Laura Helmuth's avatar

Laura Helmuth

@laurahelmuth.bsky.social

9299 followers 1719 following 986 posts

Editor in Chief of Scientific American, @sciam.bsky.social Formerly at Washington Post, National Geographic, Slate, Smithsonian, Science. Past prez National Association of Science Writers. Birder

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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oof do they also claim lemons can cure cancer

1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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A tragically common cause of death before pasteurization was food poisoning in children who were being weaned and starting to drink cow's milk. Pasteurization is one of the greatest public health successes in the history of the world, and now it's protecting us from H5N1 bird flu 🧪

17 replies 242 reposts 828 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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This is predictable but so important: Pasteurizing milk kills the H5N1 bird flu virus that is circulating widely in dairy cattle. It's easy to take a 150-year-old technique that has saved countless lives for granted, but don't fool around with unpasteurized dairy products. 🧪

15 replies 219 reposts 721 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Celeste Ng's avatar Celeste Ng @pronounced-ing.bsky.social
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Thinking today about my lawyer friend Jermaine, who —when I asked him legal research Qs while writing a dystopia—told me “Well, with a sympathetic judiciary, anything is possible.”

4 replies 58 reposts 453 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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"The protection that vaccines provide is an irreplaceable part of living the healthiest lifestyle possible." This is a nice appreciation of vaccines as tested, proven, and immensely effective ways to prevent illness and promote good health. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/vacc...

3 replies 36 reposts 129 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

maura quint's avatar maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social
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when I was a child, I thought smart people were in charge. when I got older, I realized you didn't have to be smart to be in charge. but the piece that was hardest to learn is that no one is really in charge at all. no one's going to fix it beyond us.

23 replies 114 reposts 804 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Adam Rogers's avatar Adam Rogers @jetjocko.bsky.social
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Gonna need everything to stop rapidly intensifying please.

3 replies 16 reposts 83 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Rapid intensification is defined as when a storm’s winds jump by at least 35 mph in 24 hours. Hurricane Beryl’s winds exploded by 63 mph in 24 hours. This hurricane is unprecedented in location and time of year and it's still growing 🧪 by @andreatweather.bsky.social

1 replies 22 reposts 45 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Maggie Fox's avatar Maggie Fox @maggiefox.bsky.social
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I absolutely remember Lippmann's name. But yeah, history has rightly forgotten the PR/propaganda hack's name. We shouldn't forget the lessons of that time, however.

0 replies 1 reposts 5 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Nick Young's avatar Nick Young @nickofnz.bsky.social
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Some say the wind isn’t a reliable source of energy in New Zealand. The wind:

20 replies 311 reposts 1873 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Scribes in ancient Egypt wrote while sitting down for extended periods. A new analysis of their skeletons found they probably had pain in the knees, fingers, thumb, ankles, shoulders, lower jaw, right collarbone, neck and back. Perhaps you can relate. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/anci...

12 replies 47 reposts 185 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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One of the many wonderful things about being an aunt or great-aunt to kids who are just learning to write is that they'll spell your name Ant

2 replies 0 reposts 40 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Coral City Camera's avatar Coral City Camera @coralcitycamera.bsky.social
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The coral reef is queer af and few fly the flag more more fabulously than the hermaphroditic rainbow parrotfish on parade. Happy Pride from Coral City 🫡🏳️‍🌈🐠🏳️‍🌈🐠🏳️‍🌈🐠🏳️‍🌈💋 www.instagram.com/reel/C8168qt...

3 replies 55 reposts 199 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

MurderBotBot's avatar MurderBotBot @murderbotbot.bsky.social
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You know, it’s not like I’m half-assing this, I am actually trying my best despite the fuck-ups.

3 replies 16 reposts 58 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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There are “no links whatsoever between the offshore wind development activity and especially the humpback whale mortalities. None. Zero.” But oil & gas & shipping interests sure want you to think wind energy is what's killing whales 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/whal...

8 replies 163 reposts 372 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

@gbdawkins's avatar @gbdawkins @gbdawkins.bsky.social
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People aren’t freaking out nearly enough about what the Chevron decision could mean. sounds like a boring admin law dec’n, but the consequences will be widespread & catastrophic if it goes the wrong way

4 replies 18 reposts 57 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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There are a LOT of problems with what meatfluencers are selling, but a big one is the very idea that if our ancestors did it, we should do it. (They didn't eat only meat, but that's a different problem.) What are your favorite examples of ancestral experiences we're better off without?

24 replies 4 reposts 38 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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This is an important and exciting job opening for the next director of SciLine, a service that connects scientists and journalists and aims to improve and expand evidence-based coverage of policy issues and everything else. diversifiedsearchgroup.com/search/21203...

0 replies 13 reposts 18 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

The Open Notebook's avatar The Open Notebook @theopennotebook.bsky.social
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It's the day we've been waiting for! We're thrilled to share that a second, expanded edition of The Craft of Science Writing is now available for pre-order from the University of Chicago Press! Can you join us in “ooh”ing at this beautiful cover?!? 🧪

5 replies 12 reposts 28 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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A fan of Scientific American just sent us a bunch of homemade keychains and a nice letter about how she appreciates our work 😍

3 replies 1 reposts 67 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Yes, it was fact-checked. *Everything we publish is fact-checked.* (I realize you can't count on that being the case for all articles, so I try to emphasize it when there's an opportunity.) The story does mention PMD and explains that it is the active ingredient in oil of lemon eucalyptus

1 replies 0 reposts 6 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Jay Edidin's avatar Jay Edidin @edidin.bsky.social
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gonna tell the toddler that Tom Waits is actually Cookie Monster doing grown-up music under a stage name.

26 replies 59 reposts 410 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Ian Boudreau's avatar Ian Boudreau @iboudreau.bsky.social
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The central joke in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a race of dipshits building a planet-sized computer to answer the question of "life, the universe, and everything" and then a million years later it says the answer is 42, and somehow that has taken on a William Gibson level of prescience

52 replies 270 reposts 1244 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Approximately half of all the press releases I get these days (and I get a lot) have a subject line that starts with "AI" and continues with some BS

2 replies 5 reposts 44 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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There are a lot of untested, bold-claim products that claim to repel insects. Here's why to use DEET (for skin) and permethrin (for clothes) and a very few other things that actually work. Better living through chemistry 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...

6 replies 27 reposts 96 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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"We talk about bodily autonomy with our children; we should also talk about emotional autonomy and how children can better understand and have agency over their own emotions." Let boys smile and girls be angry 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/ther...

2 replies 44 reposts 135 likes

Reposted by Laura Helmuth

Return of the Cmonmacques's avatar Return of the Cmonmacques @cmonmaque.bsky.social
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So my girlfriend is French and hasn’t heard of Apollo 13 and so while we’re watching it she has no idea how it’s going to end. I am predicting she’s going to scream and cheer at splashdown

33 replies 104 reposts 1254 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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One nice thing about being middle aged is that the friends you lost touch with while they were raising kids have time to catch up now & everybody has changed but hasn't.

2 replies 1 reposts 49 likes

Laura Helmuth's avatar Laura Helmuth @laurahelmuth.bsky.social
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Great Nicobar Island is home to the Shompen, a barely-contacted group of 200-400 hunter-gatherers, and the Great Nicobarese, Indigenous people who were almost wiped out by the 2004 tsunami. India intends to build a massive free-trade-zone shipping port that could devastate both populations

2 replies 5 reposts 20 likes