My latest: Detecting gravitational waves currently requires gigantic observatories. But in the future we might do it on a tabletop — by levitating particles, measuring acoustic waves in an ultracold fluid, or putting tiny crystals in two places at once nature.com/articles/d4158…

Love today's Astronomy Picture of the Day so much that I've just ordered a large version of this for the office wall. So good! apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap240708.…

This week, senior editor Will Douglas Heaven takes on a seemingly simple but extraordinarily rich question: what exactly is AI? technologyreview.com/2024/07/10/109…

Deadline: July 23

we know surprisingly little about the athletes who have been pushed out of sports because of restrictive gender policies for every high-profile story of an athlete told she can't play, there have been more who quietly disappeared my piece for Slate: slate.com/life/2024/07/o…

New York! Please join me and Carl Zimmer tonight 7:30 PM at Greenlight Bookstore for a discussion about my new book, Becoming Earth! Hope yo see you there! greenlightbookstore.com/event/ferris-j…

NASA is cancelling its already-built VIPER rover to hunt for ice on the Moon because of budgetary pressures - and scientists aren't happy. Story by me New Scientist newscientist.com/article/244024…

*Cronch* I ran over a rock and found crystals inside! It's pure sulfur. (And no, it doesn’t smell.) Elemental sulfur is something we’ve never seen before on Mars. We don't know much about these yellow crystals yet, but my team is excited to investigate. go.nasa.gov/4bPdSow

Something is pumping out large amounts of oxygen at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, at depths where a total lack of sunlight makes photosynthesis impossible go.nature.com/3Ly0876

We are hiring a new managing editor in our Cambridge office! This is a job for people into process, with a real eye for detail and who get satisfaction from things just ... working. technologyreview.com/job/managing-e…

Controversial CRISPR scientist promises “no more gene-edited babies” until society comes around trib.al/VSDOcrZ

Simone Biles is now the most decorated US Olympics gymnast, so here is a thread of her as functions y = x

“Why use the Oxford comma?”

As athletics at #Paris2024 gets underway, it's a good time to share my recent MIT Technology Review feature on supershoes and their impact on the sport. With input from current Olympians, past world record holders, top coaches & exercise physiologists, etc. technologyreview.com/2024/06/25/109…

Fourteen years ago, I wondered why my students at NYU Journalism couldn't have access to embargoed EurekAlert! press releases. Others have also wondered that. Today, they changed their policy. embargowatch.wordpress.com/2010/03/22/so-… via Deborah Blum

Sadly The Nobel Prize didnt follow. One of the great omissions. RIP bj the architect of modern particle physics: quarks and QCD, how to find W bosons and charm and QFD, and more besides which spawned others' awards. And all in a single paper in 1966.

Hopping in here real quick to plug the first feature up online from MIT Technology Review's upcoming 125th anniversary issue: Kara Platoni's look at what the future might hold for a baby born today. It's a fun one! technologyreview.com/2024/08/15/109…

People will be like, “generative AI has no practical use case,” but I did just use it to replace every app icon on my home screen with images of Kermit, soooo

A big congratulations to all the winners of this year's National Association of Science Writers (NASW) Science in Society journalism awards. It was an honor to serve as a category judge this year—and also a huge challenge. There were so many great entries. nasw.org/article/nasw-s…