Beef is making a comeback – does it fit into a healthy diet? The protein craze is in full swing and beef consumption is on the rise, particularly in the US, where health agencies are promoting red meat as part of an optimum diet. So, how much beef should we rea...

Great analysis by @gracewade.bsky.social, touching on health, culture and politics surrounding beef, and what the most clear-eyed scientific research that we currently have can actually say about it www.newscientist.com/article/2522...

Largest ever map of universe captures 47 million galaxies and quasars The Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) has finished the most detailed survey of the universe to date, and the resulting map will help researchers understand an apparent weakening of dark ener...

"With so much data, there will be scientific breakthroughs about the nature of the universe, says Lahav, but we have also probably caught unusual one-off cosmological incidents that lead to exciting research."

www.newscientist.com/article/2520...

Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination. Discrimination based on sex is expressly prohibited under Montana’s unique Nondiscrimination Clause––“[n]either the state nor any person, firm, corporation, or institution shall discriminate on account of . . . sex . . . .” Thus, Article II, Section 4 is unequivocal in its intolerance for discrimination based on sex. Because sex discrimination involves a fundamental right under Article II, the appropriate level of judicial review is strict scrutiny. Snetsinger, ¶ 17. ¶28 Being transgender is also a suspect class under the Equal Protection Clause of Article II, Section 4,––“[n]o person shall be denied equal protection of the law.”

MONTANA SUPREME COURT: “Transgender discrimination is, by its very nature, sex discrimination,” and is subject to strict scrutiny under the Montana Constitution.

From the chernobyl community on Reddit: I am a reporter for New Scientist who gained exclusive access to Chernobyl. AMA on Thursday 16 April. Explore this post and more from the chernobyl community

I'll be doing a reddit AMA on my recent visit to Chornobyl. Feel free to ping a question on contamination, the exclusion zone, the militarisation of the site - whatever - on the thread.

www.reddit.com/r/chernobyl/...

Quantum computers could usher in a crisis worse than Y2K The day when a quantum computer manages to break common encryption, or Q-Day, is fast approaching, and the world is not close to being ready

I have a fleeting memory of Y2K, but I spent some time trying to learn whether a futuristic, quantum version might affect me a lot more. I learned that it's not futuristic at all, and that we may be a lot less ready for it than we were for the millennium bug www.newscientist.com/article/2522...

Don't miss tonight's amazing storytellers Vyshnavi Vennelakanti, @kpc.bsky.social, Kevin McNulty, Ricky Ortiz and @weijima.bsky.social ! 🧪

We have an AMAZING lineup for tonight's @storycollider.bsky.social show at @caveatnyc.bsky.social!

Couldn't have said it better than my co-host @paulacroxson.bsky.social. Come hear from Vyshnavi, @kpc.bsky.social, Kevin, Ricky, and @weijima.bsky.social! 🧪

NYC & livestream tix: ow.ly/8iG250YtAsk

Physicists resolve a long-standing puzzle over the size of a proton Two extremely precise experiments agree with a previously shocking measurement of just how big the proton is, which may help future searches for new particles

Thanks to a pair of undersung atomic physics triumphs, we may finally know the proton's size, ending years of measurements that were all over the map and refused to tell a unified story. This new consensus will enable extra precise searches for new physics! www.newscientist.com/article/2522...

Chernobyl at 40: My life as a meteorologist under Russian occupation When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Chernobyl lay on the path to the capital Kyiv. When the plant was occupied by Russian troops, meteorologist Lyudmila Dyblenko fearlessly continued taking vital mea...

Lyudmila Dyblenko was trapped at Chornobyl when Russian troops invaded. She was under observation. One troop barged into her home looking for booze and she ran him out like a naughty schoolboy. All the while she kept doing science. What a hero.

www.newscientist.com/article/2520...

Calling all physics/astronomy science communicators! Applications are open for the 2026 #Scicomm Collider at @perimeterinstitute.ca! A great opportunity for folks doing all kinds of astro/phys engagement to meet, network, and share expertise on connecting the public with science! ⚛️🧪🔭🎢

“Is it one of the greatest scientific books? Yes, in terms of sales and impact,” says Fara. “But it can’t really be called ‘great’ when it overtly promotes an ethical position antithetical to science’s values and presents a false image of how research is conducted.”

[alt text by NASA] The Moon, seen here backlit by the Sun during a solar eclipse on April 6, 2026, is photographed by one of the cameras on the Orion spacecraft’s solar array wings. Orion is visible in the foreground on the left. Earth is reflecting sunlight at the left edge of the Moon, which is slightly brighter than the rest of the disk. The bright spot visible just below the Moon’s bottom right edge is Saturn. Beyond that, the bright spot at the right edge of the image is Mars. Credit: NASA

Whoa 🤯

The Moon, in full eclipse, with the #Artemis II Orion spacecraft. Part of the Moon and spacecraft are lit by Earthshine, and both Saturn and Mars are visible to the lower right. Incredible. Details: images.nasa.gov/details/art0...

There are some scientists who always pick up the phone, always reply to the emails, always have a quick comment for a stressed our journalist and the curious readers and truly I respect these folks so much

Read the story. Not a peep that the PCBs came from general electric. They just happened to be in the river and were now magically lowered.

NASA’s Artemis II crew experience total solar eclipse from space From the perspective of the Orion capsule, the moon will fully block the sun’s disk for nearly an hour

The crew of Artemis II is experiencing a total solar eclipse RIGHT NOW from just a few thousand miles above the lunar surface. Here's why it's cool and what they could see 🧪 🔭

Acceptance When is it "too much" to write and talk about your feelings?

This week on my personal newsletter, a brief defense of being cringe and talking about your feelings + an invitation to come hear me talk about my feelings at the Story Collider on April 13th ultracold.substack.com/p/acceptance

So, thing that is apparently better understood inside academia than outside of it:

International students pay sticker price. Most domestic students do not. International students are subsidizing the education costs for domestic students, as per student governmental funding drops.

NASA isn't why the US doesn't have universal healthcare, or a social safety net. The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters). Enthusiasm for human spaceflight doesn't drive that choice.

I’m not sleeping in, I’m working on my sleep debt

Being a physics reporter is wild because what do you mean I just woke up this morning thinking "I guess I'm sorta into the strong force now." I think this is the sort of opinion I'm supposed to have about ice cream flavours or pop music not, like, ingredients of physical reality

"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."

Seeing a lot of “we went to the moon instead of funding healthcare” takes and want to note it is a false dichotomy. The US could easily do both, but the politicians and people who finance them have chosen to make Americans suffer. And they avoid paying taxes to make it harder to help Americans.

The first quantum computer to break encryption is now shockingly close Traditional encryption methods have long been vulnerable to quantum computers, but two new analyses suggest a capable enough machine may be built much sooner than previously thought

Nothing concrete has changed yet, but the mood is definitely shifting, as @kpc.bsky.social is reporting.

An exciting field to watch. Or terrifying, maybe. Both?

www.newscientist.com/article/2521...

I don’t think anyone else in this hotel bar has any idea there is a moon launch happening right now. Human spaceflight really has only one purpose and that’s inspiring people to accomplish formerly impossible things. We are not doing this right if no one knows about it.

The first quantum computer to break encryption is now shockingly close Traditional encryption methods have long been vulnerable to quantum computers but two new analyses suggest a capable enough machine may be built much sooner than previously thought

Huge quantum computing news from @kpc.bsky.social - breaking encryption is looking much more feasible than anyone expected. It's not possible now, but if trends continue it really won't be long www.newscientist.com/article/2521...

If you listened to the NYT Daily today and walked away with the impression that we need to mine helium on the moon for quantum computers that’ll be used for, checks notes, artificial intelligence, I have bad news for you

Yet anti-LGBTQ+ therapists now enjoy a First Amendment right that is denied to abortion providers. But as Jackson pointed out, the inconsistency runs deeper. After Chiles, parents who seek to “convert” their transgender children have a constitutional right to do so. But thanks to last year’s decision in Skrmetti, parents who seek to affirm their transgender children with medication have no such right. States can ban gender-affirming medication but evidently cannot ban anti-transgender talk therapy. And the majority does not explain why anti-LGBTQ+ speech receives heightened protections when other viewpoints do not. Surely, Jackson wrote, a state can direct doctors to discourage, and not encourage, smoking cigarettes. It can prohibit doctors “from telling an anorexic patient to eat less” while allowing them to recommend eating more. It can stop doctors from encouraging patients to end their lives. These laws, too, censor speech on the basis of the state’s preferred viewpoint—in Gorsuch’s words, they “enforce orthodoxy.” Why is it, then, that nobody seriously argues that they’d violate the First Amendment, too?

The Supreme Court's "conversion therapy" decision today is indefensible on its own terms. A ton of medical regulations restrict speech on the basis of "viewpoint." Nobody thinks they're unconstitutional. This court just subjects pro-LGBTQ protections to special hostility. slate.com/news-and-pol...

New fibre optic record allows 50,000,000 movies to be streamed at once Improved hardware can send ten times as much data through existing fibre optic cables, potentially providing a way to massively upgrade the internet's infrastructure without the cost and inconvenience...

New record for data transmission through fibre optic cable beneath London streets: 450 terabits per second, or 450,000,000,000,000 bits per second.

That's enough for around 50 million movies to be streamed simultaneously.

That is a LOT of bits.

www.newscientist.com/article/2520...

Special: Cinderella Stories On college basketball and inequality

On my personal newsletter this week, a guest post from my partner. He puts on both his social inequality research and his college basketball fan hats, grappling with socioeconomic realities of college sports and the fandom narratives that relate to them ultracold.substack.com/p/special-ci...

Community bake sale in the morning, hardcore show at night, I think you mean to say my best life