Well, I Tried
I keep promising to write a Real Newsletter™ with content other than links to stuff I publish elsewhere, but I think it’s clear I just don’t have the time...
I Resisted the Temptation to Make a "Last Starfighter" Joke
First, I promise the next newsletter will involve some original reporting. It turns out that writing about certain topics just takes more time and energy...
Holy Flipping Icebergs, Batman!
This week turned out to be too busy to write a real newsletter (again!). I’d apologize, but frankly things are not going well professionally and I need to...
Spontaneously Organizing Plastic, and Shrek Jokes
Two very different stories this week, on the lessons astronomers learn from an exotic supernova and a new way to model complex systems using little plastic...
Telescopes on the Gosh-Darned Moon
[subject line borrowed from The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl] Confession time! I started writing a newsletter about “AI” and why you shouldn’t use it, spent far...
Probing Ice Moon Interiors Using Weird Ice
Occasionally my writing life throws strange coincidences at me. I’m not sure I’ve written about the weird properties of water ice before, but I ended up with...
A Scientific Portrait
I just have one small item to share this week: a portrait of my friend Tanya Harrison for AGU Eos! Tanya Harrison: Roving on Mars This planetary geologist...
Thoughts While On Deadline
Naturally in the way of things I have two major deadlines within three days of each other, while juggling a series of other crises. (None of those...
The Imagination of a Journalist
Cynicism comes easy right now. Many of my ostensible colleagues in the political press have abdicated their responsibility to report on what’s going on,...
Three Book Recommendations
Today’s installment should properly be a full text, but alas I am (as usual) out of time. So, instead, here are three very short reviews of nonfiction books...
Do the Benefits of AI in Climate Change Outweigh the Risks?
Let me get this out of the way first: I am very very very very very very tired of the need to talk about “AI” (which ain’t even actually artificial...
Wellness, Eugenics, and RFK, Jr.
I’ve been in my new house for almost a month now, so finally things are settling down a little bit. For me personally, that is: obviously things are not...
Trinaries and the Pitfalls of Medical AI
I have successfully moved to my new house, though much of the furniture is still displaced and a lot of stuff is still in boxes. But! the hard part is done,...
A Busy April Ahead, and a Book Giveaway!
This month is going to be busy even by my standards: I have no fewer than five articles and comics scripts due — along with all the interviewing and...
Writing to Tell You I'm Not Writing
I have a newsletter topic planned and everything, but I have two articles to finish and submit this weekI have multiple interviews for one of those articles...
A New Book and a Titanic Adventure
I spent last weekend in Boston for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting, where (among other things) I met an...
The math of stressed-out cells, plus 10 years of reporting on Elon Musk
I am on deadline (big shocker) and stressed as tickety-boo (also a big shocker), but let no one say I skipped the newsletter this week! Stressing Microbes to...
Gender is culturally-defined ... but so is sex
"I was born a girl, I grew up a girl, I studied as a girl and I fought like a girl. Those who attacked me? Of course, they were enemies of glory. But,...
Tracking hidden meltwater in Greenland with GPS
OK, strictly speaking it’s not GPS but the broader system known as Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS, which I pronounce as “gneiss” because that’s the...
Big Projects, Big Changes
As 2024 limps to a close, I’m dumping some random information that might be of interest or not, depending on how closely you follow what’s going on with my...