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Alexandra Witze

@alexwitze.bsky.social
20K followers 1.8K following 995 posts

Science journalist and correspondent for Nature (she/her). Opinions = my own. Reach me at alexwitze.01 (Signal), witzescience (@gmail.com), or awitze (@protonmail.com).

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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Dan Vergano @danvergano.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A scammer impersonated a science journalist. It worked. www.reviewertoo.com/2026-09-21-s... AI fraud is going to make it harder for new voices to break into science journalism
reviewertoo.com
A scammer impersonated a science journalist. It worked.
AI fraud is going to make it harder for new voices to break into science journalism
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Chelsea Harvey @chelseaeharvey.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Friends! If you're attending #sciwri26 this weekend, stop through our Saturday panel: how to report on science with a policy lens. With the great @aniloza.bsky.social @dangaristo.bsky.social @alexwitze.bsky.social -- gonna be a 🔥 session, y'all sciencewriters2026.org/schedule/
Putting Policy in Perspective: How to report on science with a policy lens
NASW Professional Development Session
4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
CH2M Hill Alumni Center, Cascade Ballroom C
Description
Sweeping changes to U.S. science policy made by the Trump administration have upended the research landscape and, by association, the science writers who cover it. From student writers to seasoned correspondents, we’re all struggling to understand often-byzantine policies and their impacts, so that we can explain to our readers and listeners. This session will equip science writers with the tools to cover science policy and its effects on science.

Some of the most important and compelling science stories incorporate policy: coverage of pollution regulations, vaccination schedules, missions to Mars, and more. Many, if not most, science stories can be made stronger and more insightful with policy context included. Just as meteorologists now talk about climate change during their weather forecasts, science writers can include relevant policy details into their stories to place scientific results in context.

Our speakers have a wealth of experience covering science policy in the Trump administration and will speak about how they've broken news, investigated, and turned policy news into a narrative. They’ll share broadly applicable resources for sourcing, contacting government agencies, using databases, understanding legal battles — the nuts and bolts of what’s needed to cover science policy in this environment. Following these presentations, there will be a moderated Q&A and time for questions from the audience.

Speakers
Anil Oza, STAT, Staff Reporter
Chelsea Harvey, POLITICO – E&E News, Reporter

Moderator and Organizer
Dan Garisto, Freelance, Science Journalist

Organizer
Alex Witze, Nature, Retained Correspondent
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The National Science Foundation has not had a director since April 2025, but is undertaking very significant structural changes in how it funds US science. No permanent leadership appears anywhere in sight.
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Scoop: This afternoon NSF will formally announce its four 'Frontier Initiatives', and a suite of other changes in a public letter. These Frontier Initiatives (left) are identical to OSTP's 'Grand Research Challenges' that we have been reporting on (right). www.nature.com/articles/d41...
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
MATH DRAMA
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
🚨 The NIH is moving to transfer hundreds of millions of dollars in infectious-disease research projects to the DOD under a secret 10-year pact. Here’s what’s happening inside “Operation Prevailing Edge” 🧵👇 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Revealed: inside the US military's plan to tap huge sums from the NIH
An agreement paves the way for hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects to be transferred from the NIH’s institute for infectious diseases to the Department of Defense.
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Britt Lundgren @brittlundgren.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Swords into plowshares: the under-told backstory of NGRST, the space telescope that began its life as a spy satellite! www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...
scientificamerican.com
NASA’s new dark energy telescope has a wild backstory
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will soon launch to unravel the mysteries of dark energy and dark matter
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Dr Space Junk (Alice Gorman) @drspacejunk.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Nancy Grace Roman was paid 60% of her male colleague's wages. 'the Nobel prize-winning physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar ... told her: “We don’t discriminate against women. We can just get them for less.”' #WomenInSTEM 🧪 🔭
theconversation.com
Nasa’s new telescope is named after astronomer Nancy Grace Roman – but who was she?
The US astronomer battled discrimination in a male dominated field.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Minutes ago the Roman space telescope launched successfully from Cape Canaveral. Here’s @jennaahart.bsky.social on the worlds it’s expected to find. (Free to read for now, they just want your email.) 🧪🔭 www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
The Roman telescope is about to take planet-hunting to the next level
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, set to launch shortly, could find 40 times the number of distant worlds that have been detected so far.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
⬇️ Adventures with the Seestar, calibration problems, video compression, etc. But we got data on a glorious night. Someone was playing Dolly Parton songs on the piano during the eclipse in our neighborhood. #moonjoy 🧪🌒💖
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Liddle bit of moon joy back with tonight’s eclipse 🌗
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Richard Van Noorden @richvn.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Dolly Parton donated to medical centres, vaccine research and disaster relief. And had Dolly the cloned sheep named after her! Here are some scientist tributes and a reminder of how she contributed to research. www.nature.com/articles/d41... by @lizziegibney.bsky.social & Dhruv Shenai @nature.com
nature.com
Dolly Parton dies aged 80 – researchers celebrate her contributions to science
The country singer was an advocate for vaccines, public health, literacy and marginalized communities.
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Knowable Magazine @knowablemag.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
😱 What do Edvard Munch’s The Scream, the fall of the Mongol Empire, and the Black Death have in common? 🌋 Volcanoes! Scientists are finding links between these events and works of art and huge volcanic eruptions that happened hundreds—sometimes thousands—of miles away. ✍️ @alexwitze.bsky.social
knowablemagazine.org
Volcanoes that made history
Long after the lava stopped flowing, enormous eruptions altered Earth’s climate and societies all over the globe
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Do you want to write a story about volcanoes that changed history? the editor asked. Why yes. Yes, I do. My piece in @knowablemag.bsky.social on the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days that can transpire after an eruption: knowablemagazine.org/content/arti... 🧪🌋
knowablemagazine.org
Volcanoes that made history
Long after the lava stopped flowing, enormous eruptions altered Earth’s climate and societies all over the globe
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Scoop: For nearly a year, NSF has struggled to make new grants. Now we know that it will not catch up. In fact, NSF will award just 6,100 new grants—a 30% y/o/y decline, itself down from a previous avg. of 11,000+. In fact, the last time NSF awarded so few grants was in the early '80s.
nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Jeffrey Mervis @policyhound.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
NSF is touting a dozen new solicitations announced this week as evidence that basic research still rules. But that's not what's really going on. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Is NSF’s new call for research proposals good news? Scientists and staffers have doubts
The long-delayed 12 solicitations only cover some disciplines—and promise to give them much less money
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
brb moving to washington
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The Swift re-boost mission has failed. www.nasa.gov/news-release...
nasa.gov
NASA Updates Next Steps for Commercial Swift Boost Mission - NASA
Due to an ongoing commercial spacecraft attitude control issue, NASA and Katalyst Space announced Wednesday the LINK spacecraft will not capture or boost an
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
DutchSpace @dutchspace.eurosky.social · 12/08/2026
Now that the eclipse is over, if you are bored tonight, don't forget the Perseid showers are peaking tonight...
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
Big day for colanders, though
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Wednesday night = Perseid meteors! Plus maybe a few nights before and after. Be sure to look up this week, even if you’re not in the path of Wednesday’s total solar eclipse. There is lots to see above us.
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 10/08/2026
There's a solar eclipse coming up this week. Here's a photo of a solar eclipse from last year. Taken from the surface of the Moon. Yep, that black circle is Earth.
A diamond ring of fire in the black.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
The #ArtemisII crew seems legitimately overwhelmed to be in the Red Rocks venue.
Artemis II astronauts on a large screen and in person in front of it
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Colorado governor Jared Polis rolls out his favorite line about how here in Colorado we’re a mile closer to space
Colorado governor Jared Polis in front of a large screen displaying a moon and a moon rocket
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
#ArtemisII crew speaks to reporters at Red Rocks - saying they are here to celebrate Rocky Mountain contributions to the historic mission.
The Artemis II crew speaks in a wood paneled room as microphones are thrust in their faces
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Best location ever for an #ArtemisII crew event? (Red Rocks amphitheater, Morrison CO) Yes 🚀 No 🚀
A large amphitheater stage displaying Artemis II information at Red Rocks, Colorado
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Leo Hickman @leohickman.carbonbrief.org · 30/07/2026
Just in case you've seen climate sceptics posting highly misleading charts on social media about wildfires, here's our new factcheck...
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
New from James: how fire danger is changing across Europe 🧪
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Corey S. Powell @coreyspowell.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The mission to rescue the Swift Observatory is experiencing technical problems. They may be solvable, but it's a nail-biter. Unclear if the observatory will survive. 🧪🔭 arstechnica.com/space/2026/0...
A camera mounted on Katalyst's Link satellite captured this view of one of its solar arrays in orbit. Credit: Katalyst Space Technologies
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
I went to college, I even went to MIT, but I'm damned if I can solve a captcha on the first try
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James Dinneen @jamesdinneen.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Firefighters in Oregon, Spain, and now France (?!) are battling wildfires big enough to generate pyrocumulonimbus clouds. These fire storms are treacherous on the ground. But scientists are concerned about the *planetary* consequences of injecting so much smoke into the upper atmosphere...🌍🔥🧵
This image shows a pyrocumulonimbus cloud rising from the 2022 Mosquito Fire, burning near the Middle Fork American River and Foresthill, California, taken in the afternoon of September 08, 2022.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
We've got a gorgeous story this week in @nature.com, in which Anne Pichon talks with experts in scientific illustration. 🧪 www.nature.com/immersive/d4... Also see our super-cool issue cover! www.nature.com/nature/volum... #science #art #scicomm
nature.com
‘Good design takes mastery’: scientific illustrators sketch out AI’s future
Nature talks to five artists about their approaches to communicating science visually.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Excited to have LOST IN CURIOSITY, the new book from @robertakwok.bsky.social, now in hand! #BookSky
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
What do you do after you've been to the Moon and back? For the #ArtemisII astronauts, it means public speaking until the heat death of the universe. Oh, and training the Artemis III crew. I took a look at post-spaceflight astronaut careers for @nature.com (free to read, just provide your email)🧪🛰️
nature.com
Here’s what’s next for the Artemis II astronauts
Newfound fame has proved to be stellar for some astronauts but harder for others. Will NASA’s popular crew need some space?
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Why am I only now realizing we should have had an Argentina vs Spain wine tasting today or maybe we just need to move directly to shots?
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
We have a fresh crop of talented @nature.com interns! Check out: 🛰️ Kaia Glickman on the giant space mirrors that would ruin the night sky www.nature.com/articles/d41... 💨 Dhruv Shenai on helium escaping a rocky world in its star's habitable zone www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪
nature.com
Can giant space mirrors boost green energy on Earth? A start-up aims to find out
Astronomers are deeply worried that a planned array of 50,000 mirror-bearing satellites in orbit will severely compromise telescopes.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Mick Jagger shaking his head says it all
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Are you interested in top-notch science writing? Order this new book from @theopennotebook.bsky.social! Edited by @siricarpenter.bsky.social, it includes many of your favorite writers talking about their craft. Order from the @uchicagopress.bsky.social link with code UCPNEW for 30% off!
theopennotebook.com
The Best Science Stories and How They Work: A Collection with Commentary - The Open Notebook
An invitation to engage with some of today’s most respected science journalists as they take readers beneath the surface to tell the stories behind eleven of the best science stories.
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
please make it stop
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
activate chaos mode ⚽
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Reposted by Alexandra Witze
Mount St. Helens Archive @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
RE: the events up in Seattle at present.
static.klipy.com
Richard Sherman Upset at Super Bowl Loss
Alt: Richard Sherman Upset at Super Bowl Loss
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
three out of three cats are unimpressed
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
We have family in Guadalajara and family in Surrey, can’t take this
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
who decides on these extra minutes?? Eleven, c’mon
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
From Cherokee drumming to Norah Jones, please enjoy this America250 playlist curated by a friend open.spotify.com/playlist/0Eu...
open.spotify.com
America 250, God Help Us
Playlist · KP · 250 items · 2 saves
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
alright the cat has a dental exam in the morning so the PANDEMONIUM is primarily over the kibble being taken up bring it on, belgium ⚽️
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
so basically we are boring boring boring trip boring trip trip CHAOS
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
why is this game not over yet
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Alexandra Witze @alexwitze.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Not actually sure what is going on but it all seems very exciting ⚽️
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Max Kozlov @maxkozlov.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
NIH grants have been under political scrutiny since early 2025. But what does the screening process actually look like? What is being flagged? I spent a month digging into leaked docs and emails. We've published the 235-word list that are being flagged by an internal AI tool. And so much more. 🧵
nature.com
Inside the new political screening that’s stalling NIH grants
Mandatory reviews by top health officials and checks for 235 disfavoured terms have left hundreds of vetted grant applications in administrative limbo.
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