Mitochondria, the body's strangest organelles, might be the link between biology, health, and mind — possibly responsible, even, for the materialization of consciousness into life. @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/martin-picar...

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind | Quanta Magazine

The biologist’s bold “energetic view of life” looks to the body’s strangest organelles as the link between cells, health, and mind and the foundation of our experience of being alive.

quantamagazine.org

Science mystery! Nearly everyone, everywhere, veers left when walking. Why??? www.nytimes.com/2026/06/10/s... @nytimes.com

Nearly Everyone, Everywhere, Veers Left When Walking

nytimes.com

Women's participation in STEM has risen sharply, yet gender gaps in first and last authorship — markers of key scientific achievements — have barely shifted over the past decade. @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

First and last authors more likely to be men in leading science journals

Women’s participation in science has risen sharply, but a Nature Index analysis finds that gender gaps in first and last authorship — markers of key scientific achievements — have barely shifted over ...

nature.com

We've been in a long-term relationship with pigeons for at least 3,400 years. We brought them around the world to serve us and be our companions - only to recently turn on them. The least we owe them is a little respect. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/s...

Pigeons and People Have Been Frenemies for Longer Than You Think

nytimes.com

No truly effective treatments exist for cocaine addiction, and use of the drug is going up worldwide. Psilocybin therapy could offer a safe and effective solution for those looking to quit cocaine, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind trial. www.science.org/content/arti...

Magic mushroom compound shows promise against cocaine addiction

Small study that prioritized Black and low-income participants yields “remarkable” results

science.org

Engineered microbes could help us clean up the planetary messes we've made, by degrading pollutants and recovering useful materials from waste. But realizing the powers of these technologies will require political will. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Are microbes the future of pollution clean-up?

Synthetic biologists are engineering bacteria to feast on oil, plastic and toxic chemicals.

nature.com

Tobacco is one of the toughest drugs to quit, but psilocybin shows promise for helping people kick the habit. In the latest study, a single dose combined with talk therapy allowed half of participants to give up smoking. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Magic mushrooms could help people quit smoking

Nicotine is highly addictive, but new research is showing that psychedelics can shift people's worldview in ways to help them give up cigarettes.

bbc.com

A better treatment for river blindness is available, but companies didn't pursue it because it's not profitable. Now, a non-profit pharma company has brought that new treatment all the way through regulatory approval without a commercial partner - a notable first. www.nature.com/articles/d44...

A better treatment for river blindness is available, but its rollout is complicated

A novel financing model rescued moxidectin from abandonment. The path to getting the drug manufactured and distributed exposes deeper faultlines in global health systems

nature.com

Emperor penguins, those icons of the Antarctic, are now endangered. As are fur seals. The cause is climate change. @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/04/09/c...

Emperor Penguins Are Now Endangered, a New Assessment Finds

nytimes.com

Japan's beautiful cherry blossom displays are fading as climate change takes hold. Trees in southern Japan are already failing to reach peak bloom, and experts predict Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo will soon face the same problem. @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

As Japan warms, cherry blossom displays are fading

Some trees in southern Japan are already failing to reach peak bloom—a trend researchers predict will move north in the coming decades

science.org

A Bay Area brewery just launched the world's first air-to-beer approach to carbonation. If the business model works, it could give the broader carbon-capture industry a boost. @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/c...

There’s a New Place to Store Greenhouse Gases: In Your Beer

nytimes.com

Conservation conundrum in Madagascar: The strawberry guava - one of the world's worst invasive species - is taking over the island's forests, but endangered lemurs love to eat its fruit. @nytimes.com www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/s...

Lemurs Love This Fruit That Is Choking Madagascar’s Forests

nytimes.com

Could ancient Greek priestesses have created the mind-altering elixir thought to lie at the heart of one of antiquity’s most secretive cults, the Eleusinian Mysteries? Researchers recreated the hypothetical psychedelic brew to find out. @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

Did ancient Greek priestesses brew a mind-bending potion drunk by Cicero and Marcus Aurelius?

Researchers found the psychedelic elixir would have been possible to make using ingredients and techniques available in ancient Greece

science.org

After 180 years, a unique tortoise thought to be extinct returns to its Galápagos home. @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/gala...

Galápagos tortoise once believed extinct is now roaming free

The release of 158 specially bred Floreana giant tortoises is a win for both the animal and its long-lost island ecosystem

scientificamerican.com

"The bombardment betrays the lie." Thank you for this exposé of the wild world of book author scammers, @danbarry58.bsky.social. I'm going to start replying to my own new best friends' emails with a link to this story. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/b...

Hungry for Affirmation, Vulnerable to Scams: As a Writer, I Know the Feeling

nytimes.com

Rachel Nuwer@rachelnuwer.bsky.social · 10mo ago

It's hard enough to get people interested in reading these days, but this is a new low. A book club wants to feature my book - but only if I "tip" each reader $15-30 "to recognize [their] effort." Is this a thing now??

Around the world, plants are flowering earlier than they used to. Temperature alone doesn't explain it. Could crazy chemistry triggered by dewdrops be the real reason? @science.org www.science.org/content/arti...

Could dewdrops explain why plants are flowering earlier?

Water droplets set off a chemical cascade that tells a plant it’s time to blossom, new study finds

science.org

Educators fear that disappearing public health jobs and backlash against the field could soon impact enrollment in programs training the next generation of experts who keep us safe and healthy. @thinkglobalhealth.org www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/publ...

Public Health Backlash Hurts Master's Program Enrollment | Think Global Health

New caps on student loans and federal job cuts could be steering some away from degrees in public health

thinkglobalhealth.org

Socotra is an otherworldly tourism destination. But behind the stunning photos lie serious sustainability challenges, including with garbage. On a recent trip, I tried taking all my recyclables with me off the island. Things did not go as planned. www.afar.com/magazine/can...

Can the "Galápagos of the Arabian Sea" Survive Its Popularity?

The UNESCO-listed island of Socotra faces an onslaught of sustainability challenges, from climate change to an Instagram-fueled tourism surge.

afar.com

“We are losing the capabilities and infrastructure to prepare.” How the Trump administration’s gutting of the EPA endangers lung health for all Americans—just as air pollution is rising nationwide. @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Funding cuts could put research into emerging threats to lung health at risk

Wildfire smoke, spore-spread fungal diseases and microplastic are all on the rise, even as the US government slashes support for respiratory research and policy.

nature.com

One of the highlights of my vacation to Socotra - a Yemeni island with incredible biodiversity - was getting to meet a tree-loving local who helps protect endangered plants from nearly 500,000 free-ranging goats. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Defending endangered trees against climate change and hungry goats

Mohammed Amar manages conservation of imperilled flora in Socotra, a Yemeni island known as the Galápagos of the Indian Ocean.

nature.com

With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans

Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.

bbc.com

I chatted with NPR's Here & Now about my investigation into the Chinese and Taiwanese-run Buddhist orphanages that are grooming children in Africa to become wildlife traffickers. DM me for a link to the full Economist story. www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2...

How Chinese criminals are grooming orphans into Africa's illegal wildlife trade

Chinese wildlife traffickers are recruiting orphans from Malawi into their network of illegal ivory trading.

wbur.org

Psychedelic drugs are known for their ability to reveal sides of the self that previously lay hidden. For some people, this can lead to a change in sexual orientation or gender identity. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

'Beyond gender': Psychedelics are revealing hidden sides to people's identity

There is growing evidence that mind-altering drugs can be used to help people explore aspects about themselves they may not have realised.

bbc.com

Mixing is a fundamental process that functions like a heartbeat for lakes. But at iconic lakes around the world, climate change is slowing or even stopping that heartbeat - causing profound impacts to these very special ecosystems. @quantamagazine.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/mixing-is-th...

Mixing Is the Heartbeat of Deep Lakes. At Crater Lake, It’s Slowing Down. | Quanta Magazine

The physics of mixing water layers — an interplay of wind, climate and more — makes lakes work. When it stops, impacts can ripple across an ecosystem.

quantamagazine.org

Should aging be considered a disease? Some scientists argue that this would accelerate anti-aging research; others say it makes no biological sense and would be fraught with ethical implications @nature.com www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Is ageing a disease? The debate that could reshape medicine

Classifying ageing as a disease might bring funding and other benefits, say some researchers, but others say this is fraught with ethical and regulatory implications.

nature.com

It's hard enough to get people interested in reading these days, but this is a new low. A book club wants to feature my book - but only if I "tip" each reader $15-30 "to recognize [their] effort." Is this a thing now??

After 263 African elephants were moved from one national park to another, the animals began wandering out - destroying property and killing people. My latest for @biographic.bsky.social, on the complexities of conservation in an increasingly crowded continent. www.biographic.com/the-wild-ele...

The Wild Elephant in the Room

Conservationists seeking to restore elephant populations in a Malawian national park inadvertently upended human lives, revealing the risks of large-mammal translocations.

biographic.com

When this scientist realized there was a maggot living inside his armpit, he sensed a (gross) opportunity for discovery. www.science.org/content/arti...

‘It’s like a horror movie pregnancy.’ Researcher studies maggots—by letting them eat him

Science chats with wildlife epidemiologist Tony Goldberg about what he’s learned from becoming a meal for parasites

science.org

Psychedelic mushrooms evolved their magic twice, in two distantly related groups of species. What's more, those mushrooms take radically different biochemical routes to producing psilocybin. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/s...

How Psychedelic Mushrooms Evolved Their Magic

nytimes.com

A Taiwanese- and Chinese-run Buddhist orphanage in Malawi is recruiting vulnerable children into the illegal wildlife trade. Behind it all is a Chinese ivory kingpin who Malawian officials are about to release early from prison. @economist.com www.economist.com/1843/2025/10...

The school for wildlife traffickers

Chinese criminals are recruiting Malawian orphans into the ivory trade

economist.com