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John Rennie

@johnrennie.bsky.social
1.3K followers 452 following 172 posts

Science writer/editor | Frmrly of Quanta Magazine, Scientific American, TWC's Hacking the Planet & more | Faculty: NYU SHERP. | Friend to those who have no friends; enemy to those who make me an enemy. (he/him) 🧪🥋🦮| JohnRennie.net

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Reposted by John Rennie
Steven Strogatz @stevenstrogatz.com · 23/09/2026
www.nytimes.com/2026/09/22/s...
nytimes.com
Mathematics Isn’t Just a Game to Let A.I. Solve. History Shows Why. (Gift Article)
In our field of applied mathematics, the long, human process of trial and error — not just the solutions themselves — is often what has led to progress.
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Mike the Mad Biologist and Trump's Press Corps Approver @mikethemadbiol.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
The primary consequence of the proposed NIH score release format will be to obscure political interference in science. But it also will make the grant submission process less efficient for scientists–the kind of thing Klein and the 'Abundists' were burbling on about in 2025.
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 17/08/2026
"AI" has existed in its current form for barely four years and the fact that it's jammed up the cognitive development of an entire generation that fast (and that there's a specific overclass of techofascists who are deeply thrilled about this) is a big damn red flag. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/u...
nytimes.com
What Do Students Lose When They Stop Writing? (Gift Article)
Educators are worried that many students can no longer write essays without A.I. And it’s costing more than just grammar skills.
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Rank and file Republicans are turning against LGBT acceptance and GOP politicians are leaning into bigotry in both rhetoric and policy. But it is you, the progressive queer or ally, who needs to open your mind and consider other people's feelings. news.gallup.com/poll/710810/...
Most of the recent changes in LGBTQ+ attitudes have occurred among Republicans. For example, in 2021 and 2022, 55% of Republicans said they favored legal same-sex marriage, but today, the figure is 37%. Among independents, support has dropped six points, to 67%, while Democrats’ views are the same as in 2022 (87% in favor).
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Alina Chan is a discredited crank and it is embarrassing for the Times to publish this
How to Stop a Lab Leak From Starting the Next Pandemic
More than six years after the emergence of Covid-19, no one is keeping track of the risky virus experiments that are capable of starting a pandemic.

By Alina Chan
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I muted a Jeffries post yesterday because the pro-Jeffries crowd found it. Some of the kinder critiques were essentially "You don't understand how the game is played, but Jeffries does." I understand exactly how the game is played. He's working for who he considers to be his bosses, which are not us
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
This was a devastating attack on America’s crucial “Not Getting the Joke” reserve. securityaffairs.com/191059/secur...
securityaffairs.com
Bluesky hit by 24-hour DDoS attack as pro-Iran group claims responsibility
Bluesky suffered a 24-hour DDoS attack that caused outages. A pro-Iran hacker group claimed responsibility for the disruption.
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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 17/08/2026
Am I supposed to say conversion therapy came from a place of love and their racism from economic anxiety? Do tell. I seriously want an answer.
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Sheryl Weikal says Prosecute ICE @leftistlawyer.com · 17/08/2026
So tell me, @nytimes.com, because I genuinely want to know: since cutting off my parents was so evil, what is your proposed alternative? Am I supposed to just sit there silently as they call me an abomination and my wife racist slurs? Am I supposed to tell them I love them as they call me a faggot?
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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Once again and over and over until it gets through: archives and libraries scanning something for preservation is an entirely different story than private citizens and companies doing it, because there are strict ethical standards for the former and the latter consider them annoyances.
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Jen Taub @jentaub.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health.” ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
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Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.org · 17/08/2026
The Navier-Stokes equations are enormously successful at predicting how fluids flow and swirl. But they fail to account for the existence of swarms of microscopic bits that make up matter. Now physicists have a new theory that does. www.quantamagazine.org/theory-of-fl...
quantamagazine.org
Theory of Fluids Enters the 21st Century | Quanta Magazine
From the 1800s to the early 2000s, physicists used the same theory to understand the behavior of fluids. Now, using a modern insight, they have redefined fluids from the bottom up.
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worms cited @christa.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
New from Kathleen Stock: I am too dumb for climate change
Climate change discourse leaves me cold

Kathleen Stock
AUG 14 2026 
…
Inevitably, the usuals are using the fifth heatwave of the English summer to hammer home their preferred theories about the origins of about climate change. But I can't be bothored to attend, and it isn't just because of the brain fog. *I find it impossible to navigate such large-scale intellectual terrain, where the very nature of the problem is radically contested, let alone the solutions.*

Whether apocalyptic or deflationary, every point in this area seems to be delivered with identical confidence, in
equally technical language. So who do you trust? A popular way to negotiate the thicket seems to be to pick the political side you hate most, then lampoon everything its representatives say on the matter, and conclude the opposite must be right. Unfortunately, though, I dislike Right and Left equally for different reasons, so that doesn't much help.
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Philipp Markolin @philippmarkolin.eurosky.social · 16/08/2026
"What is certain is that a clear, undeniable pattern has emerged. What NIH says about how it funds science publicly flatly contradicts what its internal directives, public notices, and own staff describe privately."
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
The overlooked role of epigenetics in fisheries-induced evolution www.cell.com/trends/ecolo... 🌎🦑🧪🐟
cell.com
The overlooked role of epigenetics in fisheries-induced evolution
Fisheries-induced evolution (FIE) is typically framed in terms of genetic change, yet epigenetic processes linking environmental variation to phenotype remain overlooked. We propose that selective…
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Micah @rincewind.run · 16/08/2026
"we welcome anyone who recognizes the danger Trump and his extremist MAGA agenda pose to hard-working Americans who can no longer afford basic goods because of his immoral and unnecessary war..." come on man, 'take the question and pivot to an attack' is not that hard
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Mike the Mad Biologist and Trump's Press Corps Approver @mikethemadbiol.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
…this week, the DNC resolution still won't have been covered in any meaningful (and accurate) way. Would love to be wrong though.
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Mike the Mad Biologist and Trump's Press Corps Approver @mikethemadbiol.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
One more point (maybe one more…): in the 2024, more people voted for the Democratic presidential candidate than live in France. *The entire country*. Surely, an anti-ICE resolution by said party is more important than some drivel by the Red Star faction of the DSA, but I'm guessing by the end of…
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Ultra-processed food is still everywhere, sucker.
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Mike Masnick @masnick.com · 16/08/2026
"I'm sorry, we booked you to speak because we were under the impression that you were informed of the issues, as mandated by your job. Now that we know you are incompetent, unprepared, or lying, we will let you go and find someone who can answer necessary questions."
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Nature @nature.com · 16/08/2026
What are the advantages of mRNA vaccines? go.nature.com/4i8VBth
go.nature.com
Will the mRNA flu shot work better than a regular seasonal one? What the science says
Nature - Moderna’s newly approved vaccine could allow manufacturers to respond more rapidly to changing influenza strains.
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John Rennie @johnrennie.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
How else is he to know what spittle to lick?
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Ward Q. Normal (he/him) @wardqnormal.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Any day now this tech is gonna cure all diseases. Absolutely. Any day now.
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Rochelle @uberwensch.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
We've been over this: it's the scrabble championship as a whole which understands French.
french scrabble champ who doesn't speak french
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Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Happy 10 year anniversary of the best mic drop on Twitter. Hard to believe it’s been so long! Congrats @astrokatie.com

Katie Mack @AstroKatie
16h
Honestly climate change scares the heck out of me and it makes me so sad to see what we're losing because of it.

Gary P Jackson (RAT) @gary4205
@AstroKatie Maybe you should learn some actual SCIENCE then, and stop listening to the criminals pushing the #GlobalWarming SCAM!

Katie Mack @AstroKatie
@gary4205 | dunno, man, I already went and got a PhD in astrophysics.
Seems like more than that would be overkill at this point.
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Denny Carter @dennycarter.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
independents at 18% approval is crazy
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Michael E. Mann @michaelemann.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
“Fighting the Climate Disinformation Wars with Dr. Michael Mann” | My new interview with @dfenton.bsky.social of the #FentonForecast: thefentonforecast.substack.com/p/fighting-t...
thefentonforecast.substack.com
FIGHTING THE CLIMATE DISINFORMATION WARS WITH DR. MICHAEL MANN
Have you noticed that the hotter it gets, the more wildfires spark, the more climate disinformation floods social media?
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 11/08/2026
@laminda.bsky.social's first independent news room/journalist starter pack. The classic! go.bsky.app/2Fq4P6e
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 11/08/2026
A bunch of journalists and experts who were early adopters of Bluesky and who I generally find reliable, trustworthy, and interesting. go.bsky.app/GWQFKht
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Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 04/08/2026
You could grow a spine and do your damn jobs.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Not sure if everyone appreciates the difference. Rooftop solar hardwires into your main panel via a dedicated breaker, so it requires a permit, an installer, an electrician, and a utility agreement. Balcony solar just plugs into a wall outlet, sharing an existing circuit with no permits or rewiring.
canarymedia.com
A new deal on balcony solar just dropped in the US
Plug-in panels can lower your bills. To boost the American market for the tech, nonprofit Bright Saver is selling kits with no markup, starting at around…
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Dan Falk @danfalk.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Great interview: On @quantamagazine.org's podcast, Samir Patel speaks with @philipcball.bsky.social about what makes living things different from inorganic material. Living entities appear to do stuff "for reasons"...as though they have agency... so what does that mean, exactly? #science #philosophy
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Bethany Brookshire @beebrookshire.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
As a former neuroscientist (who studied dopamine), I cannot endorse this enough.
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 31/07/2026
Kinda wild that @jamellebouie.net is the only person saying this clearly in a high-profile media outlet, but I'm so glad he is.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Why Do We Tolerate Elon Musk’s Racist Commentary?
Why does the owner of X get a pass for what he says and does there?
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
After my parents were visiting set for the first time, I asked my dad what he thought. He said “I didnt realize, it’s like you’re building a house, and once an hour good looking people run in and put on a play for five minutes. Then they leave and you go back to construction.”
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Rob Arnol @robertarnol.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Morning. ☕️
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 30/07/2026
This is why I say that caving on the sports issue doesn't make it go away. The IOC, World Athletics, 27 states, and every major sporting body have banned trans athletes. The Supreme Court agreed with them. They got what they wanted and they still can't shut up about it and keep making it an issue.
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Normally, I think it's bullshit when people talk about perjury traps but Paul's vindictiveness is so over-the-top (releasing the guy's unredacted diary!) that this hearing could only be a pretext to get Fauci to say something they could construe as false. Look what they said about his diary.
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Lindsay Beyerstein @beyerstein.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Fauci's right. Any reasonable person watching this spectacle would conclude that Rand Paul is a vicious lunatic who is intent on prosecuting Fauci for imaginary crimes even though Biden gave him a preemptive pardon to thwart zealots like Paul.
huffpost.com
Rand Paul Threatens ‘Repercussions’ As Anthony Fauci Pleads Fifth At COVID-19 Hearing
The former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director opened his testimony accusing Paul of an “unhinged obsession” with prosecuting him.
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Dylan Roth @dylanroth.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
“We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.” - Sam Altman. I will never stop thinking about how nakedly evil this is, and it has framed every single AI headline I’ve read since.
gizmodo.com
Sam Altman Says Intelligence Will Be a Utility, and He's Just the Man to Collect the Bills
"Intelligence too cheap to meter" doesn't quite come across the way Altman might intend.
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Mike the Mad Biologist and Trump's Press Corps Approver @mikethemadbiol.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The Mostly Unknown Epidemiology That Undermines the Lab Leak Hypothesis In light of yesterday's attempt to publicly humiliate NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, this post I wrote a few… mikethemadbiologist.com/2026/07/30/…
mikethemadbiologist.com
The Mostly Unknown Epidemiology That Undermines the Lab Leak Hypothesis
In light of yesterday's attempt to publicly humiliate NIAID Director Anthony Fauci, this post I wrote a few days ago about a fundamental problem with COVID the lab leak hypothesis turned out to be timely. Anyway... When it comes to people who entertain the COVID lab leak hypothesis–or who support the notion wholeheartedly that the pandemic began with a leak from a research laboratory in Wuhan, China, there is always a piece of evidence that is never raised, even though it was discovered during the early stages of the pandemic.
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The scientists then published a research paper demonstrating that the virus showed no signs of being engineered. This paper has not been debunked or retracted. No evidence of engineering has emerged. In the conclusion the paper says, “but it could still be a lab leak.”
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Fauci’s role in the conspiracy was to have a Zoom call with the scientists in which he said, “it could be a lab leak, you should look into it.”
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
The conspiracy she’s referring to here is a Slack chat among scientists in 2020 where they went, “it could be a lab leak, let’s look into it!”
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Frank Conniff @frankconniff.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Pathetic. A guy who can’t do comedy performing for an audience that can’t do journalism.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
If this story is right, Johnson doesn't know what cloning means. www.independent.co.uk/news/science...
independent.co.uk
Biohacker Bryan Johnson says he’s ‘cloned himself as a baby’ to harvest its organs
‘This technology gives us a path to reverse aging,’ says 48-year-old tech entrepreneur
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
bloomberg has a fun article today arguing that the Cybertruck is the biggest flop in automotive history. it includes this glorious graph.
A graph showing how the edsel and Cybertruck both performed based on their sales target and actual year one and year two sales. The edsel was expected to sell 200k units in its first year. It sold slightly over 50k, and less than 50k the next year

The Cybertruck had a sales.target of 250k in its first year. They sold around 40k, the next year they sold about half as many.
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John Rogers @johnrogers.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
A billion dollars is the socio-economic equivalent of a loose nuke, and we should work with the same urgency and ruthlessness to prevent the acquisition of the former as we do the latter.
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Maine's Black Lawyer @lutherevers.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
They're doing great! It's a burly thrupple living together in a cabin and doing bizarre manly coded shit for no reason. My favorite points are slamming an axe onto an empty stump, working by lantern light during the day, and "fixing" a wireless generator with a hammer with a second hammer nearby.
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Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
When he wrote his absurd reefer madness book 8 years ago or whatever I wrote a piece and various Twitter threads explaining all its errors and he ignored most but acknowledged 1 and as a result I made him donate 200 bucks or something to the ACLU. Anyway that was the last non-terrible thing he did.
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