Looking at RFK's recent moves, including an attack on the hepatitis B vaccine and on painkillers for pregnant women. The common theme: That all children's health problems are due to "bad" mothers. This isn't about making kids healthy. It's misogyny. www.salon.com/2025/09/22/r...

My instinct is to hate this... but AI crafting custom bacteria-slaying phages would actually be pretty nifty Please more of this, less sucking the human spirit dry of its creative spark Signed, a human who likes writing and drawing and thinking, but does not want to die of a bacterial infection

Microbial dark matter! Can't see it, can't grow it, but we know it's there... This is some branding illustration I did for the microbial dark matter symposium this year. Thanks @katrinewhiteson.bsky.social and @zymoresearch.bsky.social for the fun commission! #microbes #ecoevo 🧪🐡🧫

They're proposing this knowing full well how students would react to it. What do you call people who sprinkle powder kegs with additional powder?

When did every scientist become obsessed with birds?

Finished spread! The lives of different types of stars, the various ways they give back all they had taken in changed, and the new forms they give rise to! This took me some time to say the least! It's a lively place out there! On to the next spread (finale of this chapter!!) #Nostos #Unflattening 2

-summons hive mind- 🔭

Tl;dr = No. www.science.org/content/blog...

#journorequest I'm looking for migraine patients who have found relief with electrical neuromodulation therapies for a written article for the BBC. Reach out at [email protected]!

All* of your favorite** planetary scientists on Bluesky, collected into one starter pack for your convenience! Sometimes, we'll even discuss planetary science! Is your favorite planetary scientist missing? Have them DM me to be added. :) 🧪🔭 go.bsky.app/SdZsrfw *OK, many of **plus me

Bad science communication can be disastrous. But a typo clearly isn't as bad as fraud. Clearly, a scale is needed to resolve this ambiguity. Thus, I here propose the Loeb Scale for scientific PR disasters. It is NOT to be confused with the recently proposed Loeb Scale for interstellar objects. 🔭

Every day a new horror

Nice, science. But come back when you can take a blood sample without the needle needing to stay inside my arm.

Wrote a long story for @quantamagazine.bsky.social about our best understanding of climate change over the entire half-billion-year-plus age of animals www.quantamagazine.org/climate-extr...

Check out Quanta's new series on the many facets of climate science, spearheaded by the supremely talented @hanner.bsky.social!

This is amazing: A direct image of the shadow of a black hole. A direct image of the hot, swirling gas circling and falling into it. And brand-new images showing an apparent magnetic flip around the black hole, a sign of turbulent, tumultuous changes. 🧪🔭 eventhorizontelescope.org/new-eht-imag...

can someone give me a science that explains why i write at 50x the speed when it's the last day before my deadline

Bacteria are surrounded by water! New work @natphys.nature.com by @ricardalert.bsky.social @mpipks.bsky.social & collaborators @ Princeton University shows that water capillary forces organise bacterial colonies into gas, nematic streams, and droplet states. nature.com/articles/s41567-025-02965-y

it was a privilege to contribute to this package. check out my story on how scientists digitally sculpted the planet to predict the future, and how those in power today are dismantling the quest to model the climate www.quantamagazine.org/how-climate-...

Good thing Venus is already dead, otherwise it'd never recover from that burn.

The researchers did this study on their own cats 😂 Just imagine, you're going to clean up a hairball in your house and your roommate just leaps out from around the corner like: "NO! DON'T TOUCH THAT HAIRBALL! I NEED IT FOR ~SCIENCE~ !!!" 🧪

-checks the trending topics- well, back under my rock i go

It's honestly wild how quickly scientists went from detecting gravitational waves for the first time to routinely using them for astronomy. 10 years sounds like a while, but that's just about as long as it takes to train one student from bachelor's degree to PhD. Hats off to the LIGO folks. ⚛️🧪🔭

We have a collection of professionals to follow, across the career spectrum, here! go.bsky.app/8qiPjCD

Science journalism fans: I made a starter pack of @aaasmassmedia.bsky.social fellows from 2015 to 2025. I did this by hand, so if you notice someone missing or mistakenly added, please shoot me a DM or comment. I'll keep it updated as new fellows are announced! 🧪 #scicomm #journalism

NEW: In July, we discovered the third-known interstellar object. It’s now erupting all sorts of stuff, from cyanide (normal) to nickel (weird). And as one source put it: “If it is an alien spaceship, it’s done a really good job disguising it as a comet.” www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

I'd love to follow other early-career and early-ish-career science journalists on here. Who's out there? What do you write about? Please say hi and maybe post a recent story you're proud of — or shout-out someone who's writing great stuff. #scicomm

“Diella is the first cabinet member who isn’t physically present, but is virtually created by AI,” Rama said during a speech unveiling his new cabinet. She will help make Albania "a country where public tenders are 100% free of corruption." Sci-fi called, it wants its dystopian plotline back.

New from Nature: Latest LIGO results from GW250114 confirm Hawking’s black hole area theorem with 99.999% confidence!! “It was the perfect 10-year anniversary present.” More on this detection and LIGO’s other greatest hits from its first decade of discovery 🧪🔭 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Guys... if I write a parody of the Loeb Scale, what are the odds I get sued?

Are you a science or environment journalist who has covered (or may cover in the future) ocean conservation stories, including but not limited to stories about sharks? I'm always available for a background briefing to teach you key topics before you pitch or write a story.

Thanks a lot to @elisecutts.bsky.social for nicely highlighting and putting in context our article! It was very interesting to discuss together, notably about the analogies between the emergence of order in Hydra and other physical phenomena.

I've been thinking about trying to start posting on mastodon again, but I'm hung up on picking an instance. Mastodon is "like email," but it isn't "like email" in that there aren't large, professionally managed providers handling the back-end that won't randomly disappear or decide to ban everyone.

Meanwhile, on HBCU campuses, lockdowns after bomb threats and though I'm sure this won't interest most media types, it is worth noting: abcnews.go.com/amp/US/multi...

Bug guys, we need answers

Excellent write-up and interview with @anaisbailles.bsky.social, among others, on the analogies between #Hydra regeneration and #cosmology.

👀🧪

Hydra are ~basically~ immortal. Shred 50 of the lil guys to bits and pack their cells in a blob, and that blob will grow into a new Hydra... albeit with a few extra heads! This week's post is a Q&A @anaisbailles.bsky.social @mpi-cbg.de about the physics of how Hydra coax order from chaos.🧪⚛️

First passengers to abandon ship share their best lifeboat rowing tips 🧪

Most of us aren't public figures and need to remember that nothing bad is going to happen if we don't comment on, you know, everything. Even for important issues, it's okay to just privately have an opinion.

I'm glad scientists are still working on the things that matter, even in these troubled times 🧪

Do your mental health a favor and turn this on for today. You really don't want to watch this. It is awful.

Remember that you don’t have to post your first reaction and Bluesky is forever even if you delete

ALH84001 two, electric boogaloo

Burning bras: out Burning the planet to power AI: in

The paper I contributed to as an undergraduate is finally being published after YEARS and I am faced with the problem of listing an institution even though I don't have one. 🤷‍♀️

Why am I not surprised that these guys don't know how long it takes to get a PhD? 🤦‍♀️

Can a single cell learn? Even without a brain, some microbes show simple forms of cognition. Can this basal cognition be engineered? Check our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social on the minimal synthetic circuits & their cognitive limits. @drmichaellevin.bsky.social www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

ICYMI, later this week (in 2 different time slots) I am offering a free online crash-course in how to write and publish a scientific paper. This course is ideal for grad students and early career researchers interested in writing their first paper. Info and signup below: 🧪🦑🌎

Unironic question: what's the point of digital twins?