Study in Helsinki indicating benefits of portable air cleaners on lowering infection risk in daycare centers, less absences & parent absences from work in intervention vs. reference (no air cleaner) groups. Cleaning indoor air is not difficult and it works. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

I wanted to finish this before year's end & I did. 😁 I LOVED it. Such a pleasure to read, information-rich, fascinating but accessible. 🎁🎅 Air-Borne by Carl Zimmer www.scientificamerican.com/article/book... @carlzimmer.com Plant pathogens covered as well as human 💚 Even Norman Bourlag!

RFK Jr. is expected to announce in the new year that American children should be immunized according to the schedule followed by Denmark — which is much smaller, mostly homogenous and has universal health care. (Free link) www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/h...

Denmark’s vaccine schedule is the most minimalist in the developed world. So why is HHS trying to adopt it? My new piece in @statnews.com. Huge thanks to @thekibosch.bsky.social for the lightning-fast turnaround and sharp editing.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ www.statnews.com/2025/12/19/d...

Having written a biography of E. coli (Microcosm), I'm curious about the FBI arrest for bringing it into the US. But no information on the type of E. coli involved. Also, none of the stories I've seen note that it can live harmlessly in our bodies. www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic...

AI is pretty much a mansplainer you can’t escape from.

Given all the recent buzz about how great ChatGPT has gotten, including its prowess with images, I figured I'd check in on its anatomical skills. Nope.

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to announce a package of measures that would together ban gender-affirming care for minors. A press conference is set for 11 a.m. Thursday. n.pr/44xQKdD

Trump Administration Plans to Break Up Premier Weather and Climate Research Center. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/c...

Trump officials were warned repeatedly that cutting off food aid to refugees in Kenya would lead to violence and death. They did so anyway, and thousands starved. @propublica.org www.propublica.org/article/keny...

My top 10 books for 2025

“He said, ‘I’m going to die – please see my family [and tell them] that I went down to save people’s lives.'" --Jozay Alkanj, who was having coffee with Ahmed when the shooting erupted. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

"As of December 14, the U.S. has had 391 mass shootings—more than the number of days in the year—for the seventh consecutive year. Seventy-five of these occurred at schools"— @kkjetelina.bsky.social

NEW: After freezing billions in U.S. foreign aid and putting countless lives at risk around the world, Trump administration officials in Washington celebrated with a sheet cake. By @annamaria.bsky.social & Brett Murphy, photos by @peterdicampo.bsky.social

Air-Borne by @carlzimmer.com was entertaining, deeply researched, but also eye-opening in revealing how dogmas can become entrenched in science without anyone going back to check how they started. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Kudos to the Brown University students who are posting continuous live updates, spaced just minutes apart, on the campus shooting. A lot of grace and professionalism under immense pressure. www.browndailyherald.com/article/2025...

This is a self-inflicted injury. (gift article)

The twelfth installment in the @nytimes.com Lost Science series is up: an entomologist who helped protect people from malaria. Story by @alexaroblesgil.bsky.social Gift link: nyti.ms/4pBdYbk

Breaking News: President Trump said the U.S. seized a tanker off Venezuela’s coast, amid his pressure campaign against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Scientists have found the oldest evidence yet of humans making fires--400,000 years ago in England. Here's my story on the discovery and what it says about the minds of our ancestors. Gift link: nyti.ms/4q0Ls2q [Photo via Andrea H flic.kr/p/4cnSq ]

Here's my latest column, on the natural history of misinformation. Gift link: nyti.ms/3MkcbJ1

The destruction of the enterprise of US academic science has been one of the most confounding aspects of a hugely confounding year. My @statnews.com colleagues are writing about the consequences for individuals & the country. You want to read this series. www.statnews.com/american-sci...

E.P.A. Erases Mention of Humans Causing Climate Change From Some Web Pages. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Mo6REt

This was waiting for me in the driveway. Long live print!

John Noble Wilford, science writing legend, dies at 92. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/s...

Big if true. 🙄

The United States "is losing its long-held lead as a research powerhouse and collaborator in world science." www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Thanks for posting. I just finished your book Air-Borne. Very well written and absolutely fascinating. The personalities involved in this history! I have no science background just an interest in public health. I found it a terrific read,thoroughly enjoyed it, recommend to all. An important read.

A new review explores one of the themes of my book Air-Borne: our lungs are like the ocean. Both send life into the atmosphere. pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

A study on 1.7 million people in Hong Kong shows superior hybrid immunity to Covid in people who got vaccinated before infection vs. people who got infected first. "Our findings are a direct rebuttal to arguments for natural immunity," the authors write. doi.org/10.1016/j.va...

Finally finished this last week and highly recommend! Such a carefully crafted timeline of the history of life in the air and the science that describes it. Loved the chapters on the Mills' and Lindberghs' contributions many decades ago. The fight for clean air is nothing new! @carlzimmer.com

The decision by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to downgrade its recommendations to protect infants from hepatitis B is a dangerous move that will harm children. Click here to read AAP's full statement: bit.ly/3Y9ZQJT

Breaking: After contentious debates and three failed attempts at a vote, a federal vaccine committee decided on Friday to end the decades-long recommendation that all newborns be immunized at birth against hepatitis B. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/h...

A Threat to Evidence-Based Vaccine Policy and Public Health Security at the FDA: former FDA commissioners call out Dr. Prasad's departure from previous standards in @nejm.org www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Vaccinating newborns against hepatitis B saves lives. Why might a CDC panel stop recommending it? www.cidrap.umn.edu/childhood-va...

Grateful @smithsonianmag.bsky.social's Carlyn Kranking let me share a few of my favorite reads for the year end list of the top science books—titles by @carlzimmer.com, Ben Weissenbach, and Alex Hutchinson. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

NEW: The F.D.A. announced in an internal memo that 10 children died "because of" the Covid shot. Other experts want to see proof. “This is a profound revelation,” Dr. Prasad's memo said. “For the first time, the U.S. F.D.A. will acknowledge that Covid-19 vaccines have killed American children.”

The US government support of cancer research via NCI has been severely cut. And of June 2025, "There were 181 individual terminated NCI funded grants, with a total award amount of $640,867, 956." jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Dr. Ralph Lee Abraham, who as Louisiana’s surgeon general ordered the state health department to stop promoting vaccinations and who has called Covid vaccines “dangerous,” has been named the second in command at the CDC. (Gift article) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/h...

Great piece on #interoception and brain body interactions by @carlzimmer.com in the @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/s... What an exciting time to work on this. Join us @cshlmeetings.bsky.social to learn more about the this exciting field meetings.cshl.edu/meetings.asp...

I have a story today about interoception--a kind of sixth sense that delivers information from within our bodies to our brains. nyti.ms/4rfTDtn

3 infant #pertussis deaths this year in Kentucky. "Of the three infant deaths reported over the past 12 months, all three were not vaccinated, nor were their mothers." We first tested maternal vaccination for whooping cough over 80 years ago. It's safe & effective & might have saved these babies.

Here is the C-SPAN video of my talk at the Miami Book Fair yesterday with Simon Winchester about our mysterious atmosphere www.c-span.org/program/book...

Origins of language, one of humanity’s most distinctive traits, may be best explained as a unique convergence of multiple capacities each with its own evolutionary history, involving intertwined roles of biology & culture. This framing can expand research horizons. A 🧵 on our @science.org paper.🧪1/n

I’ll be at @miamibookfair.bsky.social Sunday for 2 events. 11 am: a talk with Tom Frieden about the future of public health. 1:30 pm: Simon Winchester and I talk about the air—the subject of both our new books. www.miamibookfair.com My talk with SW will be livestreamed: www.mdc.edu/livestream/

New from me: I talked to CDC staffers about the new vaccines and autism page. They said things like: “The best way I can put it is it feels like we’re on a hijacked airplane.” “I think people are starting to see that we can’t fulfill our mission here.”

About that exclusive, "closed-to-press" MAHA summit last week with RFK and JD Vance: I got in. Here's what I saw. 🧵 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The second report of the UK COVID Inquiry is out. The two volumes are here: covid19.public-inquiry.uk/documents/mo... The section on "The focus on handwashing over ventilation" begins in section 12.32 of the second volume (page 167 in the PDF of voume 2). #itsairborne #COVID #longCOVID #aerosol

"At this time, I suggest the general public avoid the CDC website." --epidemiologist @kkjetelina.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/yourloca...