Sofia Quaglia

Bumblebee Queens Can Breathe Underwater

NEW: for @nytimes.com, I wrote about a new study showing that queen bumblebees can breathe underwater, surviving submerged for a week

the “remarkable” study stems from a lab snafu, when a co-author thought she accidentally drowned several bees—but later found that they were alive 🧪

gift link 🎁

Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall After thousands of rare Chilean cacti were found in the house of an Italian collector, a years-long trial slowly unravelled how they got there.

In the cracked crust along the Atacama Desert of Chile’s coast, there lie thousands of Copiapoa cacti only found in that country that are at the center of a historic smuggling case [ @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social BBC] www.bbc.com/future/artic...

#journorequest anybody here "friction-maxxing" in 2026? I would love to hear from you for a story in BBC! Thanks so much!!

'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.

With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Colossal Squids, Invasive Frogs, and Biodiversity ft. Sofia Quaglia Podcast Episode · The Study Hall Podcast · 12/29/2025 · 31m

Great conversation with @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social about science journalism, biodiversity, colossal squids, and invasive frogs!

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

New Course Sofia will teach you where to look for the next hottest science scoops and guide you through the ins and outs of interviewing scientists, parsing through data, getting external corroboration, and maki...

We are very excited to be collaborating with @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social on a science journalism course! Sign up for an hour intro into science journalism (Jan 16 10 AM PT/ 1 PM ET)

courses.outvoice.com/products/cou...

Do Heat Pumps Work When It Gets Really Cold?

Do Heat Pumps Work When It Gets Really Cold?—The best proof that heat pumps are working even if it’s cold outside, Dr. Miara said, is the sheer number of cold countries widely adopting the technology… www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/c... @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social @nytimes.com

Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.

my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...

Super excited to share my new project, a book about how flies have fundamentally shaped what it means to be human. Get ready to completely rethink your nastiest of kitchen pests! With @flatironbooks.bsky.social via @unitedtalentagency.bsky.social 🪰

it was a privilege to contribute to this package. check out my story on how scientists digitally sculpted the planet to predict the future, and how those in power today are dismantling the quest to model the climate

www.quantamagazine.org/how-climate-...

#journorequest I'm looking for migraine patients who have found relief with electrical neuromodulation therapies for a written article for the BBC. Reach out at sofiaquagliajourno@gmail.com!

What your snot can reveal about your health Snot plays a powerful role in protecting us from disease – and its colour alone can provide insights into what's going on in our bodies.

“And though nobody likes a runny nose or flinging snot across the room in a sneeze, the mucus in our nasal passages is arguably one of the wonders of the human body.” — @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social, BBC Future
www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

Are you my baby? The clever ways that brood parasites trick other birds Cuckoos, cowbirds and other species outsource their parental duties. Scientists are uncovering new twists in this sneaky — and often treacherous — game of survival.

Cuckoos, cowbirds and other species outsource their parental duties. Scientists are uncovering new twists in this sneaky — and often treacherous — game of survival.

Learn more in @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social's 2024 report:

Are you my baby? The clever ways that brood parasites trick other birds Cuckoos, cowbirds and other species outsource their parental duties. Scientists are uncovering new twists in this sneaky — and often treacherous — game of survival.

Dive into the bird version of this cunning evolutionary strategy with @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social 's 2024 story

Eight Arms to Taste Your Microbiome

Octopuses never disappoint! Octopus arms are fine-tuned to detect microbiomes on surfaces and to derive information from them. Research by Rebecka Sepela et al., scicomm by @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social #octopus #cephalopod #nature #ocean #microbiome

Scars from the world's first deep sea mining test 50 years on Half a century after the world's first deep sea mining tests picked nodules from the seafloor off the US east coast, the damage has barely begun to heal.

"Among the abundance of life a section of the Blake Plateau is barren with the scars from the world's first deep-sea mining pilot test carried out in 1970." writes @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social for #BBC - an issue @ehildeb.bsky.social of #EPRG is closely following 👇
www.bbc.com/future/artic...

First evidence of ancient birds nesting above the Arctic circle Tiny bone fragments from Alaska suggest birds started breeding and nesting in the Arctic 30 million years earlier than previously thought

New fossils reveal birds like loons & gulls shared the Arctic with Tyrannosaurus 73m years ago, earlier than we thought.
They may have given rise to the hardier, more advanced birds that dominate the world today. @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social @newscientist.com www.newscientist.com/article/2482....

What Kind of Seafood Should I Eat?

Love answering all of your climate questions for @nytimes.com Ask Climate! Latest one is about... which seafood you should be eating.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/c...

@sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social is a freelance journalist writing about all things science and nature. We asked Sofia about her experiences covering #biodiversity, traveling the world, and her unique love of often-forgotten creatures.

Read more: www.nationalacademies.org/news/2025/04... #scicomm

First ever confirmed image of a colossal squid in the deep ocean The colossal squid is the largest invertebrate on the planet, but it is also surprisingly elusive. An image of a 30-centimetre-long juvenile is our first glimpse of the animal in its natural habitat

🌎 This #EarthDay we're celebrating the beauty and mystery of our planet with a dive into a recent piece by 2023 awardee @sofiaquagliajourno.bsky.social, featuring the first-ever footage of a colossal squid — the largest invertebrate on Earth.

Read more: www.newscientist.com/article/2476... #scicomm

an infographic showing the Bornean Microhyla nepenthicola on a 50 sen Malaysian golden coin, beside a graphic silhouette of the island of Borneo; and the Madagascan Mini mum (yes that is its real name, you are welcome) on a 10 euro cent golden coin, beside a graphic silhouette of the island of Madagascar. Mini mum looks much smaller than Microhyla nepenthicola, and it is. But both are ridiculously tiny. The island silhouettes are only approximately to scale with one another, and obviously not to scale with the frogs or else you wouldn't be able to tell that you were seeing them. Which you would think would go without saying, but you never know with some people.

Let's celebrate the tiny, oft-overlooked frogs out there this #WorldFrogDay! Here you can see—to scale on two different coins—Microhyla nepenthicola and Mini mum, two diminutive microhylid frogs that have independently approached the apparent lower limit for the tetrapod bauplan. 🧪🐸

And here are some snapshots from my reporting with the Caminantes del Desierto, a non-profit dedicating their time to protecting the cacti out in the wild. Copiapoa in the picture on the right!

Operation Atacama: The $1m cactus heist that led to a smuggler's downfall After thousands of rare Chilean cacti were found in the house of an Italian collector, a years-long trial slowly unravelled how they got there.

In my latest for BBC, I went to the Atacama desert in Chile to get to the bottom of how thousands of rare cacti were found in the house of a collector on the other side of the planet.. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Lovely series by my friend @sarahsloat.bsky.social 💘👩‍🦳 Give it a read!

Mice experiment as step to create mammoth-like elephants Experiments on mice could see hairy, genetically modified elephants living in the Arctic, a US company claims.

Woolly mice designed to engineer mammoth-like elephants

Genetically engineered woolly mice could one day help populate the Arctic with hairy, genetically modified elephants and help stop the planet warming.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Terminated Parks Employee Warns of the Danger and Cruelty of Job Cuts | Atmos His job was to make wildlife monitoring at the NPS faster and cheaper—so getting dismissed for “government efficiency” was a bitter irony.

he was a National Park biologist whose job was to make their wildlife work more efficient using AI, drones, and other technology.

so to be terminated by a tech mogul under the guise of "government efficiency" was a cruel and bitter irony

today's op-ed in @atmosmagazine.bsky.social 🌎🧪

Ecologists are spending less time in the field. That could be a problem. Ecologists are spending less time in the field. That could be a problem. There was a time when an ecologist’s education was not complete without the mud of a marsh on their boots or the scent of damp ...

The concept of the “extinction of experience” has been used to describe the dwindling human connection with nature, often applied to the general public.

But ecologists themselves are not immune. Across universities and research institutions, field-based studies are in retreat.

mongabay.cc/w0Tc9L

Do worms feel pain and are ants happy? Why the science on invertebrate feelings is evolving For the next few weeks we’re asking readers to nominate their invertebrate of the year: click here to give us your suggestions

Do worms feel pain and are ants happy? Why the science on invertebrate feelings is evolving

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Tiny Frogs and Giant Spiders: Best of Friends — Tetrapod Zoology It seems a good time to republish this article from the archives, first published at ver 2 in 2009, and then again at ver 3 in 2015…

Tiny Frogs and Giant Spiders: Best of Friends, a classic Tetrapod Zoology article that I've had reason to republish in updated form three times now .... tetzoo.com/blog/2022/8/... #animals #zoology #biology #frogs #amphibians #spiders #arachnids

‘The last plant left’: can Rapa Nui’s extinct tree be resurrected? Seeds from the last toromiro, unique to remote Easter Island, were taken away in the 1960s. Now, after a crucial discovery gave hope for its survival, it is making a return

#SophoraToromiro trees, unique to #RapaNui, were once used for sacred artefacts, but became popular for construction & firewood - until they've been declared extinct in the 1960s.

Now there's hope for their return: www.theguardian.com/environment/... by @sofiquaglia.bsky.social via @theguardian.com