An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

Journey with writer @maxlevy.bsky.social and a team of researchers through the Arctic tundra as they sample some of Earth’s rarest and most restricted fungal species — underground wisps that govern life aboveground. www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

"There’s a reason we describe artists who operate outside of the mainstream as “underground.” We’re surface dwellers biased toward the aboveground world. Like underground artists, mycorrhizal fungi steadily influence your world." - @maxlevy.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

On Alaska’s North Slope, SPUN’s team recoded 253 ectomycorrhizal fungal species not previously documented, revealing an incredible biodiversity under the seemingly barren landscape.

Thank you @maxlevy.bsky.social & @quantamagazine.bsky.social

🔗 buff.ly/u5D9ciX

#mycorrhizalfungi #fungi #alaska

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

Many thanks to Hannah for trusting me with this story, to the whole team at @quantamagazine.bsky.social (the art team did amazing work) and the Pulitzer Center for the grant, and everyone who helped me make sense of life and carbon in the Arctic.

www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

One Tuesday in June 2025, a white Chevy Suburban set off down the northernmost highway in North America. The sun of Alaska’s polar summer hadn’t set in 40 days, and it wouldn’t set again for another 35. But for Michael Van Nuland, the biologist in the driver’s seat, time was already running out

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

Anyone who has written for @hanner.bsky.social knows that she made this piece a million times better.

www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

An Arctic Road Trip Brings Vital Underground Networks into View | Quanta Magazine A vast meshwork of soil-bound fungi governs life aboveground. In Alaska, and at field sites around the world, researchers are racing to understand exactly how, with critical stores of carbon at stake.

"What most people think of are the functions of a plant root system, are really the functions of the fungi attached to plant roots," the team's leader Michael Van Nuland told me.

www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...

Excited to finally share this story
Last year with support from @pulitzercenter.org, I went to the Arctic to follow scientists yanking soil on a journey down Alaska's tundra. Looking for what? Undiscovered species of fungi that form unique partnerships with plants. @quantamagazine.bsky.social

And now: It's been nominated for an ASME for Best News and Information Design! 💫 Don't sleep on visiting this jewel box of a special issue with design by @markabelan.bsky.social and art director Samuel Velasco!

Sick fourth-grader among 4 Columbia Heights students held by ICE Columbia Heights Public Schools says four students remain detained by ICE after Liam’s return, including 10-year-old Elizabeth, who has fallen ill.

Elizabeth is a Columbia Heights fourth-grader who loves volleyball, learning English and giggling in the halls with her friends. She's been held in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center for nearly a month, and she and her mom have both fallen ill. sahanjournal.com/education/co...

It's been quite a year for Quanta biology! In this year-end post I highlighted some favorite stories by @yaseminsaplakoglu.bsky.social @theuniverse.bsky.social @peterbrannen.bsky.social @mollyherring.bsky.social and Ariel Bleicher - and I want to share more of our great work from the year below!

Why are Alaska’s rivers turning bright orange? Scientists have a theory. The dramatic shift is a warning sign—and scientists say the changes that aren't yet visible to the naked eye are just as troubling.

Here's why yesterday's @nytimes.com article on rusting rivers misses the boat. For Nat Geo earlier this fall, I reported on how thawing permafrost is exposing bedrock, releasing sulfuric acid and oxidizing iron into a toxic cocktail remarkably similar to acid rock drainage.

SAPIENS was my dream job, but it didn't pay enough. I worked nights/weekends as a Lecturer & freelance writer so that I could afford to work full time days at SAPIENS.

On my last day, I'm in tears reviewing the 60 some stories I developed as editor. Every story was an adventure. A sample below...

A more electric language for biology Bioelectricity is a potent lever for controlling health. What would it look like to treat the body electrically, rather than chemically?

Bioelectricity is a potent lever for controlling health. What would it look like to treat the body electrically, rather than chemically?

My latest for DDN, featuring scientists who study vagus nerves.

www.drugdiscoverynews.com/a-more-elect...

Congratulations @maxlevy.bsky.social for winning the Gold award in the Magazine category of the International @aaas.org Kavli Science Journalism Awards! 🎉 Max was a #MassMediaFellow at @wired.com in 2020, sponsored by the @apsphysics.bsky.social. Check out the award winning piece: bit.ly/3Y9qrGW

The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology | Quanta Magazine Invisibly to us, insects and other tiny creatures use static electricity to travel, avoid predators, collect pollen and more. New experiments explore how evolution may have influenced this phenomenon.

So freaking proud of @maxlevy.bsky.social for his AAAS Kavli Gold 🏆 award for his feature about electrostatic ecology — how small creatures interact with electrostatic forces. Quanta's first Kavli Gold! Thanks to the whole team! www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-w...

A million billion trillion thanks to @hanner.bsky.social for editing and truly helping craft this piece with me from the ground up. We published this in 2024 and it remains one of my personal favorites 💗

Quanta Contributor Max G. Levy Wins AAAS Kavli Gold Award for Science Journalism | Quanta Magazine Judges from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and The Kavli Foundation recognized Quanta Magazine contributing writer Max G. Levy with a Gold Award in the Magazine category for “...

Quanta contributing writer @maxlevy.bsky.social has received a Kavli Gold Award from @aaas.org and @kavlifoundation.org for “The Hidden World of Electrostatic Ecology,” a detailed account of how small organisms use static electricity to their advantage.

www.quantamagazine.org/quantanews/q...

Happy pub day to this year’s edition of Best American Science & Nature Writing, out now from @marinerbooks.bsky.social. Thanks to editors extraordinaire Susan Orlean and @jaimealyse.bsky.social for including my @smithsonianmag.bsky.social feature on the art and science of wildlife tracking.

And to submit work to be considered for next year's anthology, go to jaimegreen.net/basn

Wrote a bit about this year's edition of The Best American Science and Nature Writing - and posted the Notables jaimealyse.beehiiv.com/p/basnw25

It's pub day!! The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2025 is out. I'm thrilled to appear with @sequencermag.bsky.social alongside many talented writers whose work I revere. Including the pieces in this anthology

Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025 Check out The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025 - <p>&#8220;The best science and nature writing&#8212;which these stories represent&#8212;reminds us of the wide world and our connection to...

It's pub day for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2025, and the whole Best American series. I'm so proud of this book and all the brilliant, beautiful writing @susanorlean.bsky.social selected for it. bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

🧪Hello friends! I'm working on a piece about putting together the best tenure/promotion package, and I'd love to hear from STEM folks who have recently done this or have experience evaluating these types of proposals. Please RT for reach, and feel free to reach out with any Qs!

What we learn in the footsteps of wolves Up close and personal with nature's notoriously elusive carnivore.

Today on the site we have three new pieces all about wolves, led by an essay from @maxlevy.bsky.social that weaves together two notable books.

www.sequencermag.com/what-we-lear...

The Eerily Familiar Politics of Europe's Wolves Why wolves are such a potent political tool. Author Adam Weymouth on carnivores and scapegoats.

Next, an interview with Adam Weymouth, author of Lone Wolf

"It was quite clearly a love story. If it were about two people, it would be two people that defied odds and walked across the continent and somehow found each other in thousands of square miles"

www.sequencermag.com/the-eerily-f...

And an excerpt from L. David Mech's The Ellesmere Wolves, about a surprisingly tame population of High Arctic wolves Mech studied for decades.

"Greeted by seven barking and howling wolves, elated that I had finally located an active den"

What we learn in the footsteps of wolves Up close and personal with nature's notoriously elusive carnivore.

WE DEPEND ON YOUR SUPPORT TO DO OUR WORK.

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www.sequencermag.com/what-we-lear...

Honored to have made it into this always fantastic anthology as a "Notable" for my piece in Hakai Magazine (one of the last features the magazine published) about cold-water coral research in Chile. @pulitzercenter.org @biographic.bsky.social

Hi! Today @quantamagazine.bsky.social published a special issue on climate science, featuring stories about how Earth's climate fundamentally works that I needed to read after covering climate impacts for so many years. I hope you'll check it out! <3 www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...