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Laura Helmuth

@laurahelmuth.bsky.social
116.7K followers 5.3K following 3.3K posts

Freelance writer, editor, columnist & consultant. Formerly at Scientific American, Washington Post, National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian & Science. Past president of National Association of Science Writers. Birder.

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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Is it ~~bad~~ that people feed wildlife in national parks? Yes, absolutely. But is it funny that jays are like, “gimme trail mix”? Also yes.
A Stellar’s jay on a rock near a trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, looking like it expects a snack.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
Have you ever seen one of these “Your GPS is wrong!” signs? There must be a story behind every one.
A road sign that says “your gps is wrong. Vehicles over 30’ must turn left” with a steep mountain slope in the background.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The farm stand was selling sweet corn at a dozen ears for $5 or a box of 50 for … $5.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Some turtles you nudge to the side of the trail so they don’t get hit by a bike, and some turtles you back away from slowly because they will snap your hand off.
A large snapping turtle on a trail
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Can you imagine being able to make people laugh like a 12-year-old (or try hard not to) just by introducing yourself?
A trailside bench inscribed: “In memory of Dick Stiffey, Parks Board member 1994-2012”
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
I give you the Almost Heaven hair salon
A mobile home hair salon called Almost Heaven in Thomas, West Virginia
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Gotta respect a creature that feeds on poison to thwart its enemies.
A monarch butterfly caterpillar eating a milkweed leaf. Milkweeds produce cardiac glycosides that monarchs concentrate to make predators sick if they try to eat them.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
A little judgy.
An airplane seat back with a sign over a storage slot reading “literature only.”
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Finally, a tower of award-winning pickles and preserves.
A backlit tower of jars of pickles, jams, jellies , relishes & other preserves. Closeup of jarred pickles and preserves.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Corn dogs!
A ceramic sculpture of a vase studded with corn dogs and another of a hot dog.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
It includes Black and Indigenous state fairs
Quilt of a Black couple Quilts from 4-h and mannequins wearing ceremonial state fair dresses from Native fairs.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
And a cow made of butter!
A life size cow in a glass cooler, made of butter over a frame.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
A dress made of butter cartons.
Dress made of cardboard squares from butter cartons.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
The quilts are amazing.
Quilt depicting the high and low temperatures for every day of a year.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
It’s woke AF.
Picture of a state fair pavilion celebrating trans love & joy
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
It has celebrities’ portraits made out of grasses and seeds.
Seed portraits of Dolly Parton, Prince, Willie Nelson & moreSeed portraits of Lucille Ball, Elvis, Johnny CarsonSeed portraits of Nixon , Obama, Lin-Manuel & more
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Friends, if you are in the DC area this summer, I urge you to visit the Renwick’s exhibit on state fairs. americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/...
A neon sign from a state fair that says “HOWDY FOLKS”
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Who should lead the investigation: the kerning police or the apostrophe police?
A yard sign for a property rental company called Noahs. The name is spelled in a slanting font with too much space between the N, O, and A, and the apostrophe is after the S.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
Is the reason for having a garden to share stuff with friends, or is the reason for having friends to share stuff from the garden? I wish I could give you pocket friends some tomatoes.
Three large bowls on a table overflowing with tomatoes
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Olympic National Park’s newspaper is called the “Bugler” and that’s perfect. (There are elk in the park and elks bugle.)
The Olympic NP newspaper, which has a photo of the Olympic mountain range with tall evergreens in the foreground.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
If you get lost in a forest, just look at the trees because moss grows on the north side oh hell…
Moss covered trees in Olympic national park on all sides of the trees
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Mr. McGregor in the Peter Rabbit books is the most misunderstood character in English literature.
Photo of a well-camouflaged baby rabbit next to a head of lettuce in my garden, the little monster.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
I've been using the No AI version of DuckDuckGo and am impressed with the results. It seems to favor reliable sites and has a clean interface: noai.duckduckgo.com
Screen shot of DuckDuckGo's "NO AI" search homepage, with orange type and cheerful duck in a green bow tie.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I love @merriam-webster.com, but they've started adding automated examples of words in sentences and it's not going well.
Screenshot of part of Merriam-Webster's definition of "chowder" showing how it's supposedly used as a verb in the following sentences: 
"Most people want to know how Baker manages to eat without ending up with marinara sauce or clam chowder all over his face."
"It's creamy, really close to clam chowder without the clams."
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
I’m testing out backpacking gear ahead of a trip this summer & the irregular Therm-a-rest I bought at a steep discount at an REI co-op in 1991 still holds air.
The edge of an orange blow-up camping mattress showing the classic Therm-a-rest slogan, an “irregular” stamp & “Laura” written in sharpie.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
I finally figured out what these Mar-a-Lago faces remind me of. It's marionettes. They look like marionettes. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
Lauren Sánchez Bezos wearing a diamond necklace and a strapless black dress. Her mouth looks elongated and her cheeks more prominent than when she was younger. Like a marionette.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Does anybody have favorite mushroom recipes?
A large colander overflowing with fresh-picked winecap mushrooms, with a mug for scale.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Every tourist town in West Virginia has a gift shop, cafe, or bar called Almost Heaven.
A sign in Harpers Ferry for the Almost Heaven Pub & Grill
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
Spent the night at a lock house on the C&O Canal. Highly recommend!
A white-washed brick building with green shutters in a forest along the Potomac River
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
If you're still using Facebook (no shame, people have Reasons), turn off all the automatically enabled AI titles and summaries they just rolled out.
Screen shot of a "settings" page in Facebook showing that it now automatically allows AI-generated titles unless you turn that option off. The text is: "Allow AI-generated titles on your posts. Titles are generated by AI from Meta to make your posts easier to discover on search engines. Not all posts will have AI-generated titles, and posts in public groups may still show them. Learn more about AI-generated titles"
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Those of you in the DC area who work during the week and get to parks only on the weekends have probably never witnessed such a miracle. This is the observation platform on the Maryland side of Great Falls on a beautiful spring day, and it is EMPTY.
Photo of an empty wooden platform built around a rock outcrop overlooking the Potomac River. During the weekends, it is elbow-to-elbow with people.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
I get a kick out of how often North American publishers illustrate an article or book with a European robin when the relevant bird is an American robin (1/n)
Book cover of The Correspondent, by Virginia Evan’s, showing two European robins
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
I’m not sure if this is the best product for clarifying pond water, but it is definitely the best named.
Photo of a container of pellets that reduce algae and sludge in backyard ponds. It’s called “Muck Off”
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
I don’t see an American Woodcock sitting on a nest. Do you see an American Woodcock sitting on a nest?
A very well camouflaged American Woodcock sitting on a nest, looking like a pile of leaves.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
The lost & found box at a donut shop near a playground and elementary school is full of little hats & coats & mittens
A plastic bin labeled Lost & Found full of little-kid coats and winter gear.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
"Our data show that declines in institutional autonomy are widespread among (former) democracies, and the decline in institutional autonomy in the United States stands out as a case of fast and steep deterioration that warrants comparative analysis." (1/2) academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...
Graph from a V-Dem report on academic freedom showing a stark decline in academic freedom in the United States and similar trajectories for Hungary, India, and Türkiye
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
If you want to keep your toast from getting soggy on the bottom, balance it on skewers or chopsticks.
A plate with chopsticks across it, with several pieces of toast balanced on top.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Drive safely if you gotta. This is a screenshot of Google Maps traffic view at 7:30 on a Sunday.
Screenshot of Googling Maps showing yellow for slowed traffic from New York to Chicago and throughout the East Coast down to mid-Georgia
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
S TAB LISH JUSTIZ N SURE DOME ESTIK TRAN KWILI T
An artwork at the Smithsonian’s American Art Museum made up of license plates that spell out the preamble to the constitution.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
Yes! I loved them, too.
Photo of a bookshelf with Hardy Boys books
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
I finished reading another cozy mystery solved by a clever, brave heroine and her sidekicks and realized I’ve just been reading Nancy Drew my entire life.
A bookshelf filled with Nancy Drew books from the 1970s
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 11/12/2025
“For those who died and those who survived and all we lost during the covid-19 pandemic, we shall remember.”
Memorial along the river walk in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The disk is stone with a school of fish circling the inscription.
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 29/11/2025
Sign at an outdoor classroom for a nature center: “Think outside. No box required.”
Photo of the entrance to an outdoor classroom at a nature center
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 01/11/2025
One fun thing about talking to parks department staff is you can say, “could anybody identify this scat” and they all come over to you all excited. (Even better is when they confirm it’s a bear)
Probable bear scatScratch marks possibly from a bear digging for grubs
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
A+ playground
Playground at Rocky Point Creamery in Point of Rocks, Maryland has a kid-size barn, silo and John Deere tractor with slides
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 23/09/2025
“No sledding”
Sign by the entrance of Cahokia Mounds historic park listing open hours and rules about camping, dogs, etc. a stand-alone sign says “no sledding “
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
Anyway it’s a fun little museum where the staff wear blue checkered gingham and love their jobs <end>
Diorama of Glinda Display case with hourglass the witch used to count Dorothy’s last minutes before she was saved Display case about The Wiz
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
The whole town is committed to the bit. Statues of Toto everywhere, murals.
Mural of Dorothy’s house being lifted up by the twisterReplica of Miss Gulch’s bike
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 21/09/2025
If you are ever near Wamego, Kansas, stop by their Wizard of Oz Museum.
Diorama of the Wicked Witch of the West with a flying monkey and crystal ball Front of the Oz Museum in Wamego, Kansas Diorama with the Cowardly Lion
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Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social · 31/08/2025
Garden tip: if a crop comes in a purple or red variety, grow those. These purple flat beans and red long beans are much easier to find among the leaves and stems than the green varieties. Also they’re pretty.
Bowl of just-harvested long beans, some green and some red, and flat beans in green and purple.
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