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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

And in the meantime, I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering LIFE BEYOND MEASURE (or requesting the book from your local library). Of all the things that people can do to support authors, these are arguably the most impactful. Thank you! 10/ www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705...

penguinrandomhouse.com

Life Beyond Measure by Ed Yong: 9780593733288 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

Just as he did in his New York Times bestseller, An Immense World, Ed Yong expands our perception of nature, this time by revealing the astonishing ways living things operate at different scales. "A...

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I’m entirely off social media and will disappear again once this thread is done. If you’d like updates about the book and the eventual book tour (as well as regular infusions of my wildlife photography), you can sign up for my newsletter: buttondown.com/edyong209 9/

buttondown.com

The Ed's Up

Hi! It's me, Ed. If you know my work, it's probably either because of my pandemic coverage or my books, An Immense World and I Contain Multitudes. If you don't, hello! I'm a writer who mostly covers s...

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

I’m really grateful to several esteemed friends and colleagues whose blurbs so closely match what I hoped the text would accomplish. 8/

“A tour de force. Life Beyond Measure is an invitation to transcend the limits of our bodies and enter a dazzling world of animals and plants that defies all expectation. Ed Yong’s uncanny ability to break down the walls between us and the rest of nature has left me transformed.”
—Amy Tan, author of The Backyard Bird Chronicles

“Ed Yong reveals our fellow Earth dwellers in ways so mind-twisting they border on psychedelia. A fully formed wasp smaller than an amoeba. Bacteria so big you can see one with bare eyes. Plants that secrete appetite suppressants to foil hungry insects. This book amazes like no other I’ve read. Yong is the perfect ambassador to the improbable wonderland of nature freed from the perceptual boxes we humans typically confine it to. His writing is clear, clever, vivid, the science set alight by his enthusiasm—for the unseen, the unimagined, and the unappreciated (Yong’s passage about hagfish slime deserves a Pulitzer all its own).”
—Mary Roach, author of Stiff

“Utterly extraordinary. Yong’s spectacular new book is not just a mesmerizing examination of the wonders of life on Earth; it’s no less than a biography of life itself.”
—Emily St. John Mandel, author of Exit Party

“I read Life Beyond Measure with reverence and an unmitigated sense of awe, feeling the world expanding around me with every page. Ed Yong has written a gorgeous, profound book in which life comes forth in its sublime complexity to remind us of how modest yet precious our own individual existence is. With its unusual combination of erudition, heart, and humor, Life Beyond Measure sets a new standard in nature writing.”
—Hernan Diaz, author of Trust

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

(Also, as with the rest of my life, I created this book without any use of generative AI, whatsoever). 7/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Like I CONTAIN MULTITUDES and AN IMMENSE WORLD, this 3rd book is about parts of nature hidden from our perception. It defamiliarizes us what we thought we understood, and makes us reconsider familiar concepts like individuality, age, migration, movement. I filled every page with awe & wonder. 6/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

This is the first book I’ve written that encompasses the entirety of the living world. It features animals, yes, including fireflies, bar-tailed godwits, ocean skaters, and hagfish. But its protagonists also include plants, fungi, protists, bacteria, and more. It's all here. 5/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

It’s also about the layered nature of life: how organisms fashion amazing materials from simple building blocks, how they gain new powers by swarming together, & how groups can evolve into new kinds of individuals. And it’s about scales of influence & how organisms big and small remake our world. 4/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

LIFE BEYOND MEASURE is about life at every scale. It’s about what it’s like to be as large as a whale or as small as a bacterium, to travel worldwide like a migrating bird or to be rooted in place like a tree, to live for months like some reef fish or for millennia like a bristlecone pine. 3/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

LIFE BEYOND MEASURE is the culmination of so much for me. The interests, values, and skills I’ve cultivated across 2 decades of science-writing: I poured them all into this book. At a time of crisis, I wanted to make my biggest, boldest attempt at showing why the living world—all of it—matters. 2/

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Briefly popping my head back in to unveil the cover of my upcoming book, LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale. It’ll be out on April 6 in the U.S. and April 29 in the U.K. and you can pre-order it right now! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757705... 1/

A book cover featuring a beautiful closely cropped portrait of an Anna's hummingbird. The cover says LIFE BEYOND MEASURE: Nature's Hidden Wonders at Every Scale, by Ed Yong. The image also says US: 4/06/27 and UK: 4/29/27

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

One of the reasons I love this piece is that, in clearly showing why the administration’s attacks on medical research funding are so devastating, it also makes one of the clearest cases for why that funding has always mattered. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

unbreaking.org

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

unbreaking.org

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

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Unbreaking @unbreaking.org · 30/05/2025

Hi! We just released three new pages. First up, we break down the devastating defunding of medical research in the US, including grant terminations and delays representing nearly $5B in funding losses, cuts to future funding, and attacks on training programs: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

unbreaking.org

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

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Unbreaking @unbreaking.org · 19/05/2025

👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

I can’t recommend this enough. UNBREAKING, a new project from @lizneeley.bsky.social & co, documents & explains our many concurrent institutional collapses. It’s beautifully executed work, full of intellectual & moral clarity. 3 pages are live, more will come. It’s SO GOOD, & I learned so much.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

Genuinely delighted that @unbreaking.org is now doing our work in public. I cannot tell you what it means to be a part of it, or how much its already helped me. If my Meeting the Moment newsletter has helped you, Unbreaking is going to bowl you over. So much more ambitious and helpful. Join us!

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

AN IMMENSE WORLD: YOUNG READERS EDITION is out today! 🥳 I’m really grateful to AnnMarie Anderson for adapting it, Rebecca Mills for illustrating, Tom Russell for shepherding, and Rose Eveleth for reading the audiobook. (And it’s dedicated to Typo.) bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...

bookshop.org

An Immense World (Young Readers Edition): How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets

How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets

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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Encouraging news I would've missed if it weren't for Liz's weekly update: "The Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution proposing a Mutual Defense Compact in which members of the Big Ten conference will pool funding and legal, policy, and communications capacity and expertise." More of this!

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 05/04/2025

I flew home from #SciTalk25 last night, so this week’s Meeting the Moment debrief was written at altitude, while I watched lightning pulse in thunderclouds. What’s happening in science & higher ed: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... Thread to come after some much needed coffee and hiking.

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 29/03/2025

The latest issue of @lizneeley.bsky.social’s essential weekly newsletter on the continuing attacks on science & higher-ed, and living through these times: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

Week 10

Figuring out what to focus on now & what next in science and higher ed

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

I’ve had a several dozen requests to write or be interviewed about the 5th anniversary of Covid and said no to all of them… except this one with @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social. Here’s our chat on the things we’ve memory-holed, and where we go from here. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

kqed.org

Ed Yong on the Pandemic’s Legacy on Science Research and Reporting | KQED

As part of our series looking at the legacy of the pandemic five years on, we talk to Ed Yong about how COVID changed our relationship with health news, reporting and research.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Modern science is international. Travel is essential for training & collaboration, but the US is not reliably safe for many of us. We all have ways to confront the threat, even if leadership is failing us. More on that + Dept of Ed in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1/5)

buttondown.com

Week 9

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

The World Health Organization calculates that measles vaccinations saved 60 million lives, 2000-2023. On Thursday, CDC scientists were forbidden to co-author papers with WHO colleagues. Other attacks on science + what to do about them in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1 of 11)

buttondown.com

Week 6

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

Vermilion flycatcher🪶 📷 Alameda Creek This bird, which is rare for the Bay Area, was spotted in last year's Christmas Bird Count. No one has seen it for 7 weeks, and a lot of folks have looked. And then it just showed up in the same spot 2 days ago.

A little red-orange bird lands on a branch and spreads its wings and tail out

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

One last thing I’ll say about this is that judging by people’s messages, the audio version has some stuff not in the edited online transcript, including a discussion of the false tension around empathy in journalism, and a bit about paying attention to sparrows.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

Every Friday, I write a debrief about what’s happening in science & higher ed. It goes out late, and is written for all the friends & colleagues I wish I could sit down and talk it through with over drinks. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

Week 5

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...

nytimes.com

‘The Interview’: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World

The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

We do this all to stay focused, not flooded. I share the sense we’ve made in a late Friday night debrief. There is a lot to feel sad & sick about. I can’t tell you things will be okay, but I can tell you A LOT about efforts to make it better. This was week 4. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

Week 4

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 15/02/2025

If you care about science & higher ed in America right now, your world has changed. We have been forced into a battle we didn’t choose. Whatever our titles, our jobs now also includes emergency response, psychological first aid, organizing & many other things we weren’t trained in

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Well. I have been informed that it is the weekend, again. When you are ready to sit down together & figure out what just happened and what to do, we’ve got you: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... It’s also okay if you’re coming in hot! “What the actual fuck??” is a sensible start place at the moment.

buttondown.com

Week 3

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

Here’s @lizneeley.bsky.social’s latest newsletter, documenting the ongoing attacks on science and higher ed, and figuring out what to focus on: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

Week 3

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

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Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

This is the kind of simple and direct message we need right now: long-term damage aside, this attack is going to very quickly make it even harder for people to have the jobs and medical care they need.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 08/02/2025

"Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis...cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders" 🧪 #scicomm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

chemistryworld.com

Scientific institutions have a long history of anticipatory obedience

Societies should learn from this and speak up to support inclusion

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

And I really appreciate this framework too bsky.app/profile/lizn...

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

And finally, this isn’t about exhaustive knowledge about what is happening - it’s about figuring out what to DO. We made an acronym to help us cope each time we feel our adrenaline spike. That & more in this week’s issue: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Emergency Response Checklist. Text says "When bad news hits, don’t freeze. When you’re SCARED, use it." Then it breaks down the acronym: SAFETY CHECK Look for immediate danger and ensure your own safety first. ASSESSMENT Just how bad are things now? (Think DEFCON readiness levels). RISK EVALUATION What is the threat to you? (Deportation? Getting sued? Being hacked?) DECIDE Now you know what to do first. Revisit according to your assessment. You’ve got this.

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Please read, share, subscribe. And if you have bandwidth, please join us - from just sharing links to curating the data to building better the workflows on the tech side - you can meaningfully help us all navigate a poisonous information landscape. DM me or bit.ly/Liminal-slack

bit.ly

Slack

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

Each week, we are collecting, reading, vetting & tagging all the links, news & rumors you’re seeing whiz past you online. We are also talking to dozens of researchers & PIs about their firsthand experiences. Every Friday, I debrief you over a drink at buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

Making Sense of It All

Hi! I’m Liz Neeley and I’m glad you’re here. Making Sense of It All is an outlet for my work at Liminal, which focuses on sensemaking in a noisy and complicated world. I built Liminal as an antidote t...

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/02/2025

The news cycle right now - even just for science & higher ed - is overwhelming. We have to do it, but fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. My team is focused on tracking what’s happening to research funding, jobs & salaries, shared datasets, university responses & safety of our communities

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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

Learning to run long distances helps me think about how to survive our current situation. This thread, slightly expanded, in a post on how I'm buckling in for a long stretch of hard work at buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

buttondown.com

On marathons

How I'm buckling in for a long stretch of hard work. Learning to run long distances is helping me think about how to survive our current situation.

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Justin Mikulka @justinmikulka.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

From @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social "The power these organizations can wield—not just to make demands but to withhold labor, rent, debt payments or otherwise take action if demands are not met—is necessary for having a valid complaint about the world and being able to change it." Organize for power.

teenvogue.com

The Bad Guys Don’t Really Care What Kind of Leftist You Are

Infighting is a waste of energy.

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Ed Yong is offline @edyong209.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I was trying to photograph this beautiful glaucous-winged gull when I got unexpectedly photobombed by a harbor seal that had caught a very large fish--presumably a salmon. 🪶 📷Ballena Bay

A white and pale grey gull lifts its wings in the air while, a few feet away, a seal emerges from the water carrying a very large fish, whose tail is visible.

The gull is chill; the seal is next to it with the fish.

The gull has raised its wings; the seal dgaf and is monching on pink presumably-salmon flesh

The gull is opening its beak; the seal is right in front of it tearing fish flesh apart

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Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

NEW: Trans people centered themselves in a trans case before a very not trans court. Not only was Chase Strangio arguing Wednesday, but a trans plaintiff was in the courtroom, as were many other trans lawyers, journalists, and observers. "Trans people were not hidden Wednesday, and that matters."

lawdork.com

Trans people centered themselves in a trans case before a very not trans court

Not only was Chase Strangio arguing, but a trans plaintiff was in the courtroom Wednesday, as were many other trans people: lawyers, journalists, observers. It matters.

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Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 05/12/2024

In a nearly 300-page report, Amnesty International concluded that Israel's actions constitute genocide. “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”

motherjones.com

Amnesty International: Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

"Israel has forcibly displaced 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.2 million inhabitants, many of them multiple times."

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 04/12/2024

in hindsight the NYT anti-trans crusade is one of the most despicable things that any big time journalism outfit in this country has ever done. a perfect and clearly intentional layup for the fascists on the Supreme Court

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