STAT Polk awardees

STAT Polk Awardees

So honored to receive a Polk award today with STAT colleagues @mmolteni.bsky.social @aniloza.bsky.social @angusrohan.bsky.social @jonathanwosen.bsky.social @isabellacueto.bsky.social @lizzylawrence.bsky.social @jaspar.bsky.social @rickberke.bsky.social Gideon Gil Laura Chang+Sarah Todd. What a team.

Knight Science Journalism at MIT Announces 2026-27 Fellowship Class An elite group of science journalists from around the globe will join KSJ at MIT this August to embark on a year of research and study.

Announcing the stellar new class of @ksjatmit.bsky.social fellows who will join us this fall. 💪🏽🧠✍️ Can’t wait to get started! ksj.mit.edu/news/2026/04...

Trump’s Immigration Policy Sidelines Foreign Doctors Amid Shortage

I’m incensed that immigration policies are removing foreign doctors from their hospitals and jobs. We face a critical physician shortage. Many of these doctors treat the poor and underserved. This decision will cost lives. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/04/u...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

I will say this again: Science isn’t just something that nerds do, it’s the foundation of the modern world.

It’s why this app exists. It’s why child mortality rate isn’t 50% anymore. It’s how we’re able to launch people to the moon. It’s how we’re able to grow food that feeds half the world.

My only guess is NYT wanted a way in on the FEMA teleportation traffic and sent intrepid correspondent to figure it out and well that story is gonna stretch no matter what.

Michael Cottman speaking — slide showing him scuba diving.

Usha McFarling, Michael Cottman, and Ashley Smart in front of KSJ offices at MIT.

So honored to host journalist, professor, and maritime explorer Michael Cottman this week @ksjatmit.bsky.social to discuss his work on studying the wreck of the slave ship Henrietta Marie. Powerful to learn about the network of Black scuba divers who continue this critical historical work.

Bridges brings up painful anecdotes from her 200+ interviews: Black pregnant women will refuse to take off their wedding rings (even if fingers swell like sausages) because they don't want to be mistreated by health care workers. They won’t wear sweatpants unless they have a Yale logo.

Khiara Bridges and Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha speaking at Harvard Book Store

Powerful to hear Khiara Bridges discuss her new book Expecting Inequity — showing even wealthy Black women experience high rates of #maternalmortality— with Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha. “We cannot purchase our way out of structural racism.”

The term “gold standard science“ is so insidious. As Harvard’s Nancy Krueger wrote recently, “The reality is that federal agencies under this current administration are brandishing this ‘gold standard science’ as a cudgel, to make data, people, and problems disappear.”

Inside the bruising battle to purge race from a kidney disease calculator Kidney specialists now acknowledge millions of Black patients may have been undertreated and even denied transplants because of a race-adjusted test.

and if you haven't read this backstory on the messy, contentious fight to remove race from eGFR by @usha.bsky.social & @katiepalmer.bsky.social, you really should

www.statnews.com/2024/09/05/e...

Star tribune just doing amazing work breaking our hearts but amazing work

Removing race from kidney function algorithm helped more Black patients access transplants Removing race from the eGFR had a big impact, resulting in 5.3 more kidney transplants per 1000 Black candidates.

Amazing to see the change that can be possible to reduce longstanding racial health disparities. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽Story by @aniloza.bsky.social Comments from @thenephrologist.bsky.social wwww.statnews.com/2026/03/10/kidney-transp... via @statnews.com

This is the horrifying xAI "Colossus" Musk has unleashed on the South. "The sound continues through the day & often intensifies at night...making it hard to think clearly & even harder to fall asleep." Solidarity with Devan Jenkins & her neighbors fighting for their community's health & well-being.

Weird caterpillar uses its old heads to make an elaborate hat Meet the mad hatterpillar, the invertebrate that keeps its old moulted heads attached to its body to make a beautifully bizarre headpiece

Have you seen this one? Dubbed the mad hatterpillar, it wears it's own old heads as a hat.

www.newscientist.com/article/mg24...

ICE detains reporter Estefany Rodríguez in Nashville - Nashville Banner Reporter Estefany Rodríguez, detained by ICE with no arrest warrant, may face deportation. Her attorneys seek immediate review of the legality of her case.

ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.

They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.

Jeffrey Epstein’s tissue samples ignited a furor in the Harvard lab of George Church Exclusive: Harvard geneticist George Church knew more about Jeffrey Epstein's activities than he has previously said, before accepting new donations from the sex offender.

@mmolteni.bsky.social of @statnews.com with the scoop on #Epstein and Harvard geneticist George Church. "Thirteen years later, the whereabouts of the sex offender’s skin cells are a mystery." www.statnews.com/2026/02/24/e...

Have been listening in to today's hearing. So far, she's dodged questions on vaccines and Tammy Baldwin noted Means made $325K shilling supplements over the last 2 years. But sure, vaccine advocates are the one making bank. 🙃

Lawrence Summers Will Resign From Harvard After Epstein Revelations

Who will be the first reporter to ask Trump for a comment? Lawrence Summers Will Resign From Harvard After Epstein Revelations www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/u...

New Documents Reveal a Controversial Vaccine Study's Unusual Path to CDC Approval A new investigation has found irregularities in the ethics review of a grant to study effects of a birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine in Guinea-Bissau.

New from @katherineeban.bsky.social in @rollingstone.com: CDC appointees bypassed the agency’s scientists to rush-fund a study questioning the hep B birth dose. The ethics committee president says his name was used on the approval without his knowledge.

www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

What I Learned From Kristi Yamaguchi (Published 2016)

it’s very difficult for me to reread old pieces of mine, but I am sharing this for the Olympics, for nostalgia, for Asian American women of a certain age, for little Asian girls everywhere

gift link:

The $100 whole human genome sequence finally reached!
www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/19/s...

Hilarious

This is perhaps the most tragic of the consequences of the attack by Trump and colleagues on NIH. Gutting the next generation of American science 🧪

L.A. TACO Investigative Journalism Fund By L.A. TACO

@lataco.bsky.social is raising money to launch a dedicated investigative news desk. If you've relied on their immigration coverage this year like I have, you know this is a worthy cause to support. givebutter.com/la-taco-inve...

This is the agency that is charged by law with preventing sexual assault in the workplace

Very strong "Al Capone arrested and in custody on suspicion of tax evasion" vibes.

Report: Staff at Dilley raiding cells to confiscate kids' letters and drawings detailing conditions inside

ProPublica published children's letters and drawings documenting their sadness and suffering at Dilley. And Dilley staff are now retaliating by confiscating kids' letters and drawings.

www.sacurrent.com/news/san-ant...

Press | Ocean Sciences Meeting 2026 Welcome to the OSM26 Newsroom and Press Center. Here you will find information that will help you cover the meeting and register.

If you're an environmental journalist in the UK or Europe, the biggest gathering of ocean scientists in the world is happening in Glasgow next week, and you should consider coming to cover some of the most important findings about our life support system. #OSM26

A lot of institutions looks mighty foolish and boy is the damage already done. Have principles.