The Himba lady I interviewed thought it was hilarious that Americans can't see the circles. Tips if you're having trouble: The circles are made up of the vertical line segments, and they appear to float on top of the horizontal lines. www.science.org/content/arti...

Black-and-white thinking has destroyed our society's progress on trans rights and DEI initiatives. When nuanced positions are impossible, all we make are enemies. Let's not let that happen with tariffs. www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

Half of global public funding for journalism disappeared with the destruction of USAID. Including in El Salvador, where USAID-funded outlets were reporting on Bukele's abuses. No wonder Bukele is happy to imprison anyone Trump doesn't like. reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/shatter...

From Judgment at Nuremburg: “Those people… those millions of people… I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it." “Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent.” It came to that when they sent Abrego Garcia to be murdered in CECOT.

Someday, there will be monuments and museums to mourn what is happening now and warn future generations against allowing it to happen again. That's the best-case scenario.

Journalism too. You now almost can't find any graduate-level program that has more than *20%* men. At my time at @mitsciwrite.bsky.social last year, we had three straight men in a cohort of eight, which was practically unheard of. Perhaps uncoincidentally, journalism has never been more devalued

The Insights team at @science.org provides a forum for scientists to share their thoughts and opinions. And in my humble opinion, their favorites from 2024 are wonderful reads! Find them in this edition of #ScienceAdviser: www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

My latest animal advice column has holiday-season tips from an Amazonian spider that probably won't help any of us: elizabethgpreston.substack.com/p/how-to-ref... 🧪

I posted this on X when it came out, but since everyone has now moved to BlueSky, I'll repost. Gist is that the left edge of a PSMC plot has information about pop structure and shows that the Neandertal pop was structured. peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10....

My latest for Alzforum. This study might finally explain why the ApoE gene has such a big effect on Alzheimer's disease. The high-risk E4 variant clogs up cells’ garbage disposal systems with toxic waste. E2 doesn’t do that because it is trapped outside cells. www.alzforum.org/news/researc...

Birds use snakeskin as predator repellent. My first story for Audubon! www.audubon.org/news/some-bi...

Genes that gave humans our unique social and linguistic abilities may also be responsible for forms of dementia that destroy those same abilities. Delighted to share my first story for Alzforum.org www.alzforum.org/news/researc...

You know how male animals compete by removing each other's sperm? Maybe you didn't know that. In any case, it turns out flowers do it too, but instead of scooping it out of their partner's vagina, they blast it off of hummingbirds. My new story for Science News: www.sciencenews.org/article/proj...

I had so much fun with this story. knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...