Last week, I talked to Latif Miller and Lulu Miller, the hosts of Radiolab, about this newsletter—in particular, how I’ve been tracking the dismantling of US science and medicine. They folded our conversation into their latest episode, out today.

Their episode drives home how a lot of the things we take for granted today emerged out of basic scientific research decades ago. But no one who did that research could predict how their findings would inspire applications. The scientists just did the work out of curiosity. That PCR test that showed you had Covid? It emerged from the search for life in Yellowstone hot springs in the 1960s—a search supported by the National Science Foundation.

I show up at around 35:00 in the episode to connect that story to what’s happening right now, explaining how the ongoing cuts and chaos threaten the basic-research pipeline.

After I finished talking to Latif and Lulu, I sent them a stream of emails as more news came out. I wanted to let them know about even more dire developments in what was already a dire story. Here is the latest:

As we head into the third month of the new Trump administration, some of the damage that it is inflicting on American science and medicine is starting to look irreversible. People are going to die, data is going to vanish, careers are going to end, and the benefits of a vibrant scientific community in the United States are going to dwindle, perhaps for decades.

Launching my book AIR-BORNE made it hard for me to pitch in on reporting this seismic event. But since my last newsletter I’ve been finding time to help out a little.

My first piece, co-authored with Apoorva Mandalvilli, feels like a sad epilogue to some of the reporting I did back in 2020, when scientists were scrambling to find vaccines and antivirals to fight Covid. They created effective vaccines in under a year that saved tens of millions of lives. It proved harder to develop the first drugs that reduce the risk of death from an infection of SARS-CoV-2, but eventually they created Paxlovid and other compounds.

At the time, those scientists knew very well that Covid would not be the last pandemic the world will face. They were already thinking about how we might prepare ourselves better for the next onslaught. Some researchers started designing new vaccines they hoped would provide protection against a wide range of coronaviruses that might spill over from an animal in the years to come. Other scientists developed a new generation of antivirals to work against entire families of viruses—some for coronaviruses, others for viruses that cause diseases like Ebola or influenza.

Two months into President Trump’s second administration, American science and medicine are now in a state that’s both dire and ambiguous. Some of the government scientists who were fired in the past few weeks are back at work. Others have ended up in a limbo of administrative leave. Others will probably never come back. The National Institutes of Health has picked up its review of grant applications, but it is lagging far behind previous years. Meanwhile, approved grants are still getting erased.

The murky picture makes it impossible to make hard and fast predictions about what American science and medicine will be like in the future. But chaos and temporary disruptions are enough to leave marks. And some of those marks are going to cut deep.

Here are a few developments since my last email that point to lasting damage.

—The head of Africa CDC said a sharp drop in outside funding, spurred by a broad shutdown in most foreign aid by the Trump administration, will lead to two million to four million more deaths each year. CIDRAP has the story.

It’s time for another double-feature email. First let me run through the latest shocks that the Trump administration has inflicted on American science and medicine. All the spectacle in the news these days can make it easy to miss how dire a state we’ve ended up in. And then I’ll pivot to happier personal news about podcasts and more AIR-BORNE fun.

—Measles (a quintessential airborne disease, by the way) is having a moment in the United States. An outbreak in the west Texas region has reached at least 159 cases, with more cases popping up as far away as New York. One child died of measles in Texas, and a second person has died with measles in New Mexico. The second death is still being investigated.

—HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy initially brushed off the outbreak, calling it “not unusual.” It is unusual. The last time someone died of measles in the United States was 2015. And the time before that was 2003. Now we may have had two deaths in little over a week. Kennedy then offered lukewarm encouragement for measles vaccination. He also suggested taking cod liver oil.

—Meanwhile Kennedy canceled a flu vaccine meeting to select strains for next season.

AIR-BORNE is coming out on Tuesday! After working on this book for three years, I’m very excited for people to finally read it. I am also eager to share some news about AIR-BORNE.

But first things first.

Let’s catch up on all the news about science and medicine in the United States since my last email two weeks ago. In that brief time, things have gone from bad to worse.

—It was startling enough when an influenza virus jumped last year from birds to cows. Now it turns out that H5N1 has jumped into cows at least three times.

Since I sent out my last newsletter, the Trump Administration has moved to drastically shrink government support for American science and public health. And they have announced plans for more such changes. Here are just a few examples:

—The Trump Administration is shutting down USAID, thereby killing off clinical trials around the world, crippling US efforts to investigate an Ebola outbreak in Uganda, and halting efforts to block malaria.

—As I write this, PEPFAR, which has saved an estimated 25 million lives by distributing HIV drugs in Africa, is effectively frozen.

—The Trump Administration announced a new policy to severely curtail grants from the National Institutes of Health.

New Year’s Eve will never be the same. On December 31, 2019, my wife Grace and I were hosting friends at our home in Connecticut, playing board games with their kids and clinking glasses at midnight to mark the arrival of a new decade. We celebrated in cheerful oblivion of a New Year’s Eve announcement from Wuhan. Earlier that day, the city’s health commission issued a public notice of a small outbreak of viral pneumonia.

“So far the investigation has not found any obvious human‑to‑­human transmission,” the commission declared.

In fact, a few doctors around Wuhan had already concluded that this was exactly how the new coronavirus was spreading. “At the end of December, the signs of human‑to‑human transmission were already very obvious,” Zhang Li, a doctor at Jinyintan Hospital later recalled. “Anyone with a little common sense could reach that assessment.” With some help from modern transportation, human-to-human transmission then spread Covid out of Wuhan and around the world. It became the worst pandemic crisis in modern history.

This week marks the fifth anniversary of Covid’s official debut. Since it emerged, the disease has killed perhaps over 27 million people. In 2020, Covid became the third highest cause of death in the United States, trailing only cancer and heart disease. It held onto third place in 2021, slipping to fourth place in 2022. In time, vaccinations and immunity from previous infections made Covid less deadly. In 2023, it slipped to tenth place in the list of U.S. deaths.

When the Covid pandemic hit in early 2020, I got a call from Jad Abumrad, the creator of the podcast Radiolab. In previous years, I had helped him on a number of episodes—about everything from the speed of thought to giant viruses. Now Jad was thinking about what he and his team of producers could offer in the midst of a planetary crisis.

I suggested that he could tell the story of Ignaz Semmelweis, the brilliant, troubled nineteenth-century doctor who recognized that hand-washing could break the deadly chain of disease. Jad invited me to help him create an episode about Semmelweis, which ended with my urging people today to follow his example and break the pandemic’s spread by washing their hands.

Washing your hands is unquestionably a good way to stay healthy. But Covid forced the world to take another look at how to avoid getting sick. Even with clean hands, it’s now very clear, you can inhale an infectious dose of coronaviruses.

As the airborne nature of Covid emerged, I began to explore the fascinating history of our understanding of life in the air. The result was my next book AIR-BORNE. I’m delighted that I can start sharing details about events I have planned to celebrate the launch.

Last week, I traveled to Italy to give a talk about viruses at the Genoa Science Festival. I ate a lot of focaccia and a lot of pesto, as one should in the city where both those fine dishes were invented. And I was also interviewed on Italian radio and television. The journalists asked me about my book A Planet of Viruses, which was translated into Italian last year. But the conversations inevitably turned to American politics.

I had no idea at the time who would win the presidential election. But I expected that the choice would have a huge impact on American science and medicine. During his campaign, Donald Trump promised that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a man who lacks any medical or scientific training and who has promulgated false claims about medicine—would have free rein over America’s health. Trump himself also has a long track record of dismissing climate change, either as a hoax or an insignificant distraction.

I suppose some people might brush all this off as campaign talk. But we have four years of a previous Trump administration to examine as a prelude. Here’s a talk that I gave seven years ago about Trump and science, and how journalists should respond. At the time, he was installing climate deniers in his administration and shutting down public web pages about climate change.

French Fries And The Evolving Natural

My doctor recently advised me to cut down on the carbs. While my blood sugar level is thankfully still safe, it’s inching up as I march through middle age. So I am trying my best to resist things like French fries.

Following my doctor’s advice feels like a struggle against the modern world. The twenty-first century food industry provides much of humanity with cheap, tasty carbohydrates that are helping to drive pandemics of diabetes and other disorders.

This week, I wrote in the New York Times about a newly published study on the life that floats 10,000 feet over Japan. A team of scientists chasing after the cause of a mysterious disease got in a Cessna equipped with vents, tubes, and filters. They then flew into the sky in pursuit of living things.

After they returned to Earth, the scientists suited up in biosafety gear to inspect their harvest.

My next book, AIR-BORNE, will be coming out in February. You’ll be able to recognize it in your local bookstore by its groovy cover:

If the cover looks surreal, that’s no accident. Aerobiology—the science of airborne life——has shown us that the atmosphere is eerily alive, from the breath you just inhaled to the clouds that float overhead. I hope when you’re done reading AIR-BORNE, the sky will look different—a floating garden rather than a desert.

You can pre-order AIR-BORNE now. I will share updates as the publication date approaches both here and on a new page on my website.

It’s Coming!

A few days ago, I sent my publisher the final polishes to my next book, AIR-BORNE: The Hidden History of the Life We Breathe. I’ve kept pretty mum about the project for the past couple years while I’ve been researching and writing it. But now you can officially pre-order a copy. So I’m delighted to send you this email to tell you about the book.

These days I spend some of my time talking to virologists about a new virus that can move from quickly host to host. It uses a route that we don’t yet understand very well. But we need to find out, because the virus has an unknown potential to wreak havoc on the economy and to give rise to a new pandemic. I’m keeping tabs on companies scrambling to design new vaccines against the new virus, drawing up plans to manufacture them in huge quantities if needed in an emergency.

I am not reporting about Covid-19 (which is not to say Covid-19 is gone, of course). Instead, I’ve started helping the New York Times with its reporting on a strain of H5N1 avian influenza that’s spreading among cows.

I’m glad to pitch in, because it’s a story that needs telling. But I really wish my colleagues and I didn’t have to tell it. I especially wish that I didn’t hear so many echoes from early 2020, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Life Keeps Throwing More Junk at Us

It’s been nearly ten years, but I can still see the blood flowing out of my finger.

I was in a lab in Canada, chopping the green stem of an onion with a razor blade. I accidentally brought the ring finger of my free hand too close and I slit open my skin. The scientists looking over my shoulder with didn’t flinch. One of them, Nick Jeffery, just raised a vial to my finger and had me skim off a few drops. They needed my blood anyway, for an experiment they were about to carry out.

Why Do Whales Sing? Why Do We Sing, For That Matter?

In my work as a journalist, the threads of science sometimes weave together in unexpected ways. For some time now, I have been keeping an eye on a team of scientists studying whales, in the hopes of deciphering their songs with signal analysis, machine learning, and other methods from computer science. The team, which calls itself Project CETI, formed four years ago, and they’re just now starting to publish the first results of their work.

It’s been nearly 60 years since biologists first recognized that humpback whales produced strange whoops and rattles that lasted for hours at a time. Whale songs became cultural icons on best-selling albums, in Star Trek movies, and on the Golden Record that NASA flung into deep space. Other whales, scientists discovered in later decades, produce their own songs. The songs are not rigid, simple calls; they turned out to be complex and creative acts. But their meaning remained a mystery.

The Brain Worm Edition

As I was sitting down to write this email, I learned that my book Parasite Rex got name-checked today in a podcast (44:20). It’s not a podcast about biology, mind you, but one about politics. In a conversation about tapeworms and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s brain, one of the hosts recommended the book for learning more about parasites.

We authors will take a plug pretty much anywhere we can get one. But I did not expect a plug to arrive at such a weird cultural moment—a moment in which which Stephen Colbert is making jokes about a tiny voice in RFK’s head asking, “What wine pairs best with cerebellum?”

The reason for all this parasitological palaver was a story that my Times colleague Susan Craig broke earlier this week about Kennedy’s health. Looking at a deposition, Craig learned Kennedy had trouble with his memory. A doctor, according to Kennedy, said it “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm sending out this newsletter every other week, barring deadlines and such. It's free, but any support you may want to offer will be most appreciated!

Cicadas: Inescapable Yet Elusive

If you live east of the Rockies in the United States, there’s a decent chance that you’ve witnessed one of nature’s weirder happenings: the emergence of trillions of cicadas.

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm sending out this newsletter every other week, barring deadlines and such. It's free, but any support you may want to offer will be most appreciated!

A Science Writer in Florence

Since my last newsletter, I turned in a revised draft of my next book (more details soon!) and headed off with my family to Florence. I had never been there before, and it did not disappoint. It is almost absurdly rich with the histories of art, business, and politics. And it's got plenty of history for a science writer, too.

After all, Florence was Galileo's home for many years. If you end up in Florence someday, I highly recommend a trip to the Galileo Museum, where you can see a lot of exquisitely beautiful scientific instruments, such as a sixteenth-century armillary sphere, which places Earth at the center of the cosmos. I zoomed in for a picture that would capture its awesome intricacy.

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm sending out this newsletter every other week, barring deadlines and such. It's free, but I will appreciate any support you may want to offer!

LifeGPT?

In early 2020, as the world plunged into the Covid-19 pandemic, I spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to be alive. The SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus was, depending on who you asked, a living thing or a non-living menace.

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm sending out this newsletter every other week, barring deadlines and such. It'll stay free, but any support will be much appreciated!

Who Else Is In Our Species?

If you're reading this--and if you have neurons for brains rather than microprocessors--I'm going to assume you're a member of my species, Homo sapiens. No other living species has ever shown a capacity for reading email newsletters.

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm sending out this newsletter every other week, barring deadlines and such. It'll stay free, but any support will be much appreciated!

Jurassic Ostrich?

Scientists who study the origin of birds in 2024 live in a different world than those who were studying it in 1994. In 1996, paleontologists in China announced the discovery of the first dinosaur with primitive feathers. Then more fossils came to light, some with more bird-like feathers. There were dinosaurs with stripes of colors across their plumage. They sported feathery tails, even feathery legs.

Welcome to another edition of "Friday's Elk." I'm settling down here at my new home at Buttondown and hope to send this newsletter out on a fairly frequent basis. It'll stay free, but any support will be much appreciated!

X Marks Many Spots

It's been so long since I learned about the X chromosome that I can't remember when I became aware of it. It's one of the first things we learn about genetics, because the basics are so basic. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes, 22 of which are identical. The 23rd pair are the sex chromosomes: in females, two X's, and in males an X and a Y. Done.

Why The Magic?

One of the most surprising recent trends I've noticed in science news is the explosion of stories about magic mushrooms. Of course, this is old news for people across Latin America who have consumed the fungi in rituals for thousands of years. It was only in 1957 that many Americans became aware of psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms. In an article for Life magazine a J.P. Morgan banker named Robert Gordon Wasson recounted how a Mexican shaman provided him with the legendary substance. "For the first time the word ecstasy took on real meaning," Wasson reported.

To Wasson's regret, the article brought a flood of hippies to Mexico seeking to copy his experience. The counterculture popularity of the mushrooms led the U.S. government in 1971 to designated them a Schedule 1 controlled substance. A hidden culture grew around the illegal fungi like a subterranean web of mycelia.

Today, over half a century later, they're still officially illegal for the most part. But in recent years some scientists have begun carrying out studies to understand how exactly they produce ecstasy in the human brain. Psychiatrists are investigating them as a way to treat patients for with depression, PTSD, and other conditions. (A few months ago, I had a fascinating conversation at the Crosscut Festival in Seattle with two psychiatrists in the midst of this work. You can listen to it here.)

The Sisyphus Tree

With just two days left in 2023, I have been looking back over the year in biology, scanning for news that pops out.

There were some stories of long-dreamed triumphs. In late 2023, both the United States and the United Kingdom gave the green light to CRISPR as a medical treatment for the first time.

Back in the 1990s, CRISPR first came to light as a kind of immune system for bacteria. The microbes made molecules that zeroed in on viruses, shredding their genes. Scientists converted those molecules into a tool for editing DNA in human cells. With CRISPR, researchers rewrote genes in the blood cells of people with sickle cell anemia and other blood disorders, reversing their diseases. Newer forms of CRISPR may very well cure other diseases in the years to come. (Here is a piece I wrote for Quanta and another for the New York Times, both on the history of CRISPR.)

Greetings! This is the newly reincarnated version of my long-running newsletter.

If you have come here for the first time, welcome to what I hope you will find an entertaining and edifying experience. I write the "Origins" column for the New York Times, and I write books about science (fifteen so far). In my newsletter, I riff on the subjects and ideas that grip me in those longer works. I also send out links to talks I give (in person, on the radio, online), as well as to things I've published.

If you are a long-time reader of "Friday's Elk," welcome back! You are no doubt noticing something different about it. For a number of years, I used a service called Tiny Letter to send out my newsletter. But now its provider is shutting it down and offering alternative plans that just don't suit me.

Wondering what to do next, I noticed that other writers I know and respect, such as Annalee Newitz and Ed Yong, were using a service called Buttondown. After checking it out, I decided that it would suit me too. So I've taken the liberty of rolling all you Tiny Letter subscribers into my new Buttondown list.