Konstanz, Túbingen and Heidelberg are all lovely places to live.

Memories of plunging my hand deep into the very cold peat to uncover Iron Age wooden planks last seen over 2,000 years ago. In 1986, I started work on my first archaeology dig at Corlea 1, dated to 148/147 BC. I didn’t know then it would be some of the most spectacular archaeology of my career.

In 2019, I worked with @robertclarkphoto.bsky.social to interview survivors of WWII for National Geographic. I met a man who flew in the invasion of Poland, one of the few German survivors of Stalingrad, & a woman who survived the war as a child. Some of the most memorable interviews I've ever done.

Black Friday, coming soon.

That’s a lot. 67% of Germans say that “When in doubt, we can and should no longer rely on military assistance from the US.” Study: www.moreincommon.de/wp-content/u...

I found a French guy's credit card (French name, French online bank) on the sidewalk and picked it up to keep it out of trouble. No one around, businesses nearby were closed. I should just destroy it and assume he cancels it, right?

Ancient DNA studies usually link changes in lifestyle and language in the past to population movements. But not always! A new study in @nature.com reveals a South American ancestry that stayed steady for 8,500 years, despite major cultural and linguistic shifts. @science.org 🏺 🧬

1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️

I had this experience when I wrote about the US Civil War. No one I knew growing up in New York or California gave it a second thought, so I was surprised how many people see criticism of the South & its struggle to preserve slavery as a personal indictment, as if 15 years had passed, not 150+.

The more people who crash into the traffic calming, the more necessary it was.

My kid's Latin teacher has assigned a dessert recipe from Apicius as "experimental archaeology." She says canned apricots are verboten, because ancient Romans didn't have cans. Meanwhile it is November in northern Germany, and fresh apricots are ... hard to come by. 🏺🍑

Cool. What would you call the other wing then? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/u...

What I remember most – and I was lucky enough to not get really sick, or lose anyone close – was the months of uncertainty and fear, and all the things we didn't know. It's so unfair to judge these decisions in hindsight, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works.

This checks out -- I traveled to & from Zurich twice in October, as scheduled an 8.5 hour journey. Twice I was on time, once I was 30 minutes late, and once it took 12.5 hours. I would still take DB over driving myself (in Germany or the US) any day. 🚄 🛤️

Ancient DNA studies usually link changes in lifestyle and language in the past to population movements. But not always! A new study in @nature.com reveals a South American ancestry that stayed steady for 8,500 years, despite major cultural and linguistic shifts. @science.org 🏺 🧬

Really glad Young Cardamom's rap career didn't work out. #mamdani

Gotta love the fact the US Military is giving their soldiers/employees in Germany the advice to go to (German) food banks during the current government shutdown 👍🏻👌🏻 home.army.mil/bavaria/abou...

I don’t use the word hero a lot but

Germany's got free childcare, free school lunches, free university, reasonably-priced healthcare for all, and decent public transit most places. And a murder rate 7x lower than the US. If that's socialism, it's pretty uncontroversial over here.

Let’s go California

Thanks to @sccgov.bsky.social for making it easy for me to vote on #prop50 today. #california voters, if you haven't already get out and cast your ballot today!

There comes a time in the feature writing process when I am all out of things to say on the subject at hand, and unfortunately that time is usually right before someone asks me to draft captions for the story.

This is high praise, thank you.

Fascinating

Absolutely fascinating read

This article is utterly fascinating.

In the 1600s, thousands of people were buried in crypts under a Milan hospital & preserved by unusual conditions. “What is striking is how much you can extrapolate from an ancient body,” says one researcher, “and how much you can understand from that about the period they lived in." @science.org

A stat we don't talk about enough: Newspapers have lost 77% of their jobs over the last 20 year, more than any of the 532 other industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

I love using Earth science insights to try to answer questions about human history/society

The origins of civilization contain a chicken and egg problem: If large scale irrigation projects made complex Mesopotamian states possible, who organized and built all those canals? A new study by @whoi.edu's @geosan.bsky.social and co-author Reed Goodman may have solved the riddle: @science.org

Just saw my first real live "Trump 2028" hat, in the Frankfurt Airport.

Can Syrian shawarma overtake döner kebab, the original Turkish-German fusion fare? Nice @smithsonianmag.bsky.social story on the spread of Syrian street food: www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/how-s...

Ha, it's not even an American-built excavator.

To find some of the oldest viruses in the world, my @science.org colleague @kakape.bsky.social headed to a polar-bear infested island north of the Arctic Circle. He survived. No word (yet) on the viruses.

If you're still looking for a Halloween costume, let me suggest these early 90s McDonaldland Masks from Germany:

My sister's cat is getting her looks ready for Halloween.

What's extra shocking about this whole situation is IU's reputation as a journalism education powerhouse. What would Ernie Pyle have said?

It's kinda cool that Gary Larson is doing new cartoons because he picked up a digital tablet, taught himself how to use it, and it made him love drawing again. www.thefarside.com/new-stuff/

Just discovered my new motto

WHAT ABOUT A BIRD OR A FISH ON A BIKE ANSWER THAT, SCIENCE

A truly stunning visualization of changing bird migration patterns and what it says about the state of the planet www.theguardian.com/environment/...

In the money.

Analysis of ancient birch bark tar from Neolithic settlements shows it was used for toolmaking, pottery repair, and chewing, preserving DNA that offers insights into daily life and diet. doi.org/g96xtk

Germany tied with Switzerland, Italy, Spain and Luxembourg at #4

A powerful personal testament from Tom Bowman of NPR about the Pentagon attempt to exert complete control over all information. Protecting classified is of course fine. But when neither Fox News nor NY Times sign up to your policy, you should ask yourself if you are getting something very wrong.

Wow.

Don't forget @sallyjenx.bsky.social publicly defended Lance Armstrong long after it was clear he is a vindictive liar, and has such dull journalistic instincts she co-authored his whole autobiography without spotting any red flags at the height of his doping campaign.

Just astonishing – first to serve more than 4 decades for a crime you didn't commit, then to be deported for something you didn't do? I can't imagine.

Brave souls jumped into the 13 C #Spree today to pressure the #CDU-led city government to allow swimming in the river. (No one's quite sure why they're against, except that it doesn't have to do with cars or the suburbs.) As someone prone to hypothermia I stayed dry–aber im Frühling bin ich dabei!

Talk about being in the right place at the right time -- this @apnews.com photographer was the one to tell a Nobel prize winner she won: www.science.org/content/arti... @science.org