Episode 3 of the London Review of Books "Nature in Crisis" podcast, with @meehancrist.bsky.social and myself, is about Helen Czerski's book "The Blue Machine."
I enjoyed this one a lot, both book & conversation.
(@helenczerski.bsky.social, @lrb.co.uk, link below). 1/
A very long quote, in which Theodorus complains about the Bad writing style of Heracliteans
Nice to see that philosophers complained about each other's style at least as far back as Socrates and Heraclit - and with much the same arguments, too
‘We’re now at this point of all these spiking graphs of acceleration continuing to go up. Sunil Amrith is really interested in how we got here. And for him, this has to do with questions of freedom.’
@meehancrist.bsky.social on our Close Readings podcast:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...
“OpenAI’s Sora allowed you to deepfake yourself. Users started to remember things that never happened.” longreads.com/2026/04/09/o...
Someone sent me this.
Just so you understand, this is as if you prepared for argument in front of a panel that included Cookie Monster, and Cookie Monster asked you a question about cookies, and you had not thought about cookies in advance.
One month in to the war, some people are ready to call it. This energy shock will accelerate the world to a cleaner, more electrified future.
“Electrification will be seen as the shock absorber,” says @70sbachchan.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/o...
“It feels like I’m meeting a historic moment both for so many families who might be affected by the executive order, but also for all Americans. This administration is really attacking a foundation stone of American life.”
NYU contract faculty are striking for health insurance, fair pay, and job security. If you're not able to go out to the picket line, you can support them here!
www.gofundme.com/f/support-ny...
On our Close Readings subscription podcast: @meehancrist.bsky.social and @petergs.bsky.social reflect on how Helen Czerski’s 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘔𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘦 has altered their thinking about the ocean, and whether new perspectives can change public policy. Listen to an extract:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...
Reading this paper in more detail you actually learn that the effect is found to be null among Democrats and Dem leaners and on partisanship in general and the changes in attitudes they find are concentrated among republicans.
"Who has an interest in claiming a peak is nigh, or too high to reach? If the peak occurs, how fast will the descent be, and where is the bottom of the mountain?"
New this week @the-breakdown.bsky.social:
@noahjgordon.bsky.social writes on the politics of promises
www.break-down.org/three-peaks/
The left is excited about underwater robots that livestream video feeds of octopus nurseries from the deep Gulf of Mexico.
The right is excited about summarizing a five word e-mail, incorrectly.
NYC! Tonight!
How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective
Join @keeanga.bsky.social for a conversation with Michelle Alexander, hosted with @hammerandhope.bsky.social and @strandbooks.com
Wednesday, February 18th at 7:00 pm
Tickets here:
We had a great time discussing your book! So many fascinating and mind-bending ideas in there. Thanks for changing the way I think about plants.
Episode 2 of "Nature in Crisis," the podcast I'm doing with
@meehancrist.bsky.social for the @lrb.co.uk is now up.
We discuss "The Light Eaters" by @zoeschlanger.bsky.social.
Plant intelligence, plant agency, the pace and place of plants.
www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...
49 degrees Celsius (= 120 F) down in Victoria?
Tomorrow evening @meehancrist.bsky.social and I record episode 3 of "Nature in Crisis," a new podcast series with the @lrb.co.uk.
Episode 1 looked at Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring," and is available now (link in reply).
‘Chemicals are landing on ponds in forests. They’re wiping out small birds. There’s a real kind of carnage that she's seeing.’
Peter Godfrey-Smith on Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’, in our Close Readings subscription podcast ‘Nature in Crisis’. Hear an extract:
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/n...
Wait. This year's NSF GRFP solicitation is finally up and... 2nd year PhD students are no longer eligible to apply??
This means a whole cohort of bright young scientists will never have the opportunity to apply for this federal funding??
www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...
Two sources tell WashPo EPA readying a decision to completely rescind the climate-critical endangerment finding (re: greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare) and eliminate all resulting limits on motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...
Read this from @eroston.bsky.social and I that shows how exactly fossil-fuel advocates fiddle with climate science www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
Viktor Orban banned pride events in Hungary, the people took it as a challenge and just had the largest pride march in their country's history.
NEW: Musk's xAI data center in Memphis is emitting plumes of methane and other pollutants, which are drifting into nearby Memphis neighborhoods
Video from @oilfieldwitness.bsky.social @txsharon.bsky.social captured it on camera
gasoutlook.com/analysis/xai...
This fascinating new research overturns longstanding assumptions. It finds that lower-income groups are more concerned about the environment and prefer environmental protection over economic growth, compared to higher-income groups. Data from the USA.
Fossil fuel execs have talked for years about how they are "saving" Africa and solving energy poverty. Probably best to listen to Africans on that score: drilled.media/news/total-m...
NEW: The US government has collected DNA samples from 133,000+ migrant children and teenagers and uploaded them into CODIS, a national criminal database originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.
Google search "do apples contain lycopene?" The AI overview says "No, apples do not contain lycopene" whereas the highlighted search result begins "Apples contain lycopene"
the modern information environment
So universities are free to do... propaganda?