Psychedelics don't quite fit into the standard way we evaluate drugs—randomized double-blind trials—as you can't really mistake MDMA for a placebo.
Are psychedelics the problem? Or does our gold standard need updating?
My first for
@TheAtlantic
Scientists know viral infections can lead to chronic illness, like ME/CFS or MS, but they've struggled to understand why.
Long covid presents a grim, but crucial opportunity to change that and find treatments that might help beyond covid. By me
@gridnews
The gas stove hubbub might have you thinking a new study came out that shocked scientists and regulators into action.
The truth is that decades of research have been finding the same thing: gas stoves can be quite bad for your health.
By me
@gridnews
@hafiisaa
@AmandaMoMorris
The WaPo story on this is generating a fair amount of criticism from the science journalist community. Here are a couple other perspectives:
💥Some professional news!💥
I'm so, so excited to announce that next week I'll be starting my new job as a life sciences reporter at
@ScienceNews
!
I couldn't have made this transition from biologist to science journalist without A LOT of help this past 1.5 years. THANKS to 👇
Biden's plan to pair covid tests and treatments at pharmacies sounded like a big deal when he announced it Tuesday.
In reality, the "Test to Treat" program won't do much to expand access, at least in its current form.
My latest
@gridnews
The greatest Christmas gift I've ever been given is now properly framed!
Looking at baby yoda on this companionable capybara everyday will bring me as much joy as
@CAPYBARA_MAN
's tweets. Amazing artwork by
@marylenzart
.
A real bright spot of pandemic reporting is talking with local public health officials.
They do such hard, relentless and critical work, often without recognition, out of a deep care for the health of their community.
Despite everything, I always feel hopeful afterwards.
A fluorescent turtle! Stunning stentors! Opulent ovaries!
This year’s selections from
@NikonSmallWorld
’s annual contest are stunning reminders of the hidden beauty of our microscopic world.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
:
Interventions like implicit bias training are often put forward as reforms to reduce police brutality. But do they actually work?
The research is lukewarm, and experts say such training must be paired with deeper structural reforms.
By me
@gridnews
Not everyone who wants a vaccine can easily get one in the US.
I went to Philly to see how a small, dedicated team of volunteers is bringing vaccines to the hard-to-reach Hispanic communities who saw the worst of the pandemic.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Electric eels were assumed to hunt alone.
But deep in the Amazon, biologists observed a shocking site: over 100 eels working together to corral 1000+ of fish, unleashing coordinated electric attacks.
My latest
@ScienceNews
:
Some professional news!
I'm thrilled to announce that for the next 6-months I'll be reporting on the latest in science and policy as an intern for
@NatureNews
!
After that I'll be on the hunt for a science journalism job, but I'm looking forward to learning a ton till then!
A hiking grad student found an odd protist in some dirt and sequenced it to discover a new branch of life as distinctive as the one we share with FUNGI. If that can turn up in some random dirt, how complete is our picture of life? My latest
@QuantaMagazine
We think of the ocean as this vast open expanse where animals can roam free, away from humans. But shipping routes have become like roads, fragmenting the habitat of giants like blue whales.
This graphic really nails that home for me in ways words can't.
Bacteria have their own internet, and it's made of viruses. Scientists discovered a new mechanism by which viruses can shuttle genes among bacteria that occurs 1000-fold more often than previously thought. What does it mean? My latest for
@QuantaMagazine
Identical twins share much, including the genome of their sibling.
It turns out all identical twins, everywhere (!), may share a common epigenetic signature of twinning so distinctive it can tell you if you were conceived a twin.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Soap may be the most powerful infection-fighting tool we've ever invented.
Turns out, our cells knew this before we did.
To kill pathogens, gut-lining cells can dispense a detergent-like protein that washes away bacterial membranes.
By me
@ScienceNews
Being single-celled doesn't necessarily mean being single-minded.
A fresh look at a century-old experiment finds a protist that can "change its mind" about how to respond to threats in surprisingly complex ways.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Post-Roe litigation will swirl around medication abortion, and whether states can ban an FDA-approved drug.
If they can't, abortion pills could be protected nationwide. If they can, states might start restricting other drugs too.
My latest
@gridnews
Instead of the Anthropocene, biologist E.O. Wilson refers to our current age as the Eremocene - the Age of Loneliness.
Our skies are getting lonelier.
My first story for
@ScienceNews
What determines the color of a bird egg?
It's undoubtedly the result of multiple selective pressures, but a new study suggests that globally, egg color follows a simple rule — the colder the climate, the darker the egg.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Vampire bats vaaaant to suck the blood of other animals ... and share it with their friends!
A super cool study shows that social bonds forged in the lab endured when bats were released into the wild.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Well, I've been laid off from The Messenger.
If you're looking for an experienced reporter eager to take on complicated stories that explore the intersections of science, health and policy, please get in touch!
Scientists are "supposed" to be emotionally detached from what they study.
But as species die and ecosystems degrade, grief has become part of the job, and scientists are learning how to cope as they move forward.
My first feature
@ScienceNews
:
Lockdowns bought us time.
Time to prepare, to build up contact tracing systems that would catch the inevitable rise in cases that come with reopening.
Nationally, we didn't prepare enough. We're seeing the consequences now.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Pandemics are expensive. COVID-19 may cost $5 trillion in lost GDP this year.
To avoid the next one, some say we should spend fractions targeting the origin of new viruses, by cutting deforestation and stopping the wildlife trade.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Naked mole-rats have distinct accents that help colonies tell friend from foe. The dialects are learned (not genetically encoded) and seem to be strictly enforced by the queen!
These pruny, hairless pups never cease to amaze.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Some news!
We just launched Grid Health here at
@gridnews
. It's a weekly newsletter focused on drawing connections between health and politics, tech, climate, the economy, misinformation and more.
Subscribe here for a new edition every Wednesday:
🚨Some personal news!
I'm thrilled to share that come January I'll be joining
@lkmcgann
,
@lmorello_dc
et al at a news startup launching soon.
I'll be focusing on public health and how it connects to everything from the biodiversity crisis to infrastructure and geopolitics.
Can both the climate and extinction crises be solved by conserving land?
A new study says yes, and maps out where to protect land to meet various biodiversity and climate goals.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Getting eaten doesn't stop this indomitable beetle.
Instead of succumbing to a frog's stomach juices, this beetle just keeps moving, through the WHOLE DIGESTIVE TRACT and climbs out the frog's butt, unscathed.
This was a fun one.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Surgeons successfully attached a pig's kidney to a human body and watched it work normally for 54 hours.
It's an important first, but there's still a long way to go before such transplants could be common.
What it all means in my latest
@ScienceNews
Four years ago, a concussion upended my life, robbing me of my sense of self and my way of being in the world. After a difficult journey, I have recovered, and am undoubtedly different, but still whole. Here's my story.
@AAASMMF
@BWFUND
@dallasnews
A Seattle man becomes the first US case of the novel
#coronavirus
in the US.
Yesterday, Chinese officials confirmed the virus can spread among humans, but how readily this happens remains unclear.
My latest on what we know, and don't know,
@ScienceNews
:
What a wonder.
If you missed its debut on the scientific scene last week, check out the impossibly tiny Brookesia nana, a Malagasy chameleon that may be the smallest reptile on Earth.
A fun quick story by me for
@ScienceNews
Nurses hold up the health care system.
But many are leaving, exhausted from supporting a dysfunctional system pushed to the brink by covid.
Why this is happening, what it means, and what changes can stop it from
@alex_leedsmatts
and I
@gridnews
1/
Microbiome research reveals our bodies are less an autocracy of clones than a coalition of many. Do we need to expand ideas of what an evolve as an individual? Thanks
@tvjrennie
@LucyIkkanda
for immeasurably improving my latest for
@QuantaMagazine
Consider the tortoise: A gentle, lumbering muncher of plants.
Watch this video.
Reconsider the tortoise: Determined, ruthless hunter of at least one poor baby bird.
A fun, surprising brief for
@ScienceNews
We need land to farm.
Nonhuman life needs land to thrive.
Carbon-storing trees need land to grow.
But land is scarce.
To solve the biodiversity and climate crises, we need to mix things up and bring trees back onto farms.
I explore how in
@ScienceNews
This is what SARS-CoV-2's exponential growth can look like in our airways.
In a lab culture of ~1 million human cells, viral load can skyrocket from about one thousand infectious viruses to 10 million in just two days.
My latest
@ScienceNews
"Losing your body from the neck down can be just another one of life’s annoying, but temporary, setbacks — at least for two kinds of rippling, green-tinged sea slugs."
@susanmilius
explains this slug superpower for
@ScienceNews
, complete with video!
SSRIs are commonly prescribed for obsessive compulsive behaviors in kids and teens with autism.
There's not much evidence they're effective.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
:
A horrid, highly transmissible face cancer brought Tasmanian devils to the brink of extinction.
But there are signs the tumor's spread is slowing, suggesting these (pretty cute little) devils will live to see many more days.
My latest
@ScienceNews
This is honestly the strangest, but also strangely compelling, scientific papers I've ever read.
Wild pandas might romp about in horse poop not just for fun, but because it contains a chemical that may dull the cold.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Don't throw away your neck gaiters based on a study with a sample size of 1.
Some context on why this latest mask study is getting a bit overblown in my latest for
@ScienceNews
Evolving complexity is complicated, according to new jellyfish research. Jellies leapt ahead of their stationary cousins by evolving a complex, free-swimming form, and they did it without a bunch of new genes. My last (!)
@quantamagazine
internship story.
2015: researchers say there are ~5,000 kinds of viruses in the ocean.
2016: they say ~15,000.
2019: **200,000**!
Why the big jump? And what are all these viruses doing?
Check out my latest for
@QuantaMagazine
Our impact on Earth's ecosystems may be drastically more pervasive than we thought.
While 20-40% of land lacks obvious signs of human development, only 3% retains all the animal species that help habitats fully thrive, study says.
By me
@ScienceNews
Ebola can now be treated with an FDA-approved monoclonal antibody cocktail that decreased mortality in a clinical trial carried out during an outbreak in 2018-2019.
What that means in my latest for
@ScienceNews
:
Post-Roe it'll be illegal for ~45% of OBGYN residents to learn abortion care.
That limits more than abortion access. It could deprive a generation of docs the skills needed to manage miscarriages and other emergencies.
By me &
@alex_leedsmatts
@gridnews
I'm moving to New York City!
On Monday (!) I start a science writing internship with
@QuantaMagazine
, whose mission is to "illuminate basic science and math research through public service journalism," and I'm thrilled to be working with them this fall.
These are powerful, arresting, and often disorienting photographs to take in.
They are part of The Anthropocene Project, an effort to document a contested new geological epoch, defined by the impact of us.
My and
@Rjaellis
', latest for
@NPRGoatsandSoda
My initial (ill-advised) lede for this
@sciencenews
story:
"For parched desert critters, there may be no more welcome a sight than an ass hole."
Alas, even without donkey puns, I hope you'll read this story of introduced equids as ecosystem engineers.
Governments across the globe are relaxing coronavirus protections as omicron recedes, hoping the virus has finally shown us all its cards.
That's very, very unlikely.
Why we're almost certainly not done with new variants in my latest
@gridnews
Sea otters are controversial.
Their recovery from near extinction threatens valuable clam fisheries that thrived in their absence. But they also transform ecosystems for the better, which research shows may offsets those costs.
By me, for
@ScienceNews
Trees move large amounts of water from the soil to the sky.
Early spring greening, more common now with climate change, may draw too much water and trigger drier soil and hotter weather come summertime across the N. Hemisphere.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Finally, the WHO announces a name for the
#2019nCoV
COVID-19
The name doesn't refer to a specific place, animal, or group of people, which the WHO avoids to reduce stigma.
In evolutionary terms, social distancing isn't new. Many animals avoid infection by avoiding the infected.
But for highly social species, anti-social behavior is costly! Canaries, a study says, have evolved a pre-emptive workaround.
By me
@ScienceNews
Sure, whales are big. The biggest.
But why aren't they even BIGGER??
A 10yr study that involved suction-cupping super-sensors to the backs of over 100 whales suggests different answers for toothed vs filter-feeding whales.
By me
@ScienceNews
"I was really, really shocked"
The Ebola outbreak in Guinea seems to have been caused by someone infected at least 5 years ago.
@viruswhiz
and I break down why that's so surprising and what it means for
@ScienceNews
Are new combinations of old genes more important than mutations in forming new species?
Some biologists who study rapid speciation say yes. To them, hybridization is a catalyst, not a hindrance, in the origin of species.
My latest for
@QuantaMagazine
Nature is in trouble.
To save it, countries are drafting an ambitious new conservation plan — to protect 30% of the planet by 2030 — under
@UNBiodiversity
.
But where does this number come from, and will it be enough?
Me, for
@ScienceNews
on
#EarthDay
What fueled the Cambrian explosion(s)?
New study links extreme and rapid fluctuations of oxygen levels in ancient seas with bursts of diversification and extinction. Out of these dynamic seas, complex animal life emerged.
My latest for
@QuantaMagazine
Since puberty I've been told I should be on the radio.
Today, I was!!!
My news spot on NPR about a new study on how fair trade certification doesn't help cocoa farm workers. (starts at 3:27)
A mysterious outbreak of pneumonia in China has been preliminarily pegged to a new cornoavirus — the same family behind the common cold and SARS — according to the WHO.
What we know so far in my latest for
@ScienceNews
:
Today was my first day at NPR, but I had a heavy heart for the
@dallasnews
journalists laid off this morning. Working among you all this summer was such a privilege, and showed me the value of passionate local journalism.
Please subscribe to your local paper. It matters.
To avoid the worst of climate change, natural carbon stores, like peatlands or tropical forests, must remain intact.
Now, scientists have mapped the density of vulnerable carbon across the globe. It's surprisingly concentrated.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Want to understand today's J&J vaccine announcement? Read
@viruswhiz
's clarifying story for
@ScienceNews
(I think her story also has the most accurate headline I've seen all day)
Schools are closing, events are cancelled and employees are being told to telework.
These "social distancing" measures are meant to
#FlattenTheCurve
and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by
#Covid_19
.
Learn why, by me &
@thsaey
for
@ScienceNews
A new study found that air
#pollution
is disproportionately caused by white Americans' consumption of goods & services—but disproportionately inhaled by black & Hispanic Americans.
Human challenge trials — where volunteers are infected with SARS-CoV-2 to test vaccines — could shave months off vaccine development and save many lives.
But with much still unknown about COVID-19, should we take that risk?
My latest for
@sciencenews
The WHO says it's too early to call the
#CoronavirusOutbreak
a global emergency, which has killed 17 people and infected over 550.
Currently no evidence of human transmission outside of China, though that could change, WHO says.
My latest
@ScienceNews
Concerned about biodiversity? Let's talk food.
Feeding 2050s population may require new cropland collectively the size of India, squeezing 1000s of species from their habitats.
But key policy changes could largely erase those losses.
By me
@ScienceNews
@winstoncb
@gridnews
Thank you for sharing your perspective. I am sorry that I wasn't able to relay the full, terrible depth of what these illnesses can be in this story, and will try to do better on that front in the future.
As the coronavirus behind
#COVID
ー19 gains a foothold in countries outside of China, many experts worry we're on the brink of a global pandemic. Some say we're already there.
What that means in my latest for
@ScienceNews
:
Big news in the world of genetically modified mosquitos. Can this experiment eliminate a zika and dengue carrying species from the Florida Keys?
@susanmilius
explains for
@ScienceNews
Your pup's ability to learn new tricks has more to do with genetics than your careful training
Study finds breed behavioral differences, like trainability, largely track genetic similarity, though there's plenty of variation.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
Remember those fossilized stromatolites from two years ago that pushed back the origin of life 220 million years? Turns out, they might just be rocks. The controversy highlights science working as it should. My latest for
@QuantaMagazine
A plant gene that leapt (perhaps lifted by a virus) into an insect genome — a jump that spans a billion+ years of divergence — may help explain the success of one of the most pernicious agricultural pests around.
My latest
@ScienceNews
A new species of choanoflagellate -- the last turnoff on the tree of life before animals -- forms sheets of cells that acrobatically flip between forms.
The finding could give clues as to how multi-cellular animals evolved.
My latest for
@ScienceNews
:
The moment we domesticated horses, the trajectory of humanity's history changed.
Now, scientists may have found where that relationship took off.
My latest
@ScienceNews
A bit of brain smaller than a sesame seed yields an unprecedented look at the interconnections of our neurons "in all their wild and weird glory."
Weirdness includes some neurons connected by as many as 19 synapses!
By
@lssciencenews
for
@ScienceNews
Apply! Apply! Apply!
I wouldn't have been able to make the transition from biology grad student to staff writer in just over a year were it not for the
@AAASMassMedia
fellowship.
Are you a science student or postdoc interested in
#scicomm
and journalism? This could be you next year! Applications are now open to be a
@aaas
#MassMediaFellow
in 2020. Learn more and apply here:
In case you missed the news last week, check out the leggiest creature ever known to crawl this Earth!
At long last, millipedes are no longer a lie.
My latest (and likely last!) for
@ScienceNews
The Governor of Alaska slashed the university's state funding by 40%, leaving scientists anxious about their jobs and the future of research in a state on the front lines of climate change.
My latest for
@NatureNews
:
Deep sea mining is quickly moving from fantasy to imminent reality.
Read about the first animal (A SNAIL WITH AN IRON SHELL!) to be listed as endangered due to threat of mining in my latest for
@NatureNews
(Cool snail facts 👇 in thread)
There's so much delta variant news (and 'takes') right now that it's hard to keep up.
@thsaey
,
@viruswhiz
and I break down what available data suggest (and what they don't) for
@ScienceNews
.
Delta is worrying, but we have the tools to fight it.
Coral reefs are in trouble. Could probiotics be the answer?
Dosing corals with microbes prevented death-from-bleaching in the lab, but questions remain about scaling up the approach on reefs.
My latest
@ScienceNews