A scientist can pretend that his work isn't himself, it's merely the impersonal truth. An artist can't hide behind the truth. He can't hide anywhere.

I had a recent obsession with this movie and I'm not the only one. <3

New podcast episode! 👽🎙🖖 Em Dobberfuhl shares how Project Hail Mary inspired them to pursue astrobiology and spend a summer in our lab at @carnegiescience.bsky.social!

Obrigado, Cabo Verde 🫡

Last week, a friend and I planned to visit Sedona but were foiled by the #PocketFire. A week later, it grew 100 fold to ~10,000s of acres. Much of the Southwest is burning, and there's an glaring driver: climate change. Until humans get our act together, this still needs to be said. @azcentral.com

It's not just science that will suffer from a million new satellites in Earth orbit.

Please check out our chat with our friend and scientist extraordinaire Mike Wong on his wonderful podcast!

New podcast episode! 💭🎙🖖 The folks from @diceinmind.bsky.social interview me about the origins, development, and implications of my paper "How to Chart a Moral Future for Space Exploration."

Nothing remains the same from one moment to the next, you can’t step into the same river twice. Life – evolution – the whole universe of space/time, matter/energy – existence itself – is essentially change.

Working on topics related to the origin, evolution, and detection of life on Earth and beyond? Going to the @agu.org meeting this December? Consider submitting an abstract to our session "The Emergence of Life as a Planetary Process"!

This is much-needed utopian thinking from @miquai.bsky.social & his colleagues. At first I assumed it would be something like the Artemis Accords or the Outer Space Treaty - but no, it’s deeper than that &, in its way, at least as important!

My officemate Don Ngo just published his first paper ever! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

On the 200th episode of Strange New Worlds, I read "How to Chart a Moral Future for Space Exploration," an article in @nature.com written by @chelseaharamia.bsky.social, Emilie Lafleche, Julia DeMarines, and yours truly.

New paper on nitrogen isotopic fractionation on Mars! Our undergrad Jaylen Shawcross worked tirelessly on this project for years. He was rewarded by seeing it published a day before his @caltech.edu graduation ceremony 🎓🥳

Realizing that I’m older than the vast majority of players competing in this year’s World Cup is such a bizarre feeling. Luckily, all I have to do is go to the lab and hold pieces of ~4-billion-year-old rocks in my hand, and suddenly I’m young again. Yay, science.

🚨Proposed OMB rule could let political appointees override peer review, cancel grants mid-project, ban certain research topics, restrict publishing and more.🚨 Stand up for science! Learn more and use our resources to submit a public comment today ⬇️ agu.quorum.us/campaign/163...

Mexico things 😸

#OverheardOnZoom: "I was going to say, 'I've never met a database I didn't like,' but then I realized I actually hate most of the databases I've ever interacted with."

#OverheardAtCarnegie: “You learn something new every day! Of course, when you get to my age, you also forget something new every day!”

@caltech.edu things 🌴

No matter where people fall on the political spectrum, Arizonans can agree that we all love nature here. Our top concerns for our forests are wildfire and recreation opportunities. The recent policy changes in the Forest Service hit these pain points, hard. Me for @azcentral.com:

#AbSciCon26 things 🦡

A new solution that doubles as a climate solution and a way to accelerate forest treatment against wildfires? Arizona: "Sign me up!" Finally, a feel-good story I wrote for @azcentral.com in this age of climate change and smokey summers:

#OverheardAtCarnegie: "If god created life, are we the best that god could do?"

This is a neat piece my @miquai.bsky.social for @sequencermag.bsky.social: What do Pluto and whales have in common? For starters, they can be easily misunderstood if we only judge them based on their looks. Their past makes them much more complex.

I remember when I told Yuk I wanted to be an astrobiologist. He said I was in luck: “Astrobiology is like marijuana. Fifteen years ago, it was unthinkable to do, but today it is totally acceptable.”

I'm currently visiting @caltech.edu, where @plutokiller.com works, so I thought this would be a good time to remind you all why I don't think Pluto is a planet.

I hope I don’t lose too many friends over this but…I wrote an essay about why Pluto isn’t a planet—and why it matters.

New podcast episode! 🦖🎙🖖 Paleontologist and science communicator Gabriel Santos beams aboard to share how Cosplay for Science, an initiative he co-founded, brings science education to Comic-Cons and other pop culture conventions.

🚀 AGU and 7 leading science organizations urged Congress to fund NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at $9B in FY27—to strengthen science, leadership, and the space workforce 🌎🔭 thebridge.agu.org/2026/04/20/a...

#OverheardAtCarnegie: "Proteins are so avant-garde. They remind me of modern art."

Our latest paper applying machine learning to the problem of life detection in organic-rich samples is out! Mad props to Emme Slaughter, our brilliant @carnegiescience.bsky.social intern who led this work!

I'm on the latest episode of Planetary Radio talking about my experience at the @planetarysociety.bsky.social's Day of Action!

Those who build walls are their own prisoners. I'm going to go fulfil my proper function in the social organism. I'm going to go unbuild walls.

#OverheardOnZoom: "The drama llama is at a brisk trot today."

Podcast: Epistemic Pluralism & Astrobiology Arizona Astrobiology Center's very own Kayla Smith joins Mike Wong to discuss how astrobiology can benefit from diverse ways of thinking and more. 🎧 Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s... 📄 Read the paper: link.springer.com/article/10.1...

#OverheardAtCarnegie: "I'd say about 5% of my job is telling people that they did not, in fact, find a meteorite."

#OverheardAtCarnegie: "If I learn one new thing every day, it's a good day."

Check out this podcast episode featuring LPL grad student Kayla Smith @astrokayla.bsky.social and Mike Wong @miquai.bsky.social chatting about the diversity of scientific thought that goes into astrobiology. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

New podcast episode! 👽🎙🖖 Astrobiologist @astrokayla.bsky.social and philosopher Patrick Anderson beam aboard to talk about a new paper we all published called "Epistemic Pluralism & Astrobiology."

Over 150 definitions exist for the different manifestations of drought, and one of them is pretty gnarly to forecast. Can AI help predict the kind that grips waterways and staunches flow? Spoiler alert for my @azcentral.com piece: yes, AI improves on flow projections, but it's still a ways off.

In honor of my late thesis advisor, @caltech.edu is setting up a "Dr. Yuk L. Yung Memorial SURF" fund. Yuk loved to work with young people and sponsored numerous Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) students. Donations will go to an endowment to fund (at least) one student every year.

You don't speak of dreams as unreal. They exist. They leave a mark behind them.

Our recent philosophy of science paper argues that astrobiology epitomizes the principles of epistemic pluralism. Astrobiology embraces multiple legitimate sources of knowledge, and astrobiologists are always developing and pursuing many parallel and competing theories about life in the universe.

#OverheardOnZoom: "If you play soccer and are any good at it, you like Messi. If you don't play soccer, or if you play and are bad, you like Ronaldo."

I am really excited to see this press release go live! Happy to report that the amazing @notnotrocketscience.com and I are now co-Directors of the new Discovery & Futures Lab at @setiinstitute.bsky.social www.seti.org/news/seti-in...

Yesterday, I met with the offices of two senators and five representatives to advocate for federal science funding as part of the @planetarysociety.bsky.social's Day of Action. Learn more: www.planetary.org/advocacy/day...

From @caltech.edu to Congress! It was so wonderful to advocate for federal science funding alongside some fellow former Techers at the @planetarysociety.bsky.social’s Day of Action! 🚀

It was a lot of fun to talk cosmology and Star Trek with @miquai.bsky.social for this podcast episode!

Katie Mack has such a wonderful way of explaining the most mind-stretching possibilities, & having read her book several years ago it was a joy to hear her talk about the end of everything with Mike Wong. And also a #StarTrekDS9 episode I’ve always been fond of! 🖖🏼😊