Freelance journalist for NYT, SciAm, Nature & more. Author of I FEEL LOVE (2023) and POACHED (2018).
Brooklyn
Joined November 2010
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Mitochondria, the body's strangest organelles, might be the link between biology, health, and mind — possibly responsible, even, for the materialization of consciousness into life.
@QuantaMagazine quantamagazine.org/martin-pi…
Science mystery! Nearly everyone, everywhere, veers left when walking. Why???
@NYTScience
nytimes.com/2026/06/10/scien…
Women's participation in STEM has risen sharply, yet gender gaps in first and last authorship — markers of key scientific achievements — have barely shifted over the past decade.
@Nature
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
We've been in a long-term relationship with pigeons for at least 3,400 years. We brought them around the world to serve us and be our companions - only to recently turn on them. The least we owe them is a little respect.
nytimes.com/2026/05/20/scien…
No truly effective treatments exist for cocaine addiction, and use of the drug is going up worldwide. Psilocybin therapy could offer a safe and effective solution for those looking to quit cocaine, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind trial.
science.org/content/article/…
Engineered microbes could help us clean up some of the planetary messes we've made, by degrading pollutants and recovering useful materials from waste. But realizing the powers of these technologies will require political will.
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
Tobacco is one of the toughest drugs to quit, but psilocybin shows promise for helping people kick the habit. In the latest study, a single dose combined with talk therapy allowed half of participants to give up smoking.
bbc.com/future/article/20260…
A better treatment for river blindness exists, but companies didn't pursue it because it's not profitable. Now, a non-profit pharma company has brought that new treatment to market without a commercial partner - a notable first. nature.com/articles/d44148-0…
Emperor penguins, those icons of the Antarctic, are now endangered. As are fur seals. The cause is climate change.
@nytimes
nytimes.com/2026/04/09/clima…
Japan's beautiful cherry blossom displays are fading as climate change takes hold. Trees in southern Japan are already failing to reach peak bloom, and experts predict Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo will soon face the same problem.
@ScienceMagazine
science.org/content/article/…
Rachel Nuwer retweeted
Fantastic article on Australia’s MDMA-assisted therapy program.
Already ~200 patients have received treatment with no serious adverse events reported.
Early signals also suggest MDMA therapy may have more durable effects than psilocybin.
Fascinating to watch this real-world data emerge.
I hope our FDA will soon approve this life saving therapy for the 13 million US citizens suffering with PTSD.
Cc @DrMakaryFDA
A Bay Area brewery just launched the world's first air-to-beer approach to carbonation. If the business model works, it could give the broader carbon-capture industry a boost. @nytimes
nytimes.com/2026/03/23/clima…
Conservation conundrum: The strawberry guava - one of the world's worst invasive species - is taking over Madagascar's forests, but endangered lemurs love to eat its fruit.
@NYTScience
nytimes.com/2026/03/07/scien…
Could ancient Greek priestesses have created the mind-altering elixir thought to lie at the heart of one of antiquity’s most secretive cults, the Eleusinian Mysteries? Researchers recreated the hypothetical psychedelic brew to find out.
@ScienceMagazine
science.org/content/article/…
After 180 years, a unique tortoise thought to be extinct returns to its Galápagos home. @sciam
scientificamerican.com/artic…
"The bombardment betrays the lie." Thank you for this exposé of the wild world of book author scammers, @DanBarryNYT. I'm going to start replying to my own new best friends' emails with a link to this story.
nytimes.com/2026/02/25/books…
Around the world, plants are flowering earlier than they used to. Temperature alone doesn't explain it. Could crazy chemistry triggered by dewdrops be the real reason?
@ScienceMagazine
science.org/content/article/…
“We are losing the capabilities and infrastructure to prepare.” How the Trump administration’s gutting of the EPA endangers lung health for all Americans—just as air pollution is rising nationwide. @Nature
nature.com/articles/d41586-0…
With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. bbc.com/future/article/20260…
I chatted with NPR's Here & Now about my investigation into the Chinese and Taiwanese-run Buddhist orphanages that are grooming children in Africa to become wildlife traffickers. DM me for a link to the full Economist story.
wbur.org/hereandnow/2026/01/…
