(Photo: YouTube)

Millennial icon Bill Nye the Science Guy, whom this reporter once had the immense pleasure of interviewing, currently serves as the CEO of the Planetary Society. There, he's worked to raise awareness about the Curiosity Rover's mission to Mars, as well as advised Elon Musk on what the space research community needs out of a commercial space program. ("We need cheap access to orbit," Mr. Nye told us in an interview. "It’s the key first step. Getting to orbit right now is too expensive.")

Mr. Nye is working to raise awareness about NASA's gutted space exploration budget. Yesterday, his team published a YouTube video of Mr. Nye urging viewers to send a letter to the President, asking him to restore the budget.

"Even if you don't like the president, we'd like you to write to him because he's the guy that can make that last thing happen to make sure that the budget for planetary science gets restored," Mr. Nye says in the video. "We're talking about missions to Mars and Europa. Scientists have gone back through the budget, they've reconfigured things, they've come up with a budget to explore Mars that will be acceptable to everyone. But we have to push that last little bit."

The 2013 budget includes a proposed 21 percent cut to NASA's already eviscerated planetary sciences budget, and the Planetary Society hopes to convince lawmakers to reverse this decision. You can get more information, as well as a form letter to send to the president, here.

Mr. Gardner (Photo: Twitter)

When word broke yesterday that Twitter had suspended @bill_nye_tho, a hilarious account parodying every 90s kid's favorite scientist Bill Nye the Science Guy, Twitter users erupted with a mix of outrage and despair. Someone even created a petition to help save @bill_nye_tho. But the mastermind behind the account, SUNY Buffalo senior Lucas Gardner, told Betabeat in an interview that even if Twitter unsuspends him, he has no intentions of reviving the account.

"I'm just going to let @bill_nye_tho be dead, whether they unsuspend it or not," he said. "It had a good enough run, and to be honest, I was pretty fresh out of ideas anyway." Mr. Gardner said that Twitter still hasn't responded to his queries as to why his account was suspended.

As The Daily Dot pointed out, this isn't the first time the account has faced suspension from Twitter. It was temporarily suspended back in July, after which Mr. Gardner tweeted--in true @bill_nye_tho fashion--, "my account got suspended for a little while but i fixed it with science lol."

The real Mr. Nye, for his part, has not been in contact with Mr. Gardner. "I haven't heard anything from the real Bill Nye," he told us. "I really hope that, if he is aware of it, that he's not offended by it or anything. I love him and it was never my intention to make fun of him."

Mr. Gardner, who does standup around Buffalo and hopes to make it as a TV writer, told Betabeat that he started the account after a nostalgic trip down memory lane about our collective affection for the zany, bowtie-wearing scientist.

"I was thinking about how, in middle school and even into high school, even kids who didn't care about science, and would spend science classes dicking around or sleeping - they always shut up when Bill Nye was on," he said in an email. "Kids and teenagers loved him, and I was thinking about how funny it would be if he tried to stage a comeback for the newer, 'YOLO' generation."

Since then, @bill_nye_tho has exploded to hundreds of thousands of followers, though Mr. Gardner admits it took a while to get there. "At first it was only popular on what I guess has come to be called 'weird Twitter,' but then it blew up," he said. "I didn't think it would."

Despairing @bill_nye_tho fans need not fret; Mr. Gardner pointed us to another project of his--a Twitter account as imagined by an Ecuadorian fan of Dragon Ball Z. Not quite the same stoner humor, but it should help wean you off this sad news rather nicely.

Mr. Gardner (Photo: Twitter)

Update: @bill_nye_tho's creator says he's shutting down the account. RIP :(

If Twitter is attempting to foment a violent backlash amongst its most addicted users, it is doing an excellent job. After banning a journalist during the Olympics and yanking API access from third party clients, we are beginning to think that Twitter is being advised by a pompous and unpopular foreign dictator. "Sure, eradicate TwitPic. They'll never revolt."

But if we were the fightin' kind, Twitter's latest unforgivable move would surely be the last straw. The company has suspended what is by far the best parody account ever, @bill_nye_tho, an absurdist imagining of what childhood science hero Bill Nye would sound like if he was a stoned millennial with a penchant for Internet speak.

The genius of @bill_nye_tho--reminiscent of the YOLO-ing class clown, if he was into science-- is hard to pin down, so here are a few examples, care of Buzzfeed:

Until the account was suspended, the mastermind behind @bill_nye_tho remained a mystery. But last night, Lucas Gardner, a writer for Laughspin.com with a hilarious Twitter of his own, outed himself as the account's creator.

"hi i'm @Bill_Nye_Tho. @BillNyeDoe is not me. neither are the other ones, fyi. please r/t," he tweeted, along with a screenshot of Twitter's message notifying him of the suspension. A new parody account, purporting to be penned by the same creator of @Bill_Nye_Tho, had cropped up in the hours following the suspension, but it was decidedly more hackneyed than its predecessor. Mr. Gardner came forward in order to stymy the false notion that the accounts were run by the same person.

We've reached out to both Mr. Gardner and for comment but haven't heard back. Twitter told us, "We don't comment on individual accounts, for privacy reasons."

While Betabeat hasn't been able to independently verify Mr. Gardner's claim, it's hard to imagine that someone who makes a living as a comedy writer would sully his reputation with a fake claim to fame--especially one that would be so easy to debunk. However, using an application like Firebug, it would be pretty easy to mock up a fake screenshot.

But a Google cache search reveals that @bill_nye_tho has been retweeting a ton of Mr. Gardner's tweets--including links to his blog posts--lending further credibility to his claim.

While Twitter has yet to respond to our request for comment, a perusal of its terms of service and rules indicate a few problems @bill_nye_tho may have encountered. First, despite the plethora of parody accounts, it's against Twitter's rules to impersonate someone. The rule reads: "You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others."

It's hard to believe anyone would think that @bill_nye_tho was the real Bill Nye--especially since the profile explicitly stated it wasn't the real Bill Nye and even linked to the actual Bill Nye's profile, @thescienceguy. But perhaps the real Mr. Nye complained and Twitter obliged.

Mr. Gardner may also have some trouble ever reclaiming @bill_nye_tho, much to the dismay of his legions of fans. "We reserve the right at all times (but will not have an obligation) to remove or refuse to distribute any Content on the Services, to suspend or terminate users, and to reclaim usernames without liability to you," reads Twitter's terms of service.

Meanwhile, @bill_nye_tho fans are galvanizing for that revolution. "yo does @twitter have an embassy we can burn or something?" tweeted one. "we aint taking this @bill_nye_tho suspension lightly b."

Update:

A Massachusetts resident named Rob Wilber has started a Change.org petition to repeal the suspension of @bill_nye_tho:

Every so often, a Twitter account comes along that changes the game. On a website littered with soulless, moronic "parody" accounts that imagine what Will Ferrell, Chris Rock, and Ted from the movie "Ted" would say if they were they were given a comedic lobotomy and the interests of a tween, @Bill_Nye_Tho was a beacon of education, laughter, and hope.

This is truly the most important cause of our time.

(Photo: Getting Smart)

Betabeat had just settled in for a hot Friday night date with the Internet when a friend sent us an email with the subject line, "!!!". Enclosed in the body was a link to a Reddit Ask me Anything featuring none other than our childhood idol Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Mr. Nye is somewhat of a Reddit folk hero, a noted target of nostalgic awe whose esteem on Reddit may be eclipsed only by the swag-as-hell physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. An AMA from Bill Nye has been a long awaited Reddit event. The fact that it's happening on a Friday night is also probably of no consequence to the majority of Redditors (this reporter included).

So what did we discover from the illustrious Mr. Nye that Betabeat didn't get around to asking him in our Bryant Park interview? A lot about bowties, obviously.

The AMA is still currently taking place, and Redditors are falling all over themselves for a chance to express how much influence Mr. Nye exerted on their childhoods. "I would just like to say on my behalf and I'm sure many other Redditors, that you played a very important role in shaping our minds and helping us grow and learn as children," wrote a user named "ratajewie" (oh-ho!), who literally ended their sentiment with a heart emoticon.

For his part, Mr. Nye talked about a lot of the same stuff he did when we interviewed him: the Curiosity Rover landing on Mars, the importance of discussing climate change and that "Science is the best idea humans have had." He also hinted at the idea of launching a revamped Science Guy series produced only for the web, coyly teasing, "Stay tuned ;-)."

As for the bowties, Mr. Nye is quite the collector. "When you see one you like, just buy it," he wrote of his affair with neck accouterments. "If it's good lookin', someone is right behind you ready to snap it up. I find them at Nordstrom (the store and Rack)....Right now, I'm diggin' the slimline with arrow points. Ahh...."

Our favorite answer, however, had to be when Mr. Nye exploded Reddit's collective mind by answering a question about what he talks about when hanging out with Mr. Tyson.

"Astrophysics, the business of television, baseball, wine, and women," Mr. Nye quipped.

"This is the best answer possible," replied one user, while rubbing the stars from his eyes.

When this reporter woke up for the interview this morning, she found herself struggling to find something to wear. ("All my lab coats are in the wash," we tweeted.) Turns out that we should've opted for a bow-tie, as Mr. Nye showed up to our interview in Bryant Park in that signature sartorial choice, a green paisley one tied around his neck. On the lapel of his jacket, a Planetary Society pin gleamed in the sun.

Mr. Nye, a resident of Los Angeles, was in New York to promote the work he is doing with Sophia, an online portal that hosts multimedia educational tools to promote social learning. He is helming the Sophia Summer Challenge, which aims to combat the "brain drain" that occurs over the summer. Students can sign up to take short tutorials and quizzes for a chance to win an iPad.

"Half of what you learn about science you learn informally or out of the classroom," Mr. Nye told us, after we'd settled in to one of the green metal tables on the outskirts of Bryant Park. "These kids today are in front of a screen seven hours a day. While you’re doing that, why don’t you do some educational stuff? People really lose their proficiency in the summer--you don’t practice math, you forget how to do it."

"What we want is more science literacy," he added.

Mr. Nye is also the CEO of the Planetary Society, the world's largest space interest organization, which was started by the late great Carl Sagan, one of Mr. Nye's former professors (he believes he got an A in that class, though an A- was also possible). As part of this position, he raises awareness about the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars. Mr. Nye recently had lunch with Elon Musk, the PayPal cofounder who launched SpaceX.

"It's awesome," Mr. Nye said of SpaceX. Before launch, Mr. Musk had a meeting with the board of the Planetary Society, said Mr. Nye. "He sat down with them and said, 'I want to go to Mars. What do I need to do?' And everybody said, 'We need cheap access to orbit.' It's the key first step. Getting to orbit right now is too expensive."

As a proponent of science literacy, what do you make of the gender gap in the field? we asked Mr. Nye.

"My mom was recruited by the navy because she was good at science," he replied. "My mother--and this is not some great-grandmother--my mother could not get an American Express card because she was Mrs. Nye, even though she was also Dr. Nye. She marched in the parade--she told us she threw her bra in the fire--I was not there, though, so I can't verify."

"Science is the best idea humans have ever had," he added. "Half of humans are women, so we want half of scientists to be women. This is a long journey--but the longest journey starts with a single step."

From the man who taught us so much about science, we wanted to know: what did he still find most fascinating about the universe?

"We are star stuff," he replied. "This is to say, you and I are made of atoms that came from exploding stars."

We didn't want to monopolize the chance to interrogate our childhood idol, so we asked fellow "Science Guy" watchers for questions. “Ask him to refute global warming in two sentences,” responded one Twitter follower.

"Global warming is true, whether or not you believe it. Sorry," he retorted.

"What do you make of this whole zombie apocalypse?" one of our Facebook friends encouraged we ask.

"Apparently there are some drugs that can render you pretty useless," Mr. Nye replied. "I joke all the time about how useless zombies are, though. Maybe they're the antithesis of what's cool now. What's cool is to be quintuple-tasking at any time, moving fast, gettin' 'er done, and zombies--along with their slow movement--they seem indifferent to the world around them."

"You don't see a lot of zombies on Facebook," he added.

In the middle of our meeting, a man came up to us and complimented Mr. Nye on his bowtie. "Do you get recognized a lot?" we wondered.

"A couple hundred times a day," he acknowledged. Of his role as a nostalgic figure, he joked, "It's a little disturbing. It's very sweet, it's very nice. I still don't get it. When people say I've affected their lives, I still don't quite get it. I went to work--most weeks--seven days a week. I put my heart and soul into that dumb thing, with the dream that some of you would pursue careers in science and engineering, or at least have an appreciation for it. The ultimate would be if one of you--or a group of you--solve some astonishing world problem."

We were happy to find out that Mr. Nye was familiar with a lot of topics on the tech beat: He raved about the convenience of the app Uber, and expressed excitement about the recent CornellNYC campus announcement.

"I'm hoping they'll give me a job," he added.