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Jane Qiu, PhD

@janeqiu.bsky.social
1.2K followers 854 following 261 posts

Globe-trotting, award-winning independent science writer in China | Words in @nature.com, @sciam.bsky.social, National Geographic and more | Writing a book on emerging diseases for @scribnerbooks.bsky.social | Ex: @ksjatmit.bsky.social, @nature.com

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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Well, Bradshaw likes it, the trailer looks fab and the French have flocked in their millions. A pretty measly distribution in Manchester but I’ll be going.
theguardian.com
De Gaulle: Résistance review – a galloping bromance for Churchill and France’s wartime hero
This biopic of the great Gallic general – which culminates at Bir Hakeim, in advance of a second film – is a fine, quietly amusing romp with a touch of classic 60s war films
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Colin Schultz @colinschultz.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"A massive flood potentially caused by a chunk of ice breaking off from a glacier has swept away bridges, schools, and other buildings and killed at least 160 people" www.scientificamerican.com/article/wall...
scientificamerican.com
Wall of floodwater sweeps away villages in Nepal, with hundreds missing
A massive flood potentially caused by a chunk of ice breaking off from a glacier has swept away bridges, schools, and other buildings and killed at least 160 people
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Deborah Blum @deborahb.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
So did the FDA lie about the food recall rate? The problem is that today we all believe they would.
marlerblog.com
FDA Told the Country Not to Believe the Fake News and Posted a Chart. Susan Mayne Pulled the Same Dashboard and Found the Chart Is Not About Food, and That Food Recalls Are Running Toward an Eight-Yea...
The FDA’s official account posted a chart on August 21 under the words do not believe the fake news, reporting 1,836 recalls in fiscal 2026 and calling
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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This piece rather misses the fact that large corporates are increasingly becoming direct political players, and arguably in doing so undermining the notion of free markets that The Economist is supposed to support.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The recent paper in Science by Bill Martin's team on a vent form of LUCA and a possible "dual origin of life" got some coverage last week. I took a somewhat deeper dive for @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/life...
scientificamerican.com
Life’s ‘last universal common ancestor’ may predate life itself
A groundbreaking study hints at a hazy boundary between “life” and “non-life,” as well as two distinct origins of biology on Earth
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Deborah Blum @deborahb.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Unfortunately, even more valid today.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Food companies wanted deregulation. Now there are dozens of recalls across the country. Mining companies wanted deregulation. Now the black lung rate is at a 45-year high. Financial companies wanted deregulation. Now financial losses to fraud are the highest on record. Noticing a pattern?
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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 Jane Qiu, PhD
New Scientist @newscientist.com · 23/08/2026
The use of explosives to kill fish is widespread across the tropics, and acoustic monitoring in an Indonesian archipelago detected more than 3500 explosions in 483 days
newscientist.com
Fishers detonate a bomb every hour on one Indonesian coral reef | New Scientist
The use of explosives to kill fish is widespread across the tropics, and acoustic monitoring in an Indonesian archipelago detected more than 3500 explosions in 483 days
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Sarah DeWeerdt @sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Thrilled to share my new feature about a plucky group of scientists investigating the effects of rising temperatures on animal nervous systems. Come for The Blob, stay for the "unflappable" bird brains!
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
Rachel Courtland @rachelcourtland.com · 05/08/2026
Registration is now up for the @sciencewriters.org annual meeting. I'll be moderating a panel on AI and fielding pitches at the pitch slam. Hope you see you there! sciencewriters2026.org
sciencewriters2026.org
ScienceWriters2026 – A conference for science writers, by science writers
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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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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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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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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
Kai Kupferschmidt @kakape.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Hackenburg’s paper is the latest in a string of studies showing the power of AI to sway people. “It’s a whole new field that is emerging,” says @profsanderlinden.bsky.social. “People are very interested in the persuasive powers of AI, I think, both for ethical and unethical reasons”🧪 In @science.org
science.org
AI chatbots are becoming experts at changing people's minds. What's their secret?
ChatGPT and other AIs use a flood of facts, and the occasional lie, to persuade humans
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
🫠 An AI outlet scooped Wired at a cybersecurity conference. This might foreshadow where AI replaces journalists: scoops from online reports & datasets, and blogging about live events, like an Apple product launch. www.wired.com/story/ai-new...
RuntimeWire has been operating since May, publishing nearly 2,000 stories that it sources by crawling the internet, including court databases, web forums, traditional and new media, company filings, social feeds, and more. It focuses on granular tech news; recent stories include coverage of biotech startup funding rounds, Microsoft's Copilot upgrade, and backlash over Claude Code's watermark policy. Right now, quantity and speed trump quality. The OpenAI agents piece has a typo in the subhead and focuses, strangely, on the fact that agents rebuilt a message board rather than the fact that they created one in the first place. Overall, the stories are flatly written and tend to have an info-dump quality. (The RuntimeWire backend has a number of tonal modes the AI can write in, including “Bloomberg” and “contrarian.”) But overhead is minimal. The project costs about $100 a day to run, Merket says, and he’s able to operate it while on the go, even when he’s out camping. “I was in Big Bend National Park and I didn't have any internet except for my phone, and I managed the whole site through iMessage,” he says. “I put out over 80 articles that week.”Pete Pachal, the founder of a newsletter and podcast about generative AI and the media, has doubts that an AI newsroom could yield certain types of reporting that relies on old-fashioned sourcing. “I just don’t see that happening,” he says. “Cultivating the trust of a source, I do think that’s going to be human-only.” But for certain types of journalism, particularly sourcing scoops from large datasets or even blogging about a live event like an Apple product launch, he sees these projects as a “natural evolution” in how these tools are used. “Honestly, it feels a bit inevitable,” he says.

Is it actually journalism, though? “I am trying to follow journalistic ethics and standards,” Merket says. He says he contacts companies and individuals referenced in the stories for comment prior to publication, links out to sources when he aggregates news, and issues corrections if he gets the facts wrong. (So far, there have been three.) Sometimes he speaks like a reporter, too: “This weekend, I got two scoops up I was really excited about.” Other times, though, he’s more clearly in Silicon Valley mode. He told me a story about how his AI agents had found a few actual scoops about startups by trawling company websites and that he’d retracted the stories after the companies named asked him to do so—not because they were inaccurate, but as a favor. “Founder to founder, it’s like, I get it,” Merket says.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
So Odin and Loki are now apparently "left-leaning". OK.
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Flo Débarre @flodebarre.eurosky.social · 19/08/2026
Pretty amazing timing: basically the opposite viewpoint was recently published in Science "Except I did not author most of those texts. I came up with the idea, the experiments, the data, and the references. But the process was devoid of writing, and really, of me." www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
I had to unplug from AI to rediscover my love of writing
I realized relying on AI was making me a less critical scientist, this clinician-researcher writes
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
The Open Notebook @theopennotebook.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Subrahmanyam gets perspectives from @janeqiu.bsky.social, @katarinazimmer.bsky.social, @michaelgreshko.bsky.social, Bianca Bosker, @leahc.bsky.social, Paulina Rowińska, @walkingthedot.bsky.social, and @vcallier.bsky.social. Read here: www.theopennotebook.com/2026/08/18/h...
theopennotebook.com
https://www.theopennotebook.com/2026/08/18/how-to-write-about-scientific-debates/
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
STAT @statnews.com · 05/08/2026
Exclusive: Once again, child dies in gene-editing trial in China, rekindling debate on transparency and safety www.statnews.com/2026/08/05/c...
statnews.com
Once again, child dies in gene-editing trial in China, rekindling debate on transparency and safety
With a second delayed report of a child's death in China, criticism is rising of a looser form of clinical trial. One expert: what "bothers me is the lack of transparency."
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
John Travis @john-travis.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
16 months after a young girl died in a gene-editing trial, the study's entry in clinicaltrial. gov has finally been updated to acknowledge the death. The move comes after @science.org and @retractionwatch.com revealed the fatality 1/ science.org/content/arti...
clinicaltrials.gov
ClinicalTrials.gov
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Roberta Kwok @robertakwok.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Wonderful review of Lost in Curiosity in Science: "Young scientists’ passion and commitment take center stage in a moving portrait of research in action... Kwok brings readers to the wings of a play whose ending has not yet been written" www.science.org/doi/full/10.... by @vijee.bsky.social
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Orca Behavior Institute @orcabehaviorinstitute.org · 24/07/2026
While on the water out of Seward, Alaska last month, we had the incredible experience of encountering a group of ~20 uncatalogued Alaskan resident orcas on back-to-back days. Check out this incredible mid-air salmon grab that was one of the highlight moments of the trip! #orcas #whalesky #alaska
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Sarah DeWeerdt @sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
What do orcas get up to at night? A LOT, it turns out. Find out more in my latest piece for Salish Sea Currents magazine from @pugetsoundinstitute.org: www.eopugetsound.org/article/orca...
eopugetsound.org
Orcas by night: A rare look at the nighttime activities of endangered killer whales | Encyclopedia of Puget Sound
Killer whales are active both day and night, but most scientific research focuses on their daytime activities. A recent study looked at a small group of endangered southern residents to find out how o...
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
Chris Baraniuk @chrisbaraniuk.com · 03/08/2026
NEW: Big new feature from me about offshore wind farms as anchors for wildlife! For example: seals swimming *into* turbine towers to, apparently, hunt fish - and scour protection at the base of turbines used by sea creatures as a dwelling place. atmos.earth/science-and-...
atmos.earth
The Sea Life Making a Home in Offshore Wind Farms | Atmos
Offshore wind farms can pose risks to birds and marine life. But their foundations also serve as artificial reefs, offering essential habit.
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Roberta Kwok @robertakwok.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Seattle, I'll be giving a book talk at Smarty Pints (science + beer) at the Burke-Gilman Brewing Company on August 17! UW physicist Meg Wynne will also talk about neutrinos and the origins of the universe. Details: www.burkegilmanbrewing.com/smarty-pints About the book: www.robertakwok.com/book
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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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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Going to see the Odyssey later this week (Imax 70 booked up completely- if I enjoy the squished version, will go again when the exc has died down). This from classicist @daisydunn.bsky.social in the Literary Review is a well-informed, thoughtful review, far from the various polemics.
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Aneela انیلہ 🇵🇸🍁 @anee1a.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
This interview between Nolan and Chinese academic and doctoral student Yiyang Zhuge is one of the best interviews I’ve seen in a long, long time. Skips past the routine questions about performances, IMAX cameras etc and really makes him work for his answers. youtu.be/wa4I8Ch2TRo?...
youtu.be
Christopher Nolan talks narrative decisions, film critics and whether he Christianised The Odyssey
YouTube video by Nolan Archives
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The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 01/08/2026
As wildfires continue to get bigger and more frequent, humans need a better way to know how safe it is to be outside, @engber.bsky.social argues.
bit.ly
Weather Forecasts Aren’t Made for Smoke Like This
We need a better way to know when it’s safe outside.
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Reposted by Jane Qiu, PhD
New Scientist @newscientist.com · 01/08/2026
From tides to eclipses, the slow departure of our moon will affect life on Earth, say our correspondents
newscientist.com
Last Word: What changes will occur on Earth as the moon moves further away? | New Scientist
From tides to eclipses, the slow departure of our moon will affect life on Earth, say our correspondents
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The US owes the Pan-American Health Organization $135 million in past dues. Trump's budget proposal cuts funding for PAHO entirely, even though our contribution is 0.001% of federal spending. The result will be even weaker defenses agst measles, dengue & more. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/h...
nytimes.com
Former Officials Protest U.S. Plan to Defund Pan American Health Organization
The group of former health and national security officials warned that Americans will be more vulnerable to infectious disease threats.
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MIT Technology Review @technologyreview.com · 31/07/2026
Opinion: The ability to remember you and your preferences is rapidly becoming a big selling point for AI chatbots and agents. That creates the potential for unprecedented privacy breaches that expose not only isolated data points, but the entire mosaic of people’s lives.
trib.al
What AI “remembers” about you is privacy’s next frontier
Agents’ technical underpinnings create the potential for breaches that expose the entire mosaic of your life.
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Amy Maxmen, PhD @amymaxmen.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
I went to Utah to see what life is like in America's new reality, where vaccine-preventable diseases are common again. Utah's measles outbreak has lasted 10 months. Pediatricians teared up in interviews. Mothers were stressed. 🧵My latest @wired.com @kffhealthnews.org www.wired.com/story/anguis...
wired.com
Anguished Parents, Crying Doctors: Life Amid Utah’s Measles Outbreak
The state’s outbreak means adapting to America’s new reality, in which vaccine-preventable diseases become common again.
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Guardian US @us.theguardian.com · 30/07/2026
"A concentration camp, in its most basic definition, is a place where a targeted civilian population, not necessarily accused of a crime, is detained and at least some of their basic rights are suspended," writes @jwashing.bsky.social. "That’s precisely what’s happening in the United States today."
theguardian.com
Don’t call them ICE detention centers. Call them camps | John Washington
I’ve spent a decade reporting on immigration enforcement. The word ‘camp’ best captures the political function of these facilities
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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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Deborah Blum @deborahb.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Thread. Smart.
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Deborah Blum @deborahb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
“One of the things I’m personally concerned about, we’re starting to have more and more of these outbreaks here in the United States,” said the senior director of food safety and quality at Fresh Express.“I am concerned that we may not have really hit the peak of the outbreaks.”
nytimes.com
As Cyclospora Cases Climb, FDA Official Says Food Supply Is Safe (Gift Article)
The acting deputy commissioner for food said the agency was taking action even though finding the root cause of the outbreaks is difficult.
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NPR @npr.org · 30/07/2026
There's a reason why double- or triple-screening your devices makes you feel tired, says NPR's Manoush Zomorodi. She explains the science of information overload and how to reclaim calm and focus. n.pr/4ftjn1x
n.pr
Digital habits that rob attention and energy — and how to combat them
There's a reason why double- or triple-screening your devices makes you feel tired, says NPR's Manoush Zomorodi. She explains the science of information overload and how to reclaim calm and focus.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This matches my feelings on reading what Burnham said about social care today. A step forward.
theguardian.com
Andy Burnham wants to fix social care. It’s personal for him and for a lot of us too
Finally a grownup is in charge who speaks to voters as fellow adults. If he fixes this, he’ll achieve more than most other PMs
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The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · 30/07/2026
The death of 15 elephants in the span of a month in southern Kenya’s Amboseli National Park under unexplained circumstances has sparked outrage in the country, where wildlife tourism is an economic pillar.
washingtonpost.com
Death of 15 elephants in Kenyan national park sparks outrage, investigation
The unexplained deaths over the past month have raised fears of poisoning.
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WIRED @wired.com · 30/07/2026
Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield. www.wired.com/story/a-civi...
wired.com
A Civilian Plane Crashed in New Mexico. Was the Military’s Tech to Blame?
Drone warfare is making the skies more dangerous, even for airplanes far from the battlefield.
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Jane Qiu, PhD @janeqiu.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
When applying for @ksjatmit.bsky.social, I was advised to make a case how it would be a transformative experience As someone aversive to hyperboles, I cringed. It turned out to be transformative in ways more than one, without which this award would not have been possible. bsky.app/profile/scie...
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CASW @sciencewriting.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Congratulations to @janeqiu.bsky.social for winning the 2026 Sharon Begley Science Reporting Award! Judges called her work masterful, trailblazing and fearless. Her award grant will support a book project on emerging infectious diseases. casw.org/news/jane-qi...
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Christie Aschwanden @cragcrest.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Huge congrats to Jane Qui, who has been awarded the @sciencewriting.bsky.social 2026 Sharon Begley Award for Science Reporting for her wide-ranging reporting on everything from Tibet's grasslands to CRISPR babies and the lab leak controversy. casw.org/news/jane-qi...
casw.org
Jane Qiu wins 2026 Sharon Begley Award - CASW
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
22 years ago today, Francis Crick died. You can read about his life, his brilliance and his failures in my biography, available in hardback in the UK and USA (and as an audiobook and ebook) and soon in a chonky UK paperback.
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Jane Qiu, PhD @janeqiu.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
It took the couple 4 years before their daughter Mei was born Mei suffered from mild genetic condition but appeared to be improving with speech & occupational therapies Then she died from a reckless gene editing therapy ✍️ Brendan Borrell @retractionwatch.com @science.org bsky.app/profile/retr...
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Jane Qiu, PhD @janeqiu.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
The world is full of stories about eccentric geniuses having a eureka moment that leads to groundbreaking scientific discoveries @robertakwok.bsky.social corrects that narrative glossing over & reveals the messy reality of doing science ✍️ @goesbykim.bsky.social www.sciencenews.org/article/revi...
sciencenews.org
Lost in Curiosity reveals the messy reality of doing science
In her new book, science journalist Roberta Kwok takes readers behind the scenes to understand how researchers get nature to give up its secrets.
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Jennifer Kretchmer @dreamwisp.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
While we are in this Greek Mythology moment, may I remind you that Emma Thompson is adapting Pat Barker’s take on The Iliad, and she’s struggled to get it made bc the focus on what acts of war against women and survival thereafter actually look like (the core of Barker’s narrative) is too intense.
thetimes.com
Emma Thompson adapting feminist retelling of Iliad for big screen
The actress told the Hay Festival she is writing a film version of Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls to draw attention to sexual abuse in war zones
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Hank Greely @hankgreely.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Great, detailed story on a death in a tragic & flawed Chinese gene therapy trial www.science.org/content/arti... Excellent job by Brendan Borrell w/ @retractionwatch.com. Complex, nuanced & in some respects damning. (On line version looks a bit longer than in Science.) (COI-quotes me, in passing).
science.org
Exclusive: Death of girl in Chinese gene-editing trial was never made public
Parents want accountability after study went disastrously wrong, Science and Retraction Watch investigation reveals
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