Faye Flam

2/2 Some areas do still need better quality control and better transparency. But the last thing we need is what's in this executive order - giving government officials power to decide what's not up to standards.

This Isn’t How You ‘Restore Gold Standard’ Science President Trump’s executive order is really about giving government officials the power to reject any scientific evidence they disagree with.

1/ For this @opinion.bloomberg.com column, I looked at Trump's executive order to restore a gold standard in science. After talking to @briannosek.bsky.social and others devoted to reform, it became clear this order will not help the us get better quality science. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Geoengineering’s Risks Need to Be Studied More Even some of the best-sounding ideas could have unintended consequences.

A number of private startups hope to profit from geoengineering schemes - from darkening the skies with particles to altering the chemistry of the ocean. Experts say the public is right to be wary: My latest from @opinion.bloomberg.com www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

3/ As @neilshubin.bsky.social says, it's not a de-extinction but a new animal, and there could be more gene-edited animals coming. That's what we should be discussing.

3/Dogs supplied the egg cells and gestated the pups. The feat started out as an impressive act of media manipulation, with the company giving exclusive access to just two publications. When others got wind of the story the publicity campaign went south fast.

2/ It was an impressive feat of gene editing, done on grey wolf DNA to look more like what the researchers surmise the dire wolf looked like.....

'Dire Wolf' Pups Are Cute, But Not the Real Thing Colossal Biosciences created a new, not ancient, animal. That’s still an impressive scientific achievement.

1/ In my latest @opinion.bloomberg.com column I look into that much ballyhood claim that dire wolves were resurrected after 13,000 years of extinction. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

We Used to Disagree. Now We Don’t Talk to Each Other. Five years after Covid, America's greatest threat is our divided reality.

In one of my latest @opinion.bloomberg.com columns I look at scientific explanations for our ideological rift - or why people who disgree with you seem so reprehensible. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...?

2/2 it won't be a mammoth. At best it would be a genetically modified elephant. I talked with @artcaplan.bsky.social about the many ethical problem involved. Then I described a few better ways to protect or enhance the natural world if you happen to have a few hundred billion $$ to spend.

Got $10 Billion? Don’t Blow It Cloning a Woolly Mammoth. Sure, it sounds cool. But think of the life-changing problems that could be solved with that kind of investment.

1/2 For a recent @opinion.bloomberg.com column I looked into claims that scientists would resurrect the woolly mammoth. They might make something that looks sort of mammoth-like but......

2/2 I drew on insights from @pauloffit.bsky.social , @adamgaffney.bsky.social , Duane Wesemann of @harvardmed.bsky.social and John C. Moore of Cornell Medicine.

How a Yale Study Got Twisted Into an Anti-Vaccine Talking Point Despite what anti-vaxxers say, new research doesn’t prove Covid shots debilitated millions of Americans.

1/2 For this @opinion.bloomberg.com column I looked into claims that Covid vaccines are causing most cases of long covid. This was based on a misinterpreted Yale study.
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Covid vaccines do have some side effects, and it's important to keep investigating safety, but so far the evidence points away from a problem with leftover spike protein. The study found exceedingly tiny amounts, and levels were undetectable in most people with symptoms.

Immunologist outside the Yale group say the data fail to support the conclusion that leftover vaccine-induced spike proteins are associated with patients' symptoms. The idea that the symptoms are part of a syndrome is an assumption, not a conclusion.

How a Yale Study Got Twisted Into an Anti-Vaccine Talking Point Despite what anti-vaxxers say, new research doesn’t prove Covid shots debilitated millions of Americans.

www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...
My latest piece for @opinion.bloomberg.com delves into a new Yale Med School study that's been misinterpreted to claim most cases of long Covid might be "Post Vaccine Syndrome".

I'm confused. Can you explain who this fact checker is and why and how she's blackmailing this guy. It sounds like an interesting story, but I'm not quite following it.

3/3 So don't be surprised if we see many more warnings in the near future. It doesn't mean the threat has increased. It's decreased - early detection means we could evacuate people if needed. Thank to @planet4589.bsky.social and MIT's Richard Binzel for helping bring me up to date.

2/3 Twenty years ago scientists were crying out for the tools to track asteroids and start studying how to defect them. Now they have multiple tracking systems, with two new ones scheduled to start observing soon. And NASA has even experimented with asteroid deflection with the DART mission.

An Asteroid Doomsday Is Getting Less Likely NASA’s early detection program will probably bring more false alarms, but it could also save us.

1/3 For my latest @opinion.bloomberg.com column I looked into the quickly-diminishing odds of a city-killing asteroid striking Earth in 2032. I'd written about asteroid strikes 20 years ago and was amazed to learn how much the science has advanced. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

You Might Have Plastic in Your Brain. Don’t Panic — Yet. It’s unsettling, but the amount is probably less than the plastic spoon’s worth grabbing the headlines.

My latest column for @opinion.bloomberg.com examines some scary claims that there's enough plastic in your brain to make up a plastic spoon. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

3/3 Evolution has stumbled on a new variant, D1.1, which might cause more severe disease in humans. But there's still plenty that can be done to mitigate the threat to us and to the egg industry.

2/3 Wild geese and ducks are spreading the disease through their droppings. These migratory birds are changing their flight patters and settling more near farms and suburbs. infectious dust might bring the virus into farms

Bird Flu Is a Big Threat. The US Needs to Start Acting Like It. Scientists suspect a new strain is spreading via dust from bird droppings, carried by the wind.

1/3 My latest @opinion.bloomberg.com column delves into the bird flu threat and why it's spreading so fast now. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

Great piece and I look forward to hearing the interview. I'm not sure what the complainers meant by "hilarious" but I've heard from more than my share of cranks. They're usually trying to distort science to conform to their religious beliefs.

The strange paradox of modern science denialism Astronomer Adam Frank reflects on a handful of responses to his recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast.

The strange paradox of modern science denialism

"What’s interesting to me about this stream of science denial is the weird contradiction lying right at the heart of the enterprise."

Astronomer Adam Frank on some responses to his appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast 🧪
bigthink.com/13-8/the-str...

I was fortunate to get to talk with @dornhaus.bsky.social , who is not just a world authority on ant behavior but also a subject in a fascinating experiment that compared teamwork capability in ants and humans. She had quite an inside view. For @opinion.bloomberg.com

This column for @opinion.bloomberg.com represents my recent thinking about all the changes happening now and which ones are most likely to have irreversible consequences that will be felt for decades or even centuries to come.

I read Waves last summer. It takes some mental effort but it's well worth it. Matt Strassler rethinks the language used to explain the wave-particle nature of reality and the concepts of mass and fields. It changed my intuition.

CNN has now confirmed this.

www.cnn.com/2025/01/24/h...

Who Will Speak for the Trees? If President Trump abandons efforts to curb carbon emissions, then preserving old trees will be our next best strategy for mitigating climate change.

My column for @opinion.bloomberg.com this week is about elders of the natural world, and why protecting 1000-year-old trees, 200-year-old fish or 120 year old whales is a good investment.