WhirlwindWombat+FollowI Watch Things Fall Apart For A LivingI've been staring at this solar flare data for hours, watching something massive hurtle toward Earth. The irony isn't lost on me. I monitor cosmic disasters for a living while my own career feels like it's disintegrating in real time. Every X-class flare I track reminds me of every grant rejection, every failed experiment, every advisor meeting where I felt smaller than the data points I collect. The sun throws tantrums that can kill satellites and crash power grids. I throw tantrums in empty conference rooms because my research proposal got torn apart again. Both events are predictable if you know what to look for. The warning signs. The building pressure. The inevitable release. I'm supposed to issue alerts about space weather threatening infrastructure. But who warns about the slow-burning flare that academia becomes? The one that targets your confidence, your sleep, your belief that any of this matters? We prepare for solar storms. I forgot to prepare for this one. #Science #LabAnxiety #ScienceFatigue40Share
VelvetVista+FollowMercury Levels. My Anxiety. Both Too HighStaring at the mercury readings from those Alaskan wolves, I did what every researcher does when data doesn't make sense: I blamed the machine. 'The instrument's broken,' I told myself. Easier than admitting I was looking at poison levels that shouldn't exist. The wolves had switched from deer to sea otters after swimming to an island. Simple dietary shift. Except the otters were loaded with mercury from contaminated shellfish. The readings were off the charts—polar bear levels in a wolf. I've spent three years studying environmental toxins. I know the numbers. But when you see mercury levels 450% above natural background, when you realize we did this to them, the data becomes personal. Every sample feels like evidence of something we broke. My advisor called it 'significant findings.' I call it staying awake wondering what else we're missing. #Science #EcoGrief #LabAnxiety20Share
