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Ann Finkbeiner@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social |
223 followers 168 following 195 posts
Freelance science writer, mostly astro, some natsec sci, some women-in-astro, some psych grief, otherwise whatever I can get paid to write about
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Ben's out west, no blue jays on his birdcam, mostly chippy bouncy sparrows, ok, just the one blue jay which clearly is far from home. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/07/10/v...
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Helen Branswell
@helenbranswell.bsky.social
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1. It looks like a holiday backlog of #H5N1 #birdflu testing is working its way through the system. #USDA reported 5 more herds today: 3 in Colorado & 1 each in Michigan & Texas. Michigan previously reported this herd. 2 more herds (Iowa & Minnesota) aren't yet on USDA's list. National total: 147.
2 replies 7 reposts 22 likes
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Joshua Erlich
@joshuaerlich.bsky.social
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NYT now reporting that a veterinary expert went to the White House eight times and that Biden has Feline HIV
11 replies 103 reposts 578 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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With all the stress and bother and threat of real despair these days, for some reason the thought of the death of the universe and everything in it is oddly comforting. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/07/08/s...
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Everybody moves all over the place all the time these days. But some people are so beloved they just shouldn't ever move away. I have studied this matter closely and can therefore explain how to be one of those people. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/07/05/t...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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When I moved to below the Mason-Dixon line, I too adopted y'all. And even Christie in Colorado is considering it. I mean, English needs a plural "you." Bonus: best use is "all y'all." www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/07/03/t...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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In the midst of this heat, Craig writes about the time he was in the Arctic with a climate researcher, whom he liked. What they talked about back then wasn't irrelevant to this heat. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/07/01/t...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Sally, living under her bed on spiders and mice, worries about internal world models. Not that she knows what an internal world model is. Except she has one. But does AI? That's what worries her. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/28/w...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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@theopennotebook.bsky.social is about to finish its summer fundraiser & it needs all the funds it can get. Because its goal in life is to help science writers everywhere to continue their mission to a public that severely needs to know what is science and what is not. www.theopennotebook.com/donate/
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Jenny is on a centipede-tolerance journey. She even gives them names. So far. Not working. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/26/3...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Oh Craig. Being an amateur naturalist is a good and fine thing but some of the ways of getting information about nature? you might need a character stronger than mine. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/24/s...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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This keen Arctic explorer keeps going to extremely isolated places to have deep thoughts. Turns out, deep thoughts don't work like that. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/21/o...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Cameron co-exists happily with her garden's needs but can't decide about the volunteers. Are they weeds? garden plants? does she love them? I personally have the same problem with the tomatoes coming up in the driveway cracks. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/19/v...
0 replies 1 reposts 2 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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@theopennotebook.bsky.social: a small nonprofit with the mighty purpose of educating and helping science writers for free and they in turn keep the public aware of what science does and does not do. www.theopennotebook.com/donate
0 replies 1 reposts 3 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Baby Snoots, a manatee who got famous for reasons I don't understand, had a splendid life and odd death, bless him. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/17/r...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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The People of LWON think about their fathers, the things they'd like to say, the things that were their fathers' belongings. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/14/f...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Jenny's got a history with Wonder bread and Lucky Charms and hot dogs and Hawaiian Punch. She's no longer surprised by her symptoms. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/12/d...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Christie finds out that the prestigious Council for the Advancement of Science Writing started out life as the American Tentative Society. Given the nature of science, maybe the name should have stuck. It's our whole blog, right? The Last Word on Nothing? www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/10/t...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Helen on her walks tries a new & wonderful game: looking at whatever she sees on her walk. And by golly she sees a violet. Or it could be a pansy. Probably a violet. Summing up: an excellent game, I'm going to try it. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/07/s...
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Those shiny new brain implants that let you have better sex or avoid cognitive impairment? What happens when they need upgrades? you gonna pay? and pay? You sure they're working? Sally, I wish you'd stop telling me these things. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/05/i...
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Philip Bump
@pbump.com
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This is not surprising given what we eventually learned. But it’s also worth noting that the opposite of “we responded to a unique event with educated guesses that were wrong” is not “we should have done nothing” and its extrapolation is not “everything we did was wrong.”
bsky.app/profile/drew...
19 replies 64 reposts 245 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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You know "nature red in tooth and claw?" Yes, like that. But it doesn't mean Jenny has to like it. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/06/03/t...
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Laura Helmuth
@laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Two grand-niblings are coming to visit & this is my attempt to buy their affection
8 replies 2 reposts 59 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Craig was writing about the Younger Dryas, a brief sudden ice age, and decided he should experience it the was the ice age people did. Better him than me, and even he didn't quite make it and heaven knows how the ice age people did. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/31/h...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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So you want the best life, right? and you can plan for it short-term but long-term is just a crapshoot? Consider ergodicity. If you can figure it out. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/29/l...
0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Cameron in southern California is always uncertain about leaving home for any number of days because of fire season, which is partly because of not enough clouds. Anybody got any clouds they can send her? www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/27/c...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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First Ben got preoccupied with a game called Wingspan (a D&D but about birds? not sure) & then a friend sent him a birdfeeder-cam, and now preoccuption is a full-on obsession. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/24/t...
0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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I take way too long to figure it out but that kid who thought I was grandmother age? he was right. Also he was beautiful, like really beautiful. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/22/g...
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Brother Holmes
@brothercasas.bsky.social
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Johns Hopkins is doing a long-COVID survey and apparently is having trouble finding controls -- people who haven't had COVID. If this is you, consider giving them some clicks.
@violetblue.bsky.social thought you may want to boost.
covid-long.com
95 replies 1078 reposts 977 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Sarah couldn't see the northern lights, so she checked her contacts list and crowd-sourced the aurora. Oh my goodness, the results - even better than pictures, even more than auroras. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/20/l...
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Virginia Gewin
@virginiagewin.bsky.social
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Hey #SciWri24 conference attendees!
Sarah Scoles, @robinberghaus.bsky.social, and I want to know which editors you want to pitch at our
@sciencewriters.org Pitch Slams this fall. This year we'll have two opportunities--in person & virtual. Let us know!
0 replies 3 reposts 3 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Helen has become what she did not expect to be, a method of dispersal for a cherry tree, a mere medium for a plant's higher purposes. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/17/f...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Sally sorts out air turbulence because, for reasons that are opaque to me, she loves flying. And she wants y'all to be comfortable with it. Except for the take off and landing part. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/15/r...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Yup I do. You'll want a physics/astro one for this.
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Artologica
@artologica.net
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Tons of great new paintings in the shop and I would really love it if one of you bought one 🧪🐡🧠🦠
0 replies 15 reposts 22 likes
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Rose Eveleth
@roseveleth.com
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I spend a lot of my time feeling extremely stupid, because I'll try to read about something (recently, for example, the northern lights) and while maybe I could repeat back to you what I read I do not actually *understand* what any of it means?
2 replies 1 reposts 5 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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What you need, dear Rose, is a good science writer. A good one.
1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Charles C. Mann
@charlescmann.bsky.social
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One of the occupational hazards of being a writer is finding trivial grammatical news Really Interesting, and one of the hazards of being a writer's spouse, as mine has learned, is that the writer excitedly tells you this kind of stuff before coming to his senses halfway thru and saying, forget it.
4 replies 3 reposts 33 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Jenny works at a place that rescues dogs, which sounds all warm and virtuous but it doesn't work that way and she's not even to touch them. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/13/r...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Our Kate interviews our Jenny about Jenny's new book on the smartness of dogs. Sometimes what gets left out of a book is entirely intriguing.
www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/10/d...
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Adam Serwer
@adamserwer.bsky.social
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It’s a free country, you can honor men who committed treason in defense of slavery if you choose. But don’t whine about people making moral judgments about your character on that basis. www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...
42 replies 339 reposts 1417 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Craig asks his mom, who's not young and is missing 2+ fingers from a table-saw accident, if she'd like to accompany him to what's left of the Bering land bridge. And what else would she say but yes? This is the perfect Mother's Day essay. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/08/m...
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Chemjobber
@chemjobber.bsky.social
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Don't forget her claiming that she witnessed a "terrorist dry-run" on a plane in 2004: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwe...
0 replies 1 reposts 2 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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I read her DARPA book because I had to review it and based only on that, her talent is to take 2 unrelated things & build a circus freak show. So, bad sourcing, not credible, don't bother, move right along.
1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Out of disorder comes order -- it seems to be one of nature's laws and Oxford academia is trying to figure it out and so far, not getting there. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/06/t...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Emily learns to see color, which has more implications than you might think. This post is beautiful. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/03/c...
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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One could. Easily.
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Not an answer for you, but this "professional outsiders" business has a history at Columbia that goes back to the Vietnam War.
2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes
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Ann Finkbeiner
@annfinkbeiner.bsky.social
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Cameron, whose gardening policy is to plant it and forget what is was and where she put it, is surprised by a cactus that is, indeed surprising. If "surprising" is the word I want. www.lastwordonnothing.com/2024/05/01/b...
0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes