I think about this cover all the time

squint really hard, and you can almost make out my byline in the sunday magazine

“In 1934, Hitler himself hired Germany’s most famous dowser ... to police the Reich Chancellery for harmful death rays.” doi.org/10.12987/yal...

“serendipity doesn’t come from efficiency”

liar’s dividend (n.) passing off inconvenient truths as AI-generated fakes “make it easier for liars to avoid accountability for things that are in fact true” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The Lancet has retracted a 49-year-old unsigned commentary on the safety of cosmetic talc after two researchers discovered the author was a paid consultant to Johnson & Johnson, at the time a leading producer of talc products. (No, that's not a record for longest time for publication to retraction.)

“None of his very public friends has come to his defense.”

when it comes to comparing bullets and cartridge cases, a recent paper found that examiners changed their answer when they knew they were being tested. others are not so sure. my latest on the daubert beat for undark undark.org/2026/03/18/b...

Federal staffing cuts under President Trump have severely impacted the ability of agencies to fulfill Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that provide access to public records for journalists, academics, researchers and everyday people.

when you are dog tired in newfoundland

TIL: only about half of people who claim to know what a placebo is also know what the “placebo effect” is

Susan Haack, a leading epistemologist and philosopher of logic, passed away yesterday. Sit ei terra levis news.miami.edu/as/stories/2...

this profile puts the grill on high and sizzles

I love bouncing bad ideas off large quantities of linear algebra, but did not realize judge rakoff would rule so hard against that being privileged communication storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Fallout continues from one of the most appalling cases of scientific misconduct I've ever come across: journal retracts 138(!) case studies as fictional. (Incredibly, it may have to un-retract one that is not fake.) (New Yorker piecethat set off the current furor: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...)

last night I finally learned what an “american man” is in newfoundland a pile of rocks

I get the vasculature pumping with 170 BPM bangers, but harlecore throttles up the tokimeki and floors it

I bought a stoopcam to surveil my doge, but didn’t realize I’d be deputized to detain my neighbors and now I can’t unring the bell

once upon a midnight dreary while I ponder the use of computational systems to deport the weak and weary themarkup.org/artificial-i...

In collaboration with Nature, I investigated the impact of the Trump administration on US science one year after its return to office. More than 7800 research grants were cancelled or frozen, affecting ~25000 scientists and research staff and resulting in an ~US$32 billion in lost research funding.

Happy to be quoted in this overview looking at the complex problem of who pays for scientific #publishing. Appearing with @samuelmoore.org , @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca , @csmarcum.sciences.social.ap.brid.gy by @peterandreysmith.com for @undark.org undark.org/2026/01/07/a...

IMPORTANT STUDY👇💥 Courts often rely on the Force Science Institute when adjudicating police use-of-force suits. Turns out, FSI's research "lacks the scientific rigor required to reliably inform court proceedings, evidence-based policing, or police policy and training." Daubert challenge, anyone?

in newfoundland, tonight is tibb’s eve which appears to have many origins, some more apocryphal than others

Most weak-kneed phrase in journalism right now? “Critics say…”

“Improbable as it might sound, few people in the last century have done more to shape the way science is conducted today than Maxwell.”

Incredible piece on Oliver Sacks. If you were ever awed at his supposedly true stories (I remember being stunned by the account of the autistic twins who rattled off large prime numbers), read this. He told wonderful stories, but they were in large part fiction. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

genuine question: what are emerging frontiers and did they escape reported cuts to the NIH budget

I miss the standalone CS4 version of adobe acrobat that would reliably OCR files locally and probably could not have recognized a single cloud in the sky

who published rfk jr and gave him a cover line in 1974

AP finds a secretive Border Patrol intelligence program detains Americans for “suspicious” travel. Critics call it mass surveillance.

all politics aside I do wonder would the questioned document examination in question pass the scientific standards for admissibility

seeking book reccomendation: is there a barbarian days of bicycling?

'tis squarin-up time in newfoundland (source)

in case you were wondering the origins of the phrase “keep maine green” (from Ten Million Acres of Timber)

“Our spirits are corroded by living in an atmosphere of unrelenting contention—an argument culture.” –Deborah Tannen (1999)

in 2023, a judge overseeing lawsuits claiming tylenol caused autism excluded each and every one of the plaintiff's scientific experts storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

“Paula Soldner, who leads the food inspectors union at the Department of Agriculture, says she now tries to get her meat butchered by people she knows personally, because the agency’s oversight of meatpacking plants has been compromised by this year’s buyouts.”

“firearms identification has not been shown to reach reliable results linking a particular unknown bullet to a particular known firearm” www.mdcourts.gov/data/opinion...

Delicious story about jerks who (allegedly) kill their neighbors' trees to score better views. Come for the shade hate, stay for the zingers www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/u...

“researchers suspect that rising prescription drug use may be behind the trend”

“The real thrill is in having a license to ask, as directly as possible, about the thing you really want to know.”

orange skies summer

still one of the most incredible stories worth a listen if you have never heard it before (and even if you have!)

who here would like me to investigate, by bicycle, how the intensity of rainfall floods towns, topples trees, and messes with the maintenance of public rights of way on 8,534 miles of dirt roads in vermont?

“favorable plea deals that sidestep terrible facts—especially when it comes to crimes involving sexual abuse—are the rule, not the exception” –Carissa Byrne Hessick

'tis wobbling season in newfoundland

“I don’t know how you build infrastructure for rain events like this.” bostonglobe.com/2025/07/10/m...

this came out almost exactly one year ago today podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

“Nobody ever learned how to ride a bike by reading a manual”

Can anyone find a Berman MF et al. Neurotoxicology 2008; 29(5), 914–922 ? This is a fake citation. www.sciencedirect.com/journal/neur...