Thank you @spinfocl.bsky.social for the kind words about my research on the Voynich Manuscript, which I’m pleased to announce has been accepted for publication in Cryptologia following peer review. Read more about my work and the previous research that motivated it in Hermes’s blog post:

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this company's AI podcast on the Gilded Age has a thumbnail misspelling it "Guilded Age." Somewhat ironic. www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-... www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

Personal news: I wrote ~3/8 of a book, and that book is out today! If you want a visually rich, historically grounded look at magic though the millennia, this book's for you. The National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult is available wherever books are sold: bookshop.org/p/books/nati...

Personal news: As an unusual hobby, I study the weird 15th-century text known as the Voynich Manuscript. I am giving a talk on some of my research on August 3: www.voynich.ninja/thread-4827.... I haven’t cracked it. Rather, I have devised a reference model for how the text may have been generated.

Well, this makes it real: I'm retiring in September and this is the just-posted job listing for my replacement. @Science.org is a fabulous place to work, so @sciencewriters.org, apply here! recruiting.ultipro.com/AME1123ASEM/...

Do you ever stop and think about how there used to be pterosaurs? A fun new study shows that pterosaurs used to eat plants (they'd been expected to be carnivores) & like modern birds, they had stones in their gullets called gastroliths that help break down plants 🧪 @science.org

It has been so gratifying to see this issue—much of which is my October 2020 feature for Nat Geo Magazine—still have legs, nearly 5 years on.

This is exactly representative of my experiments with ChatGPT as a research tool (to be clear, I don't use any generative AI in my work). One time I gave it a web-searching task, it said it was performing the task, it wasn't performing the task, and then BS'd at length when I called it out.

🧪🚨 BREAKING @science.org exclusive, courtesy of @policyhound.bsky.social: In a letter to NSF staff obtained by Science, NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan says he is resigning 16 months early, amid mass firings and grant terminations/freezes. www.science.org/content/arti...

It was a pleasure to work with @joshuasokol.bsky.social on this piece! Check it out:

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency. Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

One high level HHS official shown the door told @science.org, “I couldn’t have worked with these asshats anyway.” www.science.org/content/arti...

@hannah-richter.bsky.social did a phenomenal job reporting this story out:

Exclusive: Science has learned that grant termination letters went out last night to principal investigators of 29 awards made by NIAID, including nine grants that were part of a program hoping to deliver antiviral drugs to prevent future pandemics. scim.ag/4iVm7mY

I have been combing through similar datasets and have come across some of the same grants/contracts. I can also confirm that these datasets are messy.

🧪 Flagging for the science feed: A big @science.org exclusive just went out the door on fears that NIH will slash grants to health researchers working in South Africa.

A big @science.org exclusive: Health researchers who work in South Africa are hearing that NIH could soon axe all grants in the country—apparently in response to a Trump executive order alleging discrimination against white South Africans. www.science.org/content/arti...

ICYMI, @rpocisv.bsky.social had a terrific story for @science.org earlier this week about our furry forebears: In a first, we know the fur colors of Jurassic mammals! They most likely came out at night dressed in a uniform dark brown. www.science.org/content/arti...

A big @science.org exclusive: Health researchers who work in South Africa are hearing that NIH could soon axe all grants in the country—apparently in response to a Trump executive order alleging discrimination against white South Africans. www.science.org/content/arti...

There are a lot of staffers in the Senate with kids in DC public schools. A lot of reporters, too.

Two points: - A growing cohort (incl. 1/3 of US adults) believes “news will find them” as they scroll on social. For many, headlines and social captions *are* the story. ijoc.org/index.php/ij... - In the US, 54% of 16-74 yr olds read at or below a 6th-grade level: www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/u...

ABC News has now fully taken down the old 538 website, including all interactive projects since 2014. Aside from erasing history this prevents access to publicly released data, including raw polls, averages, model estimates & story dta. Totally unacceptable for a company (allegedly) doing journalism

White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

Welp there you have it: "After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones [...] before the lander’s batteries depleted." Intuitive Machines "does not expect Athena to recharge," and "the mission has concluded." www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2

If I've got the orientation right, I don't think that #IM2 will be able to deploy either its rover or its hopper. This is my very rough working model of IM2's orientation on the lunar surface, looking from what should be the top of IM2 down toward its legs.

Intuitive Machines has released a high-resolution picture from its #IM2 lander. And this does not look good for PRIME-1...which is the instrument that's on top of the sideways lander. Very hard to drill into lunar regolith when the drill lies parallel to the moon's surface.

Intuitive Machines's Nova-C lander is now 2/2 in landing on the moon in one piece and 0/2 in landing *upright.*

Listening to the #IM2 Intuitive Machines press conference. Like its predecessor mission (IM-1), this lander didn't land upright. This is pretty awful news for the mission's marquee payload: the PRIME-1 drill.

Paul is a great journalist and colleague at Science and we are all in this moment dependent on you the scientists speaking to us to be able to describe the scale of what is being destroyed. If you can, do contact him 🧪

My thoughts to the staff at NOAA going through it -- and my fellow reporters on the story late. I'm getting two kiddos to bed. But if you're former or current NOAA who wants to talk about the implications to met and climate science with @science.org, please reach out. I'm at Signal at voosen.01.

It is fascinating to see the huge disjunct between the publications that are meeting the moment—such as @science.org, which I am thrilled to be joining—and the publications that are remaining silent to save their own skins. That’s the difference between “journalism” and “content,” folks.

Staff fired at the Tsunami Warning Center

Any conservative/Trump-voting federal scientists who have been fired and are willing to discuss their views on that whatever they may be?--or can others suggest people in that situation we should reach out to? Contact the News from Science team www.science.org/content/page...

A great piece from @gbullard.bsky.social on the present and future of the reporter's notebook. I have used the Field Notes one for >6 years. It's nearly perfect, save for the back card pocket (it comes unglued easily and would benefit from reinforcement). niemanreports.org/reporters-no...

Personal news: On March 10 I will be joining the staff of @science.org as an associate news editor! I’m thrilled to be supporting such an amazing group of staff and freelance writers, during this critical moment for both science and journalism.

Absolutely shocking and very worrying from NOAA www.newscientist.com/article/2469...

Holy smokes. Reading the tea leaves here, as a longtime reporter on NASA's Artemis program: Jim Free leaving implies major changes to Artemis. This many leaders from NASA Marshall in Alabama leaving also bodes ill for the Space Launch System rocket, whose design and construction Marshall oversaw.

It's a truly staggering amount of melt. The total meltwater volume here—some 6.5 trillion tons—is like a 100-foot-deep pool of water that's *the size of Great Britain.* I wrote about a similarly grim estimate several years ago: www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/art...

Question for planetary defense folks: At what point does hardware start to be designed/provisioned in case a kinetic impactor à la DART needs to be launched at 2024 YR4? We'll know more about its makeup & orbit in 2028, but if we just start building then, it'll launch later & need much more oomph.

More and more scientists are joining the ranks of fired federal workers—and fighting back through protests, appeals, and legal challenges.

See this chart from @caseydreier.bsky.social, an expert on NASA's historical budgets and staffing levels. To add on: For every $10,000 the federal government spends, roughly $27 goes to NASA. Of that $27, >$20 is paid out to contractors—and $4 goes to payroll. (Source linked below)

🧪 If you are a NASA employee or contractor who is interested in speaking with a journalist, please reach out. I freelance for multiple publications (Science, NYT, etc.). If you want to reach out (via a personal device on a trusted, non-work network!), I'm on Signal at mgreshko.01.

A gospel I want to spread is that smart and independent news media are necessary *but not sufficient* for a functional democracy.

The cruelty and callousness of what the US government is doing here, the pain it is inflicting, the waste of time and energy and taxpayer money, the risks it is creating are just staggering… #IDsky 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Amid all the chaos, I got great professional news a few days ago. More details soon!

6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance. For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.

Based on my years on reporting out the Artemis moon program: If Trump's NASA successfully cancels SLS in the coming months—no small feat, considering huge Congressional support for ~14 years—the timetable for NASA astronauts returning to the moon gets stretched out a fair bit.

To follow up on my previous post: If you slash how much a research grant can cover university overhead, you have to make up the money somewhere. One place could be tuition. This move could risk making college *more* expensive, not less.

Reducing the indirect rate on NIH grants to 15% will kill biomedical and health research in the US. I'm not exaggerating here. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...