“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”

In case you've seen the story about “grok now only generates images for paid users”, it's untrue. Apparently everyone just reported it because… it was what grok told them 🤦🏼 www.theverge.com/news/859309/...

Elon Musk’s chatbot has been used to generate thousands of sexualized images of adults and apparent minors. Apple and Google have removed other “nudify” apps—but continue to host X and Grok. www.wired.com/story/x-grok...

Here's a moment of wonder for you: spiders that craft spider decoys! Two species of orb-weavers in Peru and the Philippines cobble together web structures out of plant bits and prey corpses that look like bigger spiders, possibly to distract spider-eating predators 🧪

For the last few days on X, people (mainly women, and sometimes children) have had nonconsensual images of them in swimsuits (or much worse) requested by users and created by Grok. Musk's only apparent response thus far has been to crack jokes about it.

“According to a recent Harvard Business School meta-analysis of 18 studies, women have 22% lower odds of using generative AI websites and apps than men, both at work & in everyday life. And this pattern holds across countries, sectors, occupations, & tools.”

You can also use the map in the story to look up vaccination rates in your local schools! This was a HUGE data lift: we reviewed and mapped tens of thousands of individual schools’ data, assembling the most comprehensive public database. And we published this data here: github.com/washingtonpo...

Advances in renewable energy and GLP-1 drugs. Geoengineering conspiracy theories. Journalists @sophiebushwick.bsky.social and @maggiek.bsky.social share this year’s biggest—and most surprising—science stories.

The best space pictures of 2025, from supernovae to moon landings www.newscientist.com/article/2506...

Fascinating study; fantastic headline 🧪

Really enjoyed this roundup of fun animal stories from 2025 🧪 And the bone-collector caterpillar is still my favorite!

New York’s landmark AI safety bill was defanged — and universities were part of the push against it

The Trump administration announced plans to close NCAR, citing its role in climate change research. But three officials told CNN they believe this is really part of the White House's plan to punish CO governor and free Tina Peters. WH did not deny the connection. www.cnn.com/2025/12/17/c...

“The science is endangered now, just like the whales.”

"The newspaper industry served as a feeder for our entire news media ecosystem. So when we lose those newspapers, we've lost that journalism. In the early 2000s, we had 40 journalists per 100,000 people. We're now down to 8 journalists per 100,000 people," says @victorpickard.bsky.social.

I have a real soft spot for MAVEN--I hope its humans are able to get it up and running again soon! 🧪 🛰️ www.scientificamerican.com/article/nasa...

This is a fantastic explanation of the harrowing journey sperm take to fertilize an egg 🧪 With adorable illustrations that render the reproductive cells as tiny adventurers on a D&D-like quest

This is an excellent read. The more you know. #Science 🧪 “… we were advancing toward elimination of hepatitis B in the United States,” says Ward “I am deeply concerned that if the ACIP rescinds this policy, they’re going to contribute to the spread of hepatitis B rather than its elimination.”

My latest @thebulletin.org piece tries to reckon with the economic costs that would accompany the bursting of the AI bubble - and also highlights some of the societal costs we are already paying.

Why IBM CEO Arvind Krishna is still hiring humans in the AI era

By me: ‘Deeply demoralizing’: how Trump derailed coal country’s clean-energy revival www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Why do we call it a 'turkey'?

For tomorrow! thepracticalkitchen.com/leftover-tur...

A researcher identified gamma ray emissions that appear to have originated from dark matter...but other physicists still aren’t convinced 🧪

“With the U.S. absent, the European Union had a chance to lead; instead, they stepped into the vacuum as the primary obstructionist." 👀

We've detected lightning on Mars for the first time! 🧪 And you can listen in on the audio, recorded by NASA's Perseverance rover:

I’ve been running around asking tech execs and academics if language was the same as intelligence for over a year now - and, well, it isn’t. @benjaminjriley.bsky.social explains how the bubble is built on ignoring cutting-edge research into the science of thought www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

NEW: AI “recipe slop” is overrunning search and social. Food creators say Google’s AI Overviews and glossy fake food pics are drowning out real, tested recipes — collapsing traffic and setting home cooks up for disaster, especially this Thanksgiving. Gift link: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I wrote this piece because I only learned about pelvic floors a few years ago, despite having had one all my life. And then it turned out to be where I store all my issues. And then that turned out to be true for a lot of people www.wired.com/story/the-pe...

🚨The CDC quietly revised its vaccine website to echoe vaccine–autism claims promoted by RFK Jr. “It’s a tragedy,” a source told me. “The change signals that truth carries no weight in current or future discussions about vaccines.” My latest with comment from @ameracadpeds.bsky.social 🧪

A very good article about one fake freelancer and the grim state of journalism/the world: thelocal.to/investigatin...

RNA sequencing revealed which of the woolly mammoth Yuka's genes were active when it died: "In the creature’s final panicked moments, its muscles were tensing and its cells were signaling distress—perhaps unsurprising since Yuka is thought to have died as a result of a cave lion attack." 🧪

An interesting thing many people don't know is that, for a couple years now, most high-profile #AI models have been vulnerable to a very specific type of attack that allows bad guys to essentially "steal" the model. Wild, right? There's some new research on this, so let's talk about it. 🧪🧵

CoreWeave is more than a data center company – it’s a tool to hedge other companies’ risks and juice their profits as the AI bubble grows ever larger. It gets worse from there. Read more from @lopatto.bsky.social: www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

I'm here to tell you that my primary profession of being a shit poster is no more. I recently started (temporarily) hosting the Science Quickly podcast for @feltman.bsky.social while she's out on leave. Here is Rachel and I discussing the most important scientific subject on earth: Mayo

To understand Adolf Hitler, we need to look at his personal life and the wider societal and historical context - analysing his DNA for a TV gimmick tells us nothing, says Michael Le Page

@theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

“We are witnessing nothing less than a clown show at #FDA right now.” People who worked at or rely on the US drug regulator see dysfunctional leadership & soap opera-ish behavior at a key federal agency, @matthewherper.bsky.social & @lizzylawrence.bsky.social report. www.statnews.com/2025/11/04/f...

Thanks to @bmcnoldy.bsky.social & @drkimwood.bsky.social for help with this story. We were all struggling to find sufficient words. “It’s this frustrating combination of, scientifically speaking, we know this is possible, but as humans we are flabbergasted at seeing manifest in this way.” -Kim 🧪

This Is What a Venomous Snake Bite Looks Like at 1,000 Frames per Second gizmodo.com/this-is-what...

Happy 15th anniversary to The Open Notebook! If this ridiculously generous project has helped you over the years, this is a great time to donate. Thread from @siricarpenter.bsky.social at @theopennotebook.bsky.social

New: a $60 mod to Meta's Ray-Ban glasses disables the privacy LED light. This is supposed to light when people are filming with the glasses. We bought the mod, verified it works. Now you can never be sure whether someone wearing Meta Ray-Bans is filming you or not www.404media.co/how-to-disab...

Can fuel made from aluminum scraps supply the clean heat industry needs? For @technologyreview.com, I got a sneak peak of Found Energy's largest aluminum-water reactor to date.

Kudos to Ari Daniel for the most puntastic kicker I've ever read: "So perhaps one day, humans will benefit from this notion of architectural immunity, inspired not by antibodies — but by ant bodies." 🧪

It looks like OpenAI is about to announce its AI web browser. OpenAI has a new product announcement livestream set for 1PM ET today 👀 www.theverge.com/news/803481/...

YouTuber Doctor Mike thinks medicine needs a better social media strategy www.statnews.com/2025/10/21/d... via @statnews.com

This is fascinating! The details someone includes in a story can affect the parts of your brain that will activate to memorize that information 🧪

An amateur satellite tracker stumbled across the signal, which is coming from Starshield satellites in a "hidden" part of the radio spectrum.

Remember this one? “Humans aren’t very efficient movers—until you put us on a bicycle, when we become some of the most energy-efficient land travelers in the animal kingdom.” Via Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social #CityMakingMath

"Technologies purchased by ICE in recent weeks include spyware that can hack into smartphones remotely and cellphone location software that can enable the tracking of a phone’s movements without a court warrant..." www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...