad featuring Dua Lipa, making it looks like she's regarding the celestial collision with the kind of excited awe you might see at a demolition derby.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Jun 18

Look at how excited he is to talk about ecology.

A screenshot of a Zoom recording thumbnail called "Interview about Ecology Paper" in which Matt Davenport appears to be gleefully shrieking.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Feb 24

On its surface, it may seem like a mundane, procedural case in the saga of the Line 5 oil pipeline through the Straits of Mackinac. But there's a lot at stake at a deeper level, Shriberg writes.

A quote graphic shows the Mackinac Bridge with a small photo of Mike Shriberg, the directory of the University of Michigan Water Center. There's also a quote from Shriberg that reads, "I see this moment in the Supreme Court as one layer of a complex debate that Line 5 has stirred up about states' rights, Indigenous rights and the future of the fossil fuel economy."

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Oct 22

The transportation piece is super interesting, too, and I probably didn't do it justice with the release. Fortunately, though, Sophie Kevany did an excellent job for @sentientmedia.org. sentientmedia.org/meat-consump...

$A text excerpt reads: The study also finds that emissions from transportation are a small fraction of overall livestock emissions, as has been shown in other research. For consumers eager to make a dent in their own climate emissions from what they eat, that means that eating locally, while appealing, does not in fact have much impact on emissions. “Food miles and related emissions are largely a myth,” Goldstein writes to Sentient. “Emissions from transporting food account for around 10% of total emissions related to producing and distributing food products to retail.” By and large, he adds, “most emissions occur during production, especially in the case of meat which requires lots of feed and generates lots of on-site emissions” that come mainly from enteric fermentation, primarily cattle burps, and the manure lagoons used to hold animals’ urine and feces.$

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Oct 22

Along those lines, the beef consumption per capita scatter plot is similar to the picture for meat consumption on the whole, where the intensity of producing the meat is evident in the stratification of hoofprints. public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...

A plot shows there's a substantial scatter in the relationship between a city's per capita meat consumption and its carbon hoofprint, or greenhouse gas emissions associated with its meat supply.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Oct 22

Assuming I did this right—and I can't stress enough that I'm a writer and not a researcher—the answer to your question is not exactly (the following link will take you to an interactive version of the image). public.flourish.studio/visualisatio...

A plot shows there's a substantial scatter in the relationship between a city's per capita beef consumption and its carbon hoofprint, or greenhouse gas emissions associated with its meat supply.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Oct 9

Then I think about his quote we used as the kicker for the episode a ton and probably still not enough. Just really great advice, I think. Congratulations to Professor Yaghi, Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson and the MOF community. (all done)

A quote from Omar Yaghi reads, "So along each step there was criticism and detractors, but the nice thing about the life of a scientist is that there’s always some people out there that appreciate what you do and they’re not afraid to stand up and say, “This is interesting work. This is worthwhile work.” So I learned, now that I am a senior professor, senior researcher, that whenever I see something nice that a young, emerging scholar or assistant professor or somebody starting out their career, when they are doing something truly groundbreaking is to say, “This is nice work. Keep going.” And and I was fortunate to have that. There were people out there just like I had that CEO come into my office and propelled me to take these materials to applications. So this is this would be my advice for any anybody doing research. It’s research in itself is a very difficult endeavor because you fail a lot. And the reason you keep going is because of the potential success that you might get along the way. But during this process you will have a lot of detractors, but don’t forget that you will also have supporters. And that’s what counts. The detractors you have to listen to what they’re saying because you have to address any weakness in your work that you might have. But there’s always people out there who do make constructive contribution to your research by simply talking to you about the good and the bad in what you’re doing."

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Oct 9

He even turned my lame, but I maintain chucklesome, joke about American football into a really memorable part of the interview, I thought. (4/one more)

A screen shot from an interview transcript between Omar Yaghi and Matt Davenport contains the following exchange.

Matt Davenport: When you say in one gram, there’s the surface area of a football field, is that American football or the international football?

Omar Yaghi: It’s actually more. It’s actually more than one football field. So either one would work. It’s more than a soccer field or the American football field. In one of the MOFs, we call it the Queen of MOFs, MOF-177, had of porosity of about 5,000 meters squared per gram. And we showed that in fact in a tank filled with MOF-177, you could store double the amount of hydrogen that you would store in a tank that does not have the MOF. And so even though the MOF was occupying volume, the MOF pores were acting to compact the gas molecules within the pores. And so this was, this was amazing.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Sep 4

Early replicants could be somewhat easily be identified by an unfamiliarity with regional ads that aired before the digital television transition. www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lV-...

Google's AI overview for a search on "Rip Hamilton and lasik" reads:

Richard "Rip" Hamilton is not known to have had LASIK or LASEK eye surgery. The rumor may stem from confusion between two different stories involving medical procedures and the name "Hamilton."

Here are the facts:

Rip Hamilton's mask was for his nose, not his eyes. The famous clear mask he wore throughout his career was to protect his nose after he broke it multiple times. He first started wearing it during the 2003-2004 season after breaking his nose twice and was advised to wear it to avoid reconstructive surgery.

The mix-up likely involves Dr. Rex Hamilton. There is a renowned Beverly Hills ophthalmologist named Dr. Rex Hamilton who is known for performing LASIK and other vision correction surgeries on athletes and celebrities.

Other famous athletes have had LASIK. The confusion may also be partly fueled by the fact that other notable basketball players, such as LeBron James, have undergone LASIK surgery.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Jun 16

It's like inbox zero, only more metal.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Jun 16

Outwardly: Oh look, East Lansing is in today's Sports Connections. Inwardly: ON THE BANKS OF THE RED CEDAR www.nytimes.com/athletic/con...

The New York Times'/Athletic's Connections Sports Edition puzzle for June 16, 2025. The 16 selections to group into 4 groups of 4 are Augusta, Columbus, Madison, Raleigh, East Lansing (which is highlighted), Realmuto, Goose Egg, Quail Hollow, Donut, Royal Portrush, College Park, Bagel, Rutschman, NIL, Oakmont and Perez.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· May 27

Gmail's suggestions have some extra kick today.

A screenshot of an email being written where Gmail has suggested replacing the word "darn" with "damn."

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· May 6

This interview is just wild. www.science.org/content/arti...

A screenshot from a Q&A in Science magazine with NIH director Jay Bhattacharya.

Responding to a news article published in Nature that reported NIH plans to suspend foreign collaborations, Bhattacharya says:

"No, that’s false. There’s going to be a policy on tracking subawards. The NIH and the government should be able to see where the money’s going.”

“I’m really uncomfortable with this conversation, because you’re like, actually spreading rumors that you don’t know anything about. … Nature also is spreading rumors. Halt foreign collaborations, that’s not true.”

“We’re working on the policy, Jocelyn. You shouldn’t be reporting rumors. I know there’s leaks all over here, but the leaks don’t actually reflect what’s happening. Don’t write about rumors. It actually makes the things that you and I care about worse. Like it spreads panic."

The final paragraph of the story then reads, "Later that day, NIH released a policy that halted future subawards to foreign scientists and said they will need to apply directly for money under a system still in development."

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· May 2

I think it's a little unfair to expect dolphins to have an explanation for Spain's blackout. On the other hand, if they've got a gravity hole, maybe I'm not giving them enough credit.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Feb 21

These two paragraphs. Dang.

A screen capture from a Grist article that reads as follows:

“This study really finds that we can keep the grid stable with more and more renewables,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a civil and environmental engineer at Stanford University and lead author of the new paper. “Every major renewable — geothermal, hydro, wind, solar in particular, even offshore wind — is lower cost than fossil fuels” on average, globally.

Yet Californians pay the second highest rates for electricity in the country. That’s not because of renewables, but in part because utilities’ electrical equipment has set off wildfires — like the Camp Fire started by Pacific Gas and Electric’s power lines, which devastated the town of Paradise and killed 85 people — and now they’re passing the costs that come from lawsuits and burying transmission lines to their customers. While investigators don’t know for sure what sparked all of the wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles this month, they’ll be scrutinizing electrical equipment in the area. Power lines are especially prone to failing in high winds, like the 100-mile-per-hour gusts that turned these Southern California fires into monsters.

Matt Davenport@mrmattdavenport· Dec 12

Kinda neat that people who are really good at stuff celebrate with the same move I use when I stand up after being seated for a while.