iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Hannah Waters

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 23/09/2026

“Jumping genes” can cut and paste themselves into new locations in the genome. But they’re more than parasites or genetic junk. www.quantamagazine.org/how-virus-li…

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Rachel Holliday Smith @rachelholliday.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

chat is this good www.axios.com/newsletters/...

1 big thing: Ø Link economy breaks
Total U.S. web traffic for top news sites
Visits to approximately 100 top sites;

Traffic to news sites is plummeting in the
U.S. as tech giants steer people away from search and toward AI.

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 21/09/2026

The DNA in your cells has a much more complicated backstory than you might think. To convey this, our art department gave stop-motion a try:

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Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Periplus, a mentorship collective serving US-based early-career writers of color, is now accepting applications for our 2027 class of fellows! Apply by Oct. 11: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... You can learn more about Periplus (including fellowship eligibility requirements) at bit.ly/periplusfaq

docs.google.com

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Colin Schultz @colinschultz.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

I'm really not sure how to say this, so I'm just going to say it: My contract at @biographic.bsky.social is not being renewed. As management let me know not long ago, the latest funding crisis--really, the latest in a string of funding crises--was just too much to handle.

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vortex_egg @vortexegg.com · 13/09/2026

Fwiw it's straightforward right now why this is happening; and it's the same reason why the global far right supremacist eliminationist movement is happening, the christian extremist apocalyptic immenantization is happening, etc. People are bug fuck out of their minds in denial of the climate crisis

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Holly Bik @hollybik.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Never thought I’d wake up and see @echinoblog.bsky.social @noaa.gov on the front page of the celebrity gossip subreddit. But I guess we have two new #deepsea celebrities! www.reddit.com/r/popculture...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 11/09/2026

For millions of years, marine plankton built their spiral shells in one direction. Then, suddenly, their spiral direction changed at the same time. And then, they switched back again. What is causing these peculiar shifts? www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-these...

quantamagazine.org

Why Do These Fossil Shells Flip Their Spirals Every Few Millennia? | Quanta Magazine

The mystery of the flipping foraminifera may conceal a rarely observed evolutionary process playing out across the planet.

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 11/09/2026

Introducing Transformation, Quanta Magazine’s weekly bulletin chronicling the latest news in math and AI — and what it means for mathematics as a whole, written by @kkakaes.bsky.social. Read our first post: www.quantamagazine.org/updates/tran...

quantamagazine.org

Transformation | Quanta Magazine

A weekly dispatch exploring the latest news in math and AI…

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Congrats to my colleagues on the launch of a weekly dispatch on how AI is transforming research mathematics - which, a year ago, felt far away and now seems to be happening all at once... www.quantamagazine.org/updates/tran...

quantamagazine.org

Transformation | Quanta Magazine

A weekly dispatch exploring the latest news in math and AI…

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 03/09/2026

Most of the produce aisle exists thanks to genome duplication events. www.quantamagazine.org/genome-dupli…

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

once in a while, a mistake of cell division results in an organism having double chromosomes. genomic data is revealing just how often genome duplication has led to major evolutionary innovation - www.quantamagazine.org/genome-dupli...

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Lennon @lennon-s.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

When i was homeless the thing that moved the needle for me (and got me from homeless to homeowner) wasn’t sweeps or drug education or “outreach” programs It was having a safe place to shower, use the restroom and store my stuff. A place to catch my breath. House the homeless.

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PM2.5 Kills ~9 Million People Each Year Worldwide @tkovach.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

"At the time the game was paused, the temperature in Topeka, Kan., was 99 degrees with a heat index of 108... By rule, the game could not resume until the wet-bulb thermometer temperature dropped below 92.1 degrees...After a lengthy delay, the game was called."

nytimes.com

College football game ends in tie after 108-degree heat index makes OT untenable

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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

This is pretty fucking wild. I had assumed in a worst case scenario he would target blue zip codes and toss ballots based on technicalities but this is even worse than I imagined.

Not only is this system astonishingly untested, USPS has simultaneously implemented an
impracticable zero percent failure rate.
13 When ballots are submitted to USPS in large-volume
batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the Portal, all ballots in that
batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to
USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal – because, for
example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved – then
USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well. As the whistleblower notes,

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Virginia Gewin @virginiagewin.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

The @sciencewriters.org meeting is just over a month away at @oregonstate.edu! #SciWri26 Check out this amazing Pitch Slam panel: @blkahn.bsky.social @wired.com @rachelcourtland.com @technologyreview.com @hanner.bsky.social @quantamagazine.org Chuck Squatriglia @grist.org Polish those pitches!

Advertisement for the Pitch Slam at the NASW conference in Corvallis, Oregon on Sept 27 at 11:15. Chuck Squatriglia (Grist), Rachel Courtland (MIT Tech Review), Brian Kahn (Wired) and Hannah Waters (Quanta) are the editors who will provide feedback on 1 minute story pitches.

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Michel Nivard @michelnivard.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

A mother of a 16 year old, green card holder, a psychology and statistics professor at Los Angeles Pierce College, very much “someone like me”, has been in ICE detention since April. She and her family have even been blocked from self deprorting to Turkey. Bone chilling read.

thenation.com

One Woman’s Message From the Hell of ICE Detention

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Robin Berghaus @robinberghaus.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Writers, bring your pitches for feedback on Sept 27 @11:15am at Pitch Slam! @sciencewriters.org #NASW #SciWri26 Panelists: Chuck Squatriglia @grist.org @rachelcourtland.com @technologyreview.com Brian Kahn @wired.com @hanner.bsky.social @quantamagazine.org 🔗 Register sciencewriters2026.org

ScienceWriters2026
Corvallis, OR

Pitch Slam
September 27 at 11:15am

Photos of panelists include:
Chuck Squatriglia | Senior Editor, Grist
Rachel Courtland | Commissioning Editor, MIT Technology Review
Brian Kahn | Senior Science Editor, WIRED
Hannah Waters | Senior Editor, Biology, Quanta Magazine

Moderator and organizers
Sarah Scoles, Virginia Gewin, and Robin Berghaus

LIVE in Corvallis, writers will pitch one-minute story ideas and receive immediate feedback from editors!

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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 02/08/2026

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

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Reposted by Hannah Waters

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 28/07/2026

Shayan Oveis Gharan has trouble staying still — so it’s fitting that he’s known for his work on the traveling salesperson problem, a notoriously difficult computational problem about roaming from place to place. And now he’s won the IMU Abacus Medal.

quantamagazine.org

Shayan Oveis Gharan Wins 2026 IMU Abacus Medal | Quanta Magazine

Shayan Oveis Gharan has won the Abacus Medal for using tools from across mathematics to boost the power of algorithms.

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Austin Kocher, PhD @austinkocher.com · 28/07/2026

65,765 people were in ICE detention as of July 11, in ICE's first data since April. Arrests hit a record 1,474 a day, and the largest group in custody has no criminal history at all. Full edition: austinkocher.substack.com/p/this-week-...

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 27/07/2026

Cows can eat up to 100lbs daily, thanks to the bustling microbiome in their gut pouch. All that digestion results in a whole lot of cow burps. And all those cow burps are warming our planet. Scientists are exploring new ways to squelch the belch. www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-way-th...

quantamagazine.org

A New Way That a Cow’s Inner World Shapes Earth’s Atmosphere | Quanta Magazine

An organelle discovered inside a microbe inside a cow’s gut helps explain how livestock burps contribute to warming our planet.

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Yes, it's true, I did manage to run a story about @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social's translation of the Odyssey in Audubon magazine back in 2018. @asherelbein.bsky.social on the avian seductive song of forbidden knowledge: www.audubon.org/magazine/sir...

audubon.org

Sirens of Greek Myth Were Bird-Women, Not Mermaids

A new translation of Homer’s Odyssey corrects the record: The Sirens' seductive power lies with their otherworldly, avian knowledge.

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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 24/07/2026

I have previously written about one reason that billionaires find the AI story so compelling: at root, many billionaires just don't believe most other people are actually, fully real. How could they? Achieving billionairehood requires that you inflict pain on vast numbers of people. 13/

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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Everything is on fire, but I just saw one of these drinking from the pond. We cannot let the fascists destroy our world.

A tiny round Goldcrest (Regulus Regulus), with beige-grey-green plumage, black, yellow and white wings, and a bright yellow stripe on its head, bordered in black. Photo from Woodland Trust.

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Feels like a good day to re-up this Amanda Gefter piece - Why do we tell ourselves scary stories about AI? (For example, that they are autonomously breaking free of human controls to hack a company) www.quantamagazine.org/why-do-we-te...

quantamagazine.org

Why Do We Tell Ourselves Scary Stories About AI? | Quanta Magazine

Our tales of AI developing the will to survive, commandeer resources, and manipulate people say more about us than they do about language models.

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Roberta Kwok @robertakwok.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

It's pub day for Lost in Curiosity -- please re-post widely! "Lively and revelatory" (Elizabeth Kolbert), "beautifully written" (Alan Lightman), "an utter delight" (Sabrina Imbler), "the kind of trip you won't want to miss" (Deborah Blum) www.robertakwok.com/book

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/07/2026

and also, isn't white supremacy such a profound intellectual error that you should immediately question the basic capacities of anyone who indulges it?

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Kylie Eleison @gonebabygone.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Cannot think of anything that could go wrong once the United States establishes a precedent that one country can seek reprisals for how another country affects its climate

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

They’re kids!

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 19/07/2026

The ever-expanding list of core processes that mitochondria influence — immune activity, reproduction, metabolism, aging and longevity, and more — strongly suggests how mitochondrial dysfunctions could relate to many different diseases and disorders.

quantamagazine.org

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind | Quanta Magazine

The biologist’s bold “energetic view of life” looks to the body’s strangest organelles as the link between cells, health, and mind and the foundation of our experience of being alive.

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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 17/07/2026

The mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell — and according to biologist Martin Picard, they’re also the link between biology, health, and the mind. In other words, the foundation of our experience being alive. www.quantamagazine.org/martin-picar...

quantamagazine.org

Martin Picard’s Mitochondrial Theory of Mind | Quanta Magazine

The biologist’s bold “energetic view of life” looks to the body’s strangest organelles as the link between cells, health, and mind and the foundation of our experience of being alive.

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

@georgemusser.com Hey George, shoot me an email? hwaters@quantamagazine.org I have a question for you

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Ellie Silverman @byelliesilverman.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

In my first story with Kelley French for @notus.com, I spoke to the woman pictured in the Metro photo on July 4. She didn't know she went viral. Her family wants people to know their difficult reality. Please take some time with our story today www.notus.org/metro/viral-...

notus.org

The Woman in the Photo Wanted to Be Alone. Instead, She Went Viral.

America saw what it wanted to see on the face of its newest icon. And everyone saw it wrong.

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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 13/07/2026

With all the July model runs now in, it is very likely that 2026 will see the largest El Niño event since records began in the late 1800s – and potentially by a truly mind-blowing margin. The median estimate is now 3.6C, roughly 0.8C hotter than the prior record (2.75C). www.theclimatebrink....

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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

For the 95%+ who never come forward, to be crystal clear: you made a brave choice too. I'm proud of you for every way that you heal, grow, try to forget things, or simply persist. 2/2

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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I've been doing sexual harassment and assault research and advocacy work since 2012. If there's one thing people need to understand is that everything, literally everything, is stacked against the victim. Every one who comes forward risks their reputation, identity, safety, and more. 1/2

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I missed this and it is the sign of a profoundly diseased society. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/m...

nytimes.com

Why Is Florida Executing So Many Prisoners?

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Hannah Waters @hanner.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Amanda Petrusich: www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

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Jan Steinkühler @steinkuehler.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Cool work from Kate Adamala who uses the division mechanism I found during my years at the Max Planck of Colloids and Interfaces (and @dimovalab.bsky.social). Science is best when we share our insights and build on it.

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Naomi Klein @naomiaklein.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

As many experience lethal, unlivable heat, it's a good time to remember that there is no such thing as a climate refugee under the law. Climate breakdown was not understood when the UN convention was written. In the US, there is one way for extreme weather to be the basis for legal status: TPS.

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