Stephanie Pappas
@sipappas.bsky.social
Freelance science writer - Scientific American, Live Science, APA. I will be on my deathbed still looking up whether it's "Proceedings of the National Academies of Science" or "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"
"Ah, for just one time I would take the Southwest Passage To find the hand of Houston Reaching for the Rio Grande..."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last mo.FOX NEWS: Just 10 vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, less than 10% of what normally goes through. When you say the strait is open, what do you mean? TRUMP: Uh, it's open if people want to go through it. We're coming up with great alternatives, including Texas and Alaska
Just visited SF 20ish years after living in the Bay Area and was talking w/ my husband about how it was genuinely a lot easier to get around a vaguely-familiar city with smartphones and parking apps... on the other hand I cling to my paper atlas like a security blanket on long road trips
Peter@notalawyer.bsky.social · last mo.replies to this are mostly just riffing but 5% of them are like "this is the end of civilization"
As this essay points out, people DO read, more WORDS than ever. But they are reading fewer and fewer difficult cognitive concepts. And I would argue they aren't reading all those words either. Consider this video I posted... www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...
The End of Reading Is Here
Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.
theatlantic.com
This is fantastic and answers many questions I have had in my own kinda-sorta-native garden! (Deep sigh of relief that native cultivars are not necessarily junk food for bugs)
Ferris Jabr@ferrisjabr.bsky.social · 2mo agoFor the @nytimes.com Magazine, I wrote about the increasingly fervent native plant movement; its esteemed guru, the entomologist and bestselling author Douglas Tallamy; and the complexities of ecologically responsible gardening in our modern era. Gift link 🎁 : www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/m...
Stromatolites are fossil evidence of some of the earliest forms of life on earth, and some can be up to 3.45 billion years old! Stromatolites are formed when blankets of photosynthetic single-celled micro-organisms "cement" surrounding sediment in slowly growing layers.
Wait everyone shut up for a second: the discovery of the Brachiosaurus holotype is at the exact midpoint between the founding of the United States and today (July 4, 1901)
Ben Miller@extinctmonsters.bsky.social · 2mo agoHappy discovery day to these two upstanding (lol) Americans
Abundant Eocene fossils of plants and animals are found in the Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. This fossil Pseudosalix Hanleyi, with stems, leaves and flowers preserved, is harder to find than a T-rex tooth!
There's lots of good info here, but possibly my favorite is the advice that removing the tick is going to be gross but you can freak out later. TRUE. Also the graphics rock.
Kate Wong@katewong.bsky.social · 2mo agoI recently found a tick on my body and didn't know what to do. I went into journalist mode to find out. Here's what I learned about how to manage tick bites, with illustrations of the tick species that cause diseases in humans by Diogo Guerra and maps of where they occur by @jenchristiansen.com 🧪
An edit that doesn't require you to march round the garden and make a spluttering cup of tea while getting over yourself probably didn't go hard enough. Sad but true.
I've approached multiple people without any responses (it's that time of year, I think), so I'm gonna try launching this into the bluesky. I need someone who can speak with me about Mercury geology. This probably means someone who worked on MESSENGER? But please share and thank you for any help! 🧪🔭
Soul-searching question for this week: Am I the kind of jerk who is going to bring up Cochrane Reviews at my middle-age mom book club...
Timothy Caulfield@caulfieldtim.bsky.social · 3mo agoAre Red Light Therapy Masks Actually Doing Anything? Spoiler: mostly nope! See www.medscape.com/viewarticle/... by @drlabos.bsky.social "You're buying the placebo..."
A video sample every minute gave a fly-out estimate of these wrinkle-lipped bats at Nayang in Thailand yesterday of 225,080 bats, but “a bit more than 200,000” is perhaps a more honest view of the accuracy. I like the way the column keeps clipping that tree.
Abundant Eocene fossils of plants and animals are found in the Green River Formation of Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. This fossil Pseudosalix Hanleyi, with stems, leaves and flowers preserved, is harder to find than a T-rex tooth!
15ish years ago I got politely asked to leave an outdoor farmer's market because I didn't realize I couldn't walk a dog through it for health code reasons, these days I've seen multiple dogs inside grocery stores and not even with the fig leaf of fake service-dog vests. I like dogs but what.
Jacob Rosenberg@jacobrosenberg.bsky.social · 5mo agoWhat do you mean the rules of society don't apply because it's a dog!? www.curbed.com/article/dogs...
Lp(a) is a dastardly, many-headed monster of a molecule that remains shrouded in mystery and seems to do nothing of value in the human body. But this much we do know: if lowering it reduces cardiovascular risk the way data suggest, it could be medicine's next big thing 🧪💊 I loved writing this story!
'It’s going to be huge': The 'diabolical' molecule poised to become biotech's next gold rush
In the early 1960s, Norwegian physician Kåre Berg, M.D., was trying to identify new blood types when he accidentally discovered a lipoprotein with perplexing properties. | In the early 1960s, Norwegian physician Kåre Berg, M.D., was trying to identify new blood types when he accidentally discovered a lipoprotein with perplexing properties.
fiercebiotech.com
I don't remember seeing an image of Earth before that captures the (thin, fragile, tiny layer of) atmosphere so clearly. I mean, look at that.
David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 5mo agoThe last time human eyes were far enough from Earth to see the whole globe was December 1972. www.nasa.gov/image-detail...
Tehran's got a population of 15 million and is in the middle of a severe resource crisis. A conventional strike can kill millions of people in very slow and painful ways and I wish we could talk about that instead of jumping to the worst thing we can think of and getting freaked out about it.
Iran’s Capital Is Moving. The Reason Is an Ecological Catastrophe
The decision to move Iran’s capital is partly driven by climate change, but experts say decades of human error and action are also to blame
scientificamerican.com
“My patient is refusing a drug studied in 170,000 people because of side effects that a 124,000-person analysis just confirmed do not exist — while injecting a compound studied in 14 humans, from unregulated sources, based on the recommendation of someone who profits from selling it.”
My patient would rather take a peptide than a statin. That reveals an uncomfortable truth in medicine
“The volume of evidence behind a therapy has become inversely correlated with public trust in it,” writes Vikas Patel.
statnews.com
This is not a black and white photograph but is, in fact, the sheerest of white gauze #1860s crinoline gowns, pictured over a black form to showcase the whitework embellished fabric. It is ghostly and gorgeous. Sold via #daguerreauctions #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡
this is completely insane: since when is it acceptable for a tech company to rewrite news outlets' headlines without their consent? especially at a time when audiences are sensitive to how stories are framed in headlines? (ie Israel/Palestine, the Trump admin, ICE) www.theverge.com/tech/896490/...
Google Search is now using AI to replace headlines
Let us know if you see more.
theverge.com
every time someone in my field writes articles in support of these AI chatbots
CNN@cnn.com · 5mo agoIf a teen is interested in losing weight, chances are they may turn to artificial intelligence platforms to get advice. The AI advice they get may be to keep their calories and nutrients drastically below their daily needs, according to a new study by Frontiers in Nutrition. https://cnn.it/41clD52
Anyone wanna join me in some light panic-gibbering?
Bill McKibben@billmckibben.bsky.social · 5mo agoThe next six months could be the ultimate in teachable moments, with rapidly rising prices for oil, and rapidly rising temperatures. And what do you know, we have a midterm exam coming up on November 3. billmckibben.substack.com/p/now-comes-...
Are you a caregiver concerned about ed-tech in K-12 schools in the United States and engaging in work to challenge how your child’s school uses ed-tech? If so, Tony Talbert, @alliethrall.bsky.social, and I invite you to participate in our new project. Join the study at tinyurl.com/CaregiversEd...
It’s official: this was Colorado’s warmest winter on record, and it wasn’t close. Average statewide Dec-Feb temperature of 33.6° was almost 2° warmer than the previous record of 32.0° (1980-81). La Niña + warming climate to blame (notice linear temp increase below). #COwx
Agaricocrinus is a common Mississippian crinoid, but very beautiful. This specimen is from the Edwardsville Fm of Indiana near Crawfordsville. Each arm has delicate pinnules that would filter water for food. #FossilFriday
It took 12,000 years for us to give wolves anxiety, so I see this as a testament to the unrivaled creative power of the human imagination.
Andrew D Thaler@drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 6mo agoSo, what you've done here is spent 100 years tricking rocks into doing math and then you've gone and given those math rocks anxiety.