Congrats! I however have only read the abstract and surmised it might be pretty cool. If only there were no paywall…

Here is another article I found to have a good discussion of this story:

101°F in the Ocean Off Florida: Was It a World Record? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/26/climate/florida-100-degree-water.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

This guy is a rock star! I wanna go back to school for astrophysics! If only it paid the bills…

Absolutely. Press releases will always overhype research to make it interesting to read. It is unfortunate those in the scientific community feel they need to do this. Many institutions pressure their researchers to submit these press releases so they can show off what they do to the public. As I type this, I realize how the institutions themselves feel they need these public summaries for their survival. Would taxpayers ever support research if they don’t understand it??

Perhaps what is most needed is to drop the spin and hype while still informing the public about the scientific process and results!

Hunng…this is so unsatisfying. I get that we can infer the presence of dark matter, but we (me and others likewise uninformed) are lacking a good, physically plausable explanation of what it really is. WIMPs? Axions? What process is so pervasive that makes these represent so much mass and energy in the universe?

I don’t know why, but the big bang does not sit well with me. Not from any scientifically informed perspective, it doesn’t seem right to have something that finite.