If you've got a couple minutes, the Quanta team and I would appreciate a vote for our project "How We Came to Know Earth" for the Webby's this year! Voting ends tonight!
vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
Over two billion years, a fierce battle has raged between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. The resulting evolution has shaped the way our bodies fight disease today. @vcallier.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/the-ancient-...
Hello, Bluesky! We, the staff of Scientific American, are pleased to announce we have formed a union with @wgaeast.bsky.social. Just as mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell, we are the powerhouse of the publication, and we’re excited to have a new way to contribute to its success.
"Just as mitochondria power the cell (a concept famously coined in our pages), we power this historic institution."
Barrera said her husband said the smell of human feces in the toilet caused a fellow detainee to vomit and, in turn, created a chain of people vomiting. She said her husband is asthmatic and has not received medication to treat his condition. The lack of medicine and the stress of the overcrowded holding cell has left him short of breath and teetering on the edge of an asthma attack, Barrera said. ICE did not immediately respond to questions on April 10 about the conditions of the Mesa or Phoenix facilities. After the publication of this article, Barrera told The Arizona Republic her husband was transferred to the ICE facility at San Luis Regional Detention Center at about midnight. The San Luis Regional Detention Center is in Southwestern Arizona and has the capacity to hold 700 people.
This is horrific. A U.S. citizen describes the facility in Arizona that her husband was brought to while he waited to be put on a deportation flight. Dozens of people were crammed into tiny cells, there was a "chain of people vomiting" from filthy toilets, no medical care, and only one meal per day.
"Suddenly, the irony of the AI horror stories was becoming clear. The companies tell us these stories because they assume it makes their technology look more powerful. But if an AI actually did have autonomy, it would be far less powerful." www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-te...
"Tu Pac said this decades ago..."
I've studied so many concentration camps through history that held vulnerable people in just this kind of crowded squalor. You demonize people, you demand more arrests, this is what you get. It already has its own budget and its own momentum, and is on track to go much further, unless we stop it.
reminder: take a walk and look at trees today
we had some fun in bryant park this week. tune in for my woodcock impression 😂 www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCO-...
The @newyorker.com has a wonderful review of my new book, Beyond Inheritance: "Khamsi’s emphasis on the beneficial aspects of somatic mutations is one of the most striking elements of her book.” Intrigued? Order a copy of the book (or audiobook) here: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/711682...
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
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
Thank you to @pulitzercenter.org for supporting this story.
That's a passage I CUT from @maxlevy.bsky.social wonderful feature that let me visualize the complex world of soil fungi networks for the first time.
So imagine then all the goodness that was not cut. You don't have to imagine: Read it here: www.quantamagazine.org/an-arctic-ro...
"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...
Solidarity with the union! Shame on you @propublica.org, bargain fairly with your workforce
We're on strike! Don't visit propublica.org on April 8
We’re on strike today! Support our fight for a fair contract by NOT visiting the @propublica.org website or engaging with ProPublica stories today.
Tell ProPublica’s management you won’t cross the picket line: actionnetwork.org/petitions/te...
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...
great book idea. congrats asher!
Quanta has been nominated for a Webby (Best Individual Editorial Feature - Media Company) for our series "How We Came To Know Earth"! Help us win by voting here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
Explore the series here: www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...
This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.
NEW: For the first time, ProPublica has been able to quantify how many U.S. citizen children have been directly affected by Trump’s immigration crackdown: more than 11,000 kids had a parent detained — and that’s an undercount. 1/ 🧵
www.propublica.org/article/trum...
The triumph of congestion pricing also offers a larger reminder: Government, done right, has immense power to improve people’s lives. Many Americans have grown cynical of government, and they are right to be disappointed about its frequent failure to deliver results in the 21st century. But the answer cannot be allowing the private market and pursuit of profits to dominate American life. Leaders should instead take political risks, as officials in New York did, to create programs that can deliver tangible results.
That congestion pricing is working -- like, really really working! -- is important for the larger effort to restore faith in govt. Take big swings, get big results that people can actually feel. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/27/o...
Documents filed this morning by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY exposing how ICE has been lying for a year — not only to the public, but to the courts and to prosecutors — about being authorized to make arrests at 26 Federal Plaza and other immigration courts.
Documents filed this morning by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY exposing how ICE has been lying for a year — not only to the public, but to the courts and to prosecutors — about being authorized to make arrests at 26 Federal Plaza and other immigration courts.
According to documents filed this morning by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, ICE has been lying for a year — not only to the public, but to the courts and to prosecutors — about being authorized to make arrests at 26 Federal Plaza and other immigration courts. (1/2)
:(
cool cool cool cool cool
Black rain in Iran
Residents in Tehran say they have burning eyes and difficulty breathing when the dark and oily precipitation falls.
By Tammy Webber @apnews.com apnews.com/article/iran...
When a federal judge (finally) put ICE officers under oath, they admitted that they are given daily detention quotas and rely heavily on a Palantir-supplied AI tool to select targets, without warrants and without enough evidence to obtain one. They simply go into neighborhoods and round people up.
