Thanks! FYI, I am building out a Python implementation of the Naibbe cipher, as well as an automatic decryption script and a more robust Python version of Voynichesque. I will make those scripts available to the community as soon as I can.
Associate online news editor @Science. Freelance contributor to NYT, SciAm, WaPo, etc., and author of the Deviations newsletter. Former staff writer at National Geographic. Signal: mgreshko.01 https://linktr.ee/michaelgreshko
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Thanks! FYI, I am building out a Python implementation of the Naibbe cipher, as well as an automatic decryption script and a more robust Python version of Voynichesque. I will make those scripts available to the community as soon as I can.
Personal news: As an unusual hobby, I study the weird 15th-century text known as the Voynich Manuscript. I am giving a talk on some of my research on August 3: www.voynich.ninja/thread-4827.... I haven’t cracked it. Rather, I have devised a reference model for how the text may have been generated.
Well, this makes it real: I'm retiring in September and this is the just-posted job listing for my replacement. @Science.org is a fabulous place to work, so @sciencewriters.org, apply here! recruiting.ultipro.com/AME1123ASEM/...
Do you ever stop and think about how there used to be pterosaurs? A fun new study shows that pterosaurs used to eat plants (they'd been expected to be carnivores) & like modern birds, they had stones in their gullets called gastroliths that help break down plants 🧪 @science.org
Fair point. The first alternate that comes to mind is "feedification," with platforms training people to distribute + consume news & entertainment thru algorithmic feeds. 1/3 of US adults "believe that they no longer have to actively seek the news to be well informed": ijoc.org/index.php/ij...
This gets to broader point: For all its benefits, democratization is deprofessionalization. As the barriers to entry lower, more people will do unpaid work to buy algorithmic lottery tickets. Tech platforms seem to have realized that dreams alone can pay for the median piece of "engaging content."
To add here, the sheer difficulty of scaling this up makes it all the more tempting to rely on platforms like Substack for audience acquisition and growth. But among other things, the writer risks the same situation as publications a decade ago: tech platforms wanting to be audience landlords.
It has been so gratifying to see this issue—much of which is my October 2020 feature for Nat Geo Magazine—still have legs, nearly 5 years on.
Headlines are an art form all their own—and they are are incredibly important to get right. The way I think of it, it's the hed, the dek, and the social copy in combination. If you can achieve snappiness and nuance thru a mix of all three (which is how many people enter stories), you're doing OK.
This is exactly representative of my experiments with ChatGPT as a research tool (to be clear, I don't use any generative AI in my work). One time I gave it a web-searching task, it said it was performing the task, it wasn't performing the task, and then BS'd at length when I called it out.
🧪🚨 BREAKING @science.org exclusive, courtesy of @policyhound.bsky.social: In a letter to NSF staff obtained by Science, NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan says he is resigning 16 months early, amid mass firings and grant terminations/freezes. www.science.org/content/arti...
It was a pleasure to work with @joshuasokol.bsky.social on this piece! Check it out:
BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency. Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.
Weather Fox is another brand owned by Animals Around the Globe GmbH, of which Jan Otte is CEO. So yes.
One high level HHS official shown the door told @science.org, “I couldn’t have worked with these asshats anyway.” www.science.org/content/arti...
Strengthens the hypothesis of a French affinity for the manuscript, on the basis that "Grey Poupon" is clearly just a corruption of "Green Coupon."
Maybe they didn't want to create confusion over the quality of their work?
@hannah-richter.bsky.social did a phenomenal job reporting this story out:
Exclusive: Science has learned that grant termination letters went out last night to principal investigators of 29 awards made by NIAID, including nine grants that were part of a program hoping to deliver antiviral drugs to prevent future pandemics. scim.ag/4iVm7mY
I have been combing through similar datasets and have come across some of the same grants/contracts. I can also confirm that these datasets are messy.
This is besides the point, but this is the optimal mug shape. Excellent choice.
🧪 Flagging for the science feed: A big @science.org exclusive just went out the door on fears that NIH will slash grants to health researchers working in South Africa.
Terrific reporting here from @sarareardon.bsky.social that very clearly lays out the stakes. A lot of these grants focus on HIV/AIDS—about 13% of South Africans live w/ HIV, more than anywhere else in the world—and tuberculosis (of interest to @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social?).
A big @science.org exclusive: Health researchers who work in South Africa are hearing that NIH could soon axe all grants in the country—apparently in response to a Trump executive order alleging discrimination against white South Africans. www.science.org/content/arti...
ICYMI, @rpocisv.bsky.social had a terrific story for @science.org earlier this week about our furry forebears: In a first, we know the fur colors of Jurassic mammals! They most likely came out at night dressed in a uniform dark brown. www.science.org/content/arti...
A big @science.org exclusive: Health researchers who work in South Africa are hearing that NIH could soon axe all grants in the country—apparently in response to a Trump executive order alleging discrimination against white South Africans. www.science.org/content/arti...
There are a lot of staffers in the Senate with kids in DC public schools. A lot of reporters, too.
That is a steal of a price; get it before it's gone.
I feel obliged to point this out: www.godaddy.com/domainsearch...
To elaborate: for ~1/3 US adults, the news they get is almost entirely filtered thru engagement-first social algorithms and only then consists of whatever is on-platform. So we’re partially dependent on whether the median piece of content surfaced this way is civically/journalistically on point.
Two points: - A growing cohort (incl. 1/3 of US adults) believes “news will find them” as they scroll on social. For many, headlines and social captions *are* the story. ijoc.org/index.php/ij... - In the US, 54% of 16-74 yr olds read at or below a 6th-grade level: www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/u...
web.archive.org/web/20211107...
ABC News has now fully taken down the old 538 website, including all interactive projects since 2014. Aside from erasing history this prevents access to publicly released data, including raw polls, averages, model estimates & story dta. Totally unacceptable for a company (allegedly) doing journalism
White House may seek to slash NASA’s science budget by 50 percent arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
Aaaaand the mission's over: bsky.app/profile/mich...
Welp there you have it: "After landing, mission controllers were able to accelerate several program and payload milestones [...] before the lander’s batteries depleted." Intuitive Machines "does not expect Athena to recharge," and "the mission has concluded." www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2
My sources on the payloads on each of the six sides of IM2: 97e97b55-dd53-4bc9-92cd-8e2cbfc75af8.usrfiles.com/ugd/97e97b_5... x.com/TLPN_Officia...
If I've got the orientation right, I don't think that #IM2 will be able to deploy either its rover or its hopper. This is my very rough working model of IM2's orientation on the lunar surface, looking from what should be the top of IM2 down toward its legs.
Intuitive Machines has released a high-resolution picture from its #IM2 lander. And this does not look good for PRIME-1...which is the instrument that's on top of the sideways lander. Very hard to drill into lunar regolith when the drill lies parallel to the moon's surface.
Intuitive Machines's Nova-C lander is now 2/2 in landing on the moon in one piece and 0/2 in landing *upright.*
Listening to the #IM2 Intuitive Machines press conference. Like its predecessor mission (IM-1), this lander didn't land upright. This is pretty awful news for the mission's marquee payload: the PRIME-1 drill.
Paul is a great journalist and colleague at Science and we are all in this moment dependent on you the scientists speaking to us to be able to describe the scale of what is being destroyed. If you can, do contact him 🧪
My thoughts to the staff at NOAA going through it -- and my fellow reporters on the story late. I'm getting two kiddos to bed. But if you're former or current NOAA who wants to talk about the implications to met and climate science with @science.org, please reach out. I'm at Signal at voosen.01.
It is fascinating to see the huge disjunct between the publications that are meeting the moment—such as @science.org, which I am thrilled to be joining—and the publications that are remaining silent to save their own skins. That’s the difference between “journalism” and “content,” folks.
Staff fired at the Tsunami Warning Center
Any conservative/Trump-voting federal scientists who have been fired and are willing to discuss their views on that whatever they may be?--or can others suggest people in that situation we should reach out to? Contact the News from Science team www.science.org/content/page...
A great piece from @gbullard.bsky.social on the present and future of the reporter's notebook. I have used the Field Notes one for >6 years. It's nearly perfect, save for the back card pocket (it comes unglued easily and would benefit from reinforcement). niemanreports.org/reporters-no...
Thank you very much!
Thank you very much! Excited to work with you!
Personal news: On March 10 I will be joining the staff of @science.org as an associate news editor! I’m thrilled to be supporting such an amazing group of staff and freelance writers, during this critical moment for both science and journalism.
It's my understanding that as Society leadership saw things, the Fox deal was a unique opportunity to shore up the Society's long-term financial health. And they had a point: "Membership dues" (magazine subscriptions) and associated ad revenue had been in decline for 25 years by that point.
These layoffs follow a 60-person Nat Geo layoff in July and a series of layoffs in 2022-2024 that cut staff of NG Media (magazine & website) by ~30%, including all writers/reporters and many experienced text editors. That loss includes rehires; total NG Media turnover has been >50% since 2022.
Absolutely shocking and very worrying from NOAA www.newscientist.com/article/2469...
Including extremely close to the expected impact site, transmitting to the last possible second
Oh I have to imagine that in this scenario, folks would want to deploy an array of tricked-out buoys within 30-50 miles of the predicted impact site, if not farther out.
As fine a protagonist for "Armageddon II" as any. Better get him training on an oil derrick stat.
Makes total sense. That's one of the nice things that Earth gives us: Even if the impactor hits, there is a very good chance it hits water and doesn't, say, break apart above a major urban area.
As long as we're speculating—and this is speculation—it would be interesting to start work on a potential impactor mission that could be redirected into a reconnaissance flyby upon confirmation in 2028 that it won't hit Earth.
Certainly. More that based on the chart, I'm also uncertain on how far below the 5-year threshold civil defense kicks in. I have some reading to do!
Just as KI reached historic highs in its recent Champions League results, YR4 is reaching historic highs in its Torino Scale figures. Next question. :)
Very helpful, thanks! Interesting that we could be in the gray area between nuclear and kinetic.
One thing I'm thinking about: NASA has already contracted for a solar electric propulsion module for the Lunar Gateway. Amid what are clearly broader Trump II rethinks of Artemis, could Gateway's Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) be modded to power a DART for YR4?
I know that one big consideration is the internal structure of YR4: solid versus a rubble pile loosely held together by its own gravity.
I ask in this way because given the observation constraints on 2024 YR4, we'll lose sight of it from this summer until 2028, and if we launch an impactor in 2028, it could take until 2029 to collide based on DART as precedent.
Makes total sense. Given how even the upper-end mass estimates compare to Dimorphos and the delta-V that DART imparted, do we have even a rough sense of how much delta-V would need to be imparted to 2024 YR4 post-2029 to mitigate impact risk? Totally understand if premature.
The thing to watch: what happens with the Moon to Mars Program Office, a big Biden-era reorganization of how NASA HQ is corraling Artemis? What happens with office head Amit Kshatriya, probably the most senior NASA official who can hold Artemis's technical minutiae in his head all at once?
To wit: SLS is referred to as the "Senate Launch System" in some quarters because it was conceived by the Senate as a way to efficiently redirect the industrial base and supply chain that had supported the space shuttle. There is a lot of long-running Congressional support for SLS/Orion.
If the Trump Admin successfully gets Congress to upend the prevailing Artemis strategy, it'll mark a huge change in the politics around the hardware of human spaceflight, which to date has prioritized maintaining geographically diverse—& politically beneficial—aerospace jobs & supply chains.
NASA cannot pursue major architectural changes to Artemis without Congress's assent. Indeed, Artemis was designed as it was because NASA was working within the confines of what Congress wanted to fund: namely, SLS and Orion.
The crew for Artemis 2, the crewed lunar flyby Ă la Apollo 8, has been training for nearly 2 years on Orion, and Starship has a ways to go before it will be rated for humans to get on board. A caveat to all of this: NASA needs Congress to sign off. And Congress has been a HUGE fan of SLS/Orion.
The more extreme change is to cancel SLS and the Orion spacecraft it launches ASAP and to immediately pivot Artemis to launching on SpaceX's Starship rocket, the only close-to-done alternative to launching NASA astronauts toward the moon.
Artemis IV as originally conceived involves two new things: - An upgraded upper stage of SLS - Work on the Lunar Gateway, a small lunar space station already being built on Earth. The more limited change is to rethink/nix Gateway, nix SLS 1B, and open up future Artemis launches to non-SLS rockets.
There are two possible routes of change, based on my and others' reporting: 1. Postpone major changes until Artemis IV. There's a crewed lunar flyby (Artemis 2) and crewed landing (Artemis 3) already planned and contracted (w Musk's SpaceX). Canceling the SLS rocket now would upend these missions.
Holy smokes. Reading the tea leaves here, as a longtime reporter on NASA's Artemis program: Jim Free leaving implies major changes to Artemis. This many leaders from NASA Marshall in Alabama leaving also bodes ill for the Space Launch System rocket, whose design and construction Marshall oversaw.
It's a truly staggering amount of melt. The total meltwater volume here—some 6.5 trillion tons—is like a 100-foot-deep pool of water that's *the size of Great Britain.* I wrote about a similarly grim estimate several years ago: www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/art...
Question for planetary defense folks: At what point does hardware start to be designed/provisioned in case a kinetic impactor Ă la DART needs to be launched at 2024 YR4? We'll know more about its makeup & orbit in 2028, but if we just start building then, it'll launch later & need much more oomph.
More and more scientists are joining the ranks of fired federal workers—and fighting back through protests, appeals, and legal challenges.
Like, if you actually break down NASA's spending, the bulk of the agency's budget is paid out to contractors, not to staff. www.usaspending.gov/explorer/age...
See this chart from @caseydreier.bsky.social, an expert on NASA's historical budgets and staffing levels. To add on: For every $10,000 the federal government spends, roughly $27 goes to NASA. Of that $27, >$20 is paid out to contractors—and $4 goes to payroll. (Source linked below)
🧪 If you are a NASA employee or contractor who is interested in speaking with a journalist, please reach out. I freelance for multiple publications (Science, NYT, etc.). If you want to reach out (via a personal device on a trusted, non-work network!), I'm on Signal at mgreshko.01.
A gospel I want to spread is that smart and independent news media are necessary *but not sufficient* for a functional democracy.
The cruelty and callousness of what the US government is doing here, the pain it is inflicting, the waste of time and energy and taxpayer money, the risks it is creating are just staggering… #IDsky 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...
At some point they just need to go Full Mondrian, commit fully to the bit, and make those lines 18px wide instead of 2px wide as they are now.
This has all the hallmarks of a "mobile-first homepage refresh" that translates very awkwardly to larger screens. It's not as egregious-looking on a smartphone...and I'm guessing that's where they were checking the look.
Amid all the chaos, I got great professional news a few days ago. More details soon!
6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance. For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.
One of the reasons Artemis has persisted is because NASA officials cannily consolidated existing programs under the Artemis banner. SLS and Orion were already being funded by Congress; Artemis clarified their use.
We have to remember that the SLS rocket and the Orion spacecraft *predate* Artemis as currently defined. SLS was a Senate-led Congressional initiative (est. 2010) that redirected the Space Shuttle workforce and supply chain. Orion was a holdover from Constellation, GWB's moon-to-Mars program.
Based on my years on reporting out the Artemis moon program: If Trump's NASA successfully cancels SLS in the coming months—no small feat, considering huge Congressional support for ~14 years—the timetable for NASA astronauts returning to the moon gets stretched out a fair bit.
To follow up on my previous post: If you slash how much a research grant can cover university overhead, you have to make up the money somewhere. One place could be tuition. This move could risk making college *more* expensive, not less.
Reducing the indirect rate on NIH grants to 15% will kill biomedical and health research in the US. I'm not exaggerating here. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
I don’t have sourcing at present to try and scry intent here, but in making this announcement—knowing the financial context in which university research happens *right now*—whoever made this call knows that they are putting universities in an incredibly challenging financial position.
Given other stressors to university funding—notably the generation-long decline in state-level support—this risks ravaging US universities’ ability to fund facilities/maintenance of US labs and research facilities.
For context here: the overhead for running research labs at many universities is no joke, to the point that many universities take 40-50% of a research grant off the top. The Trump NIH is essentially proposing a 50-70% cut to grants-related facilities funding to universities.
JUST IN: A US judge said he will enter a 'very limited' temporary order blocking the Trump administration from taking certain steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development reut.rs/40PYNQh
FYI, this site's sister sites are also partnered with MSN: www.msn.com/en-us/channe... www.msn.com/en-us/channe... www.msn.com/en-us/channe...
Gift link. You should read this. It is wrong on so, SO many different levels. It violates basic principles of research ethics in so many different ways. Leaving devices IN PEOPLE'S BODIES. Stopping treatments halfway through, with no one to contact if they get sick. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/06/h...
The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private funder of biomedical research, yesterday killed a $60 million program aimed at making universities’ STEM education more inclusive. scim.ag/3EtS0US
This “nearly all” is all but ~300 of a global staff of ~10,000. As @science.org reported yesterday, shutting down USAID also shuts down many clinical trials—including one for a potential HIV vaccine. People around the world will die. www.science.org/content/arti...