Honored to have made it into this always fantastic anthology as a "Notable" for my piece in Hakai Magazine (one of the last features the magazine published) about cold-water coral research in Chile. @pulitzercenter.org @biographic.bsky.social

Hi! Today @quantamagazine.bsky.social published a special issue on climate science, featuring stories about how Earth's climate fundamentally works that I needed to read after covering climate impacts for so many years. I hope you'll check it out! <3 www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...

NY subway platforms feel hot as hell in the summer. Meet Jack Klein, the guy who stealthily collects data about New York’s hottest days underground. 🚇New in @sequencermag.bsky.social www.sequencermag.com/the-covert-p...

@sequencermag.bsky.social is on Ghost! They're a writer-owned publication run by science journalists @goesbykim.bsky.social, @maxlevy.bsky.social, @dsamorod.bsky.social, and @maddiebender.bsky.social www.sequencermag.com

I'd love to recommend and follow more science newsletters and publications run with @ghost.org  — especially now that they've implemented ActivityPub to put Ghost newsletters on the social web. So give me your recommendations and shameless self promotions! I know of a few already:

"A couple months ago, while I was thumbing through old magazines at a record shop, I landed on a gem. “Learning To Love the Computer” emblazoned the cover of Nutshell magazine, a now-defunct periodical for college students," writes @maxlevy.bsky.social www.sequencermag.com/ai-critical-...

The flip flopping continues: NIH director Jay Bhattacharya tweeted today that all agency staff will have full access to all scientific journals including those published by Springer Nature. I've gone back to the WH, HHS, NASA, DOE, USDA to understand what the heck is going on. I am lost.

If the next pandemic starts tomorrow, with the current risk landscape, I think it's still much more likely to be H5N1 - with a spillover somewhere in the southeast or the middle of the continent, just like the 1918 Spanish Flu - than anything else. Trump's actions have paved the way for it. 1/2

I went on TV to talk about my book with Rev. Al Sharpton, a sentence that I cannot believe is true www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/...

Good blog! www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

This is a catastrophe in the making gizmodo.com/rfk-jr-says-...

It's not about eggs. Please RT!

not sure who needs to hear this today but: you don't hate getting older, you hate how society treats older people

Clouds play an important role regulating the climate. To incorporate clouds into climate models scientists are learning more about the *biology* of clouds: studies of plants, plankton & organics flung up by sea spray. Major thanks @joespring.bsky.social for edits on this tinyurl.com/388ncr38

A growing class of scientists is learning how plants, plankton and sea spray release elements that can shape giant features like clouds. @maxlevy.bsky.social profiles their work, and shares how it will help other researchers more accurately predict climate. www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

SVP: "What has been most satisfying that you gave this team along the way?... Is there one thing you'll take great satisfaction in from this run?" Jalen Williams: "Nothing is more precious than time..." 🏀📺🎙️ #NBA

I hope this is making national & global news, not just here in Los Angeles where I am. The federal govt sending in the National Guard and LAPD, seemingly complicit in the ICE raids should worry everyone. While Bass and Newsome claim nothing to do with it, why arern't they protecting LA residents?

Now that people are talking to/about AI as if they're people, is the internet going to have to switch to serif fonts? Lower case "L" and capital "I" look identical. And people use chatbots for therapy and itineraries. "I asked AI for advice" Alex? Claude? Albert? ChatGPT????

In true Sequencer fashion, I wrote something about something that seems silly but really isn't that silly IMO!! Maybe season 3 of The Rehearsal can be in an operating room... Read a report from my little field trip here: www.sequencermag.com/the-innovati...

NEW: "If you then read in a newspaper about human rights abuses happening in Nauru, you're implicated against your will... Your body is a part of that story." @maxlevy.bsky.social speaks with Jack Lohmann about his book, WHITE LIGHT www.sequencermag.com/on-fear-deat...

Check it out for a snippet of audio. Writing nerds and chemistry dorks (@maxlevy.bsky.social included), this is a fun one you won't wanna miss.

playoff basketball might just be the only good thing about 2025 omg

HOLY FUCKING SHIT THE KNICKSSSSSSSSS

ok which one of you did this

This news is hot off the press! We are so excited to present the 2025 #MassMediaFellows! These 17 scientists will spend their summer writing, reporting, and working on their #SciComm skills in news outlets across the country! Learn more about the #MMF50th class here: www.aaas.org/news/aaas-ma...

Oh my god. Never seen a buzzer beater like that. Oh my

New video just dropped! I helped produce this one for TED-Ed, in which we ask.... what the hell is a tree??? www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1EX...

If I had to put some blame for all-of-the-everything on journalistic practices, I might single out the idea that it’s “news” to put a simplistic what-happened on top and a to-be-sure section on the complications down at the bottom, but “opinion” or an “explainer” to do it the other way ‘round.

We are very, very close! It would be surprising if there’s not a treaty now.

Thrilled to announce that we too have also de-extinctified the Dire Wolf 🐺🧪

Exciting news: My work will appear in the upcoming edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing!! The 2025 editor, Susan Orlean, selected an essay I wrote for Sequencer about trying to train my color vision. 👁️👄👁️

Thank you to my editor @shaun505.bsky.social who didn't bat an eyelash when I filed a 2k-word draft though the assigned word count was 1k. In my defense, who doesn't want to read about the funniest, sweetest, smartest, and most adorable mules and horses? My latest for @highcountrynews.bsky.social:

We were just notified that our contract to UCSD and Scripps Research to support wastewater surveillance in San Diego (searchcovid.info) was terminated immediately for the same reasons 👇. That means no more genomic wastewater surveillance, and our proposed extensions to measles, Hep A, others, gone.

And remember: our newsletter access is $0, free, gratis etc. All we ask for is your email address and your unconditional love.

Our newest newsletter hits inboxes TOMORROW MORNING! It's overflowing with exciting updates, so be sure to subscribe at www.sequencermag.com today so you don't miss it.

*sung to the tune of Your Body is a Wonderland* 🎵 Your body is a wind instrument www.sequencermag.com/body-mod-lin...

If these tariffs fuck up kesar mango season for me I swear to fucking god

NEW: No fewer than 10 principle scientists at NIH investigating emerging infectious diseases and neural disorders were among those fired by RFK Jr. today. One is an esteemed scientist awarded for breakthrough research into the causes of Parkinson's disease. By me and @emilymullin.bsky.social:

At long last, here's my final piece in my planets series for Smithsonian Mag, on the worlds beyond our solar system. Here are some of Earth's exotic planetary FRIENDS in the cosmic neighborhood: - The one like cotton candy - The ones that are raging hot - The one with the tail 👉 shorturl.at/wxl3A

I received a heartbreaking email today: A paper in a special issue I’m editing is being retracted because one of its authors is afraid of losing their job and their legal status in the U.S. if they publish a scientific study on evolution. Yes, on evolution, nature's engine of diversity.

Confirming this scoop by @thesicktimes.bsky.social - an HHS source says that Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), who secured a commitment from RFK Jr. during his confirmation hearing that he'd continue funding long COVID research, intervened.

This might sound sarcastic given this screenshot but I really do love New York

Childhood cancer patients can end up infertile after chemotherapy. Researchers have been freezing young patients' testicular tissue, which contain sperm-forming stem cells, in hopes of one day restoring their fertility. WIRED learned about the first such transplant: www.wired.com/story/first-...

I'm working on a story for @thesicktimes.bsky.social about how the latest NIH cuts to COVID-related grants are impacting scientists working on Long COVID. If you have info to share, please email, DM, or reach out on Signal (betsyladyzhets.25).

This data call comes as HHS wants to reduce spending on contracts by $13 billion, an NIH source tells me. It's unclear how much of that will be from NIH. Anything terminated since 1/20 doesn't count, apparently. There doesn't seem to be a strategy other than 'cut, cut, cut', the source says.

🚨 NIH sent out another data call, this time for projects "related to any form of censorship at all or directing people to believe one idea over another related to health outcomes… e,g., any contracts to promote COVID vaccine uptake," I'm told. These data calls have recently preceded terminations.

NEW: The NIH has begun terminating grants about COVID-19, leaving long COVID funding in limbo, according to a new internal guidance document I obtained. “Now that the pandemic is over, the grant funds are no longer necessary,” it says. We published the full document in my latest for @nature.com:

I spoke with @waterslicer.bsky.social of @wired.com about how the Trump admin's transphobic executive orders are harming public health research and practice, and about the brilliant data archivists doing what we can to sustain queer health research 🌈 #episky #StandUpForScience

I came across an article about school closures from 1958 in an old LIFE Mag. Was struck by the POVs of white students on integration. This was less than 70 years ago