I made a dataviz to illustrate the measles situation in my home state of Utah. The MMR vaccination rate has been below the 95% needed for herd immunity for about a decade now, and surprise, there's an outbreak.

$145k is like poverty level for Manhattan, kind of surprised they don't have more income than that. But only makes me like Mamdani as mayor more. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/16/n...

Hot take after watching the video: I think the Hegseth Ezekiel 25:17 thing is silly but kind of a nothing burger. He was reading some inspirational CSAR 2517 meme prayer that has been passed around in some military circles.. www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Gt...

I knew Pope Leo was a Bob Dylan fan.

HHS just published an update to its Scientific Integrity Policy. Notably, it has removed the concept of political interference, and no longer calls it out as something specifically to be prevented. www.hhs.gov/sites/defaul... (deletions in red, insertions in green)

Out today: Blazing Eye Sees All, my investigation into the wide spiritual world of the New Age. It is an unintentional story of extremism, feminism, climate change, deception, power, myth and the very nature of believing. I hope you read it. bookshop.org/p/books/blaz...

I just want to point out that the word "doctor" is derived from a Latin word meaning "teacher," and Jesus is often referred to as the Great Teacher. So Trump's claim that he is a doctor in that image doesn't entirely exclude Jesus. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

genuinely amazed i was not arrested for this

Find yourself someone who loves you as much as the NYT loves talking about Trump. From reddit: www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeau...

Just as the Iran war has the American public adequately distracted from the Epstein files, this comes out of nowhere atop my Google News feed. Hilarious.

1/ NYT out with a huge piece on the decision to go to war. It's much as we thought: Bibi sold Trump a rosy scenario that he heard over the mild to moderate warnings that it was BS but the details are so...appalling/demoralizing. Vance clearly a source: GIFT LINK 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/u...

I don't contact my congressman often, but today I did. Congress needs to convene behind closed doors and across party lines to stop the worst from happening. I hope they do.

This report from PBS is quite shocking - Russian soldiers are basically being sent maimed to the front lines or tortured if they don't give their superiors their military compensation. About a million of them are dead. They've made minimal advances in Ukraine. www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-wY...

As an adolescent of the 90s, this performance gave me a few goosebumps. We didn't get an MTV Unplugged from them in that era, but this might be even better. www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBuH...

New Friday WFH tradition: checking out a bit early to go for a walk in the woods while listening to a podcast tangentially related to work.

NASA's Artemis II crew is on its way! 🚀 Here's a handy guide to the 10-day moon mission 🌔 Follow all our coverage: www.scientificamerican.com/report/nasa-... Graphic by Amanda Montañez; Source: NASA (reference)

Great to see the beginning of some accountability, I hope, on this. www.pbs.org/newshour/nat...

Exciting News! Grant-witness.us now has dynamic funding curves like mine for NIH available. grant-witness.us/funding_curv... 1/2

Nice update on what MERS has been up to. When human cases emerged in 2012, I was a postdoc working in a coronavirus lab, and it was kind of scary to learn about in real time. Fortunately its spread was limited. Good news from this report is that it continues to be so. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

This is just an incredible visual model of what being on X is like

Provo, don't ever change. www.ksl.com/article/5147...

This paragraph. Several NASA programs are not getting their funding from the OMB, including the one that is apparently looking into an asteroid that might be heading for our planet. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Someone or someones made $580,000,000 in exquisitely well-timed oil trades that took place 15 minutes before Trump's dubiously optimistic post about the negotiations with Iran. Gift link ⤵️ giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

picture, thousan words, etc etc

New GOP logo just dropped.

Vogue says moss is having a moment, and I can confirm that I witnessed this on my walk in the woods today.

The war in Iran could trigger a global food shock • More than 1.1mn tonnes of fertiliser and fertiliser inputs is currently stuck in the Gulf • Shortages are starting during northern hemisphere’s planting season, raising the risk of lower harvests for staples like rice www.ft.com/content/1054...

Pew says the two most immoral things in America are having an affair and viewing pornography Donald Trump had an affair with a porn star!!! www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...

Silicon Slopes representing. Some cities on here, like Bellevue and Palo Alto are fantastic places I'm sure but no one can afford to live there without like 10 generations of weath behind them.

Went out to knock some doors in my town for signatures to get some local democrats on the ballot. Really encouraged by the number of people that just said "give me that clipboard" as soon as they knew why I was there.

41 people have died in ICE detention since the start of the second Trump administration. 12 of those deaths have occurred since January 1, 2026, roughly one every six days. Adam Sawyer and I mapped every death. Here's what the data shows. 🧵

Attention Science Communicators! We are conducting a survey on the landscape of science communication & need your help gathering experiences. Please send this to #SciComm ppl you know. We want to get as thorough a sense of the state of the field as we can. umiami.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Under Trump's CFPB, two of the three major credit bureaus have sharply reduced the share of complaints they resolved in customers’ favor. In 2024, Experian’s relief rate was 20%. Last year, that figure fell to less than 1%: https://propub.li/3OY2qBw

About 30% of the world's urea supply comes through the Strait of Hormuz, which is bad news right now for agriculture (or labs that need to solubilize inclusion bodies). www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2...

The amphibians were out here in the NE last night! Did a bit of citizen science identifying and counting those crossing the road near a park last night, here's some of what I saw.

Grammarly now offers an "Expert Review" AI option that impersonates the advice of famous writers and editors (some of them dead) without their permission. What a sucky business model. www.platformer.news/grammarly-ex...

For those who celebrate. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf0q...

Enjoying the rare sight of a semi-frozen pond on a 75-degree day at sunset.

Baturday Bat World Sanctuary

Today's U.S. jobs report is out. I made this chart showing total jobs added/lost (non-farm) going back to 2024, and separated out the federal jobs added/lost to highlight the impact of DOGE.

I had to summon Markwayne Mullin's Wikipedia page to satisfy my curiosity about whether that was his real name or a nickname, and what parent does this to their newborn child?!?

Calling states "red" and "blue" based on presidential results not only ignores the partisanship of other statewide votes but also ignores how lousy those descriptors are at the presidential level. www.ms.now/opinion/texa...

A massive bloom of rimu berries in New Zealand fueled a mating surge among the critically endangered Kākāpō. spklr.io/6044E87xp 📸: New Zealand Department of Conservation

The Trump Admin has sent a war powers report on Iran to Congress, its 6th report this term. Amidst shifting explanations for the war, it's an important document for the public. Now analyzed and available on our #WarPowersResolutionReportingProject site: warpowers.lawandsecurity.org/reports/2026...

My latest story for @scenichudson.bsky.social is on a topic close to my heart: reptiles and amphibians. On a related note, I'm looking forward to seeing some ectothermic friends emerging from their hibernacula soon. www.scenichudson.org/viewfinder/w...

Just want to say that I tried the McDonalds Big Arch sandwich recently, and it was...fine. I mean it tasted like an extra large McDonalds cheeseburger, but it was fine. But if McDonalds really wants to assert their relevance, they need to bring back the Arch Deluxe. That is a hill I will die on.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is in the news, so here's a chart I made showing the number of times per year a President has reported to Congress on deployments abroad and the purpose of the mission, as of today.

Remember everyone

Hey, if you're looking for some light reading to suggest for your next book club, here's a topical suggestion.