Maryn McKenna

every year a little death

This year’s college freshmen see the last Mindset List from Beloit - College Admissions Strategies Photo by Robert Kinlaw, collegetownnc.com Many of this year’s college freshmen are truly the first children from the new millennium. Born in 2000, these students will be members of the college class o...

I mourn the loss of the Beloit List, which every year told profs what references were incomprehensible to their freshmen, (And accidentally provided a hilarious reminder for people who needed to lie about their age.) collegeadmissionsstrategies.com/this-years-c...

Submitting, for consideration:

it's true, they opened for ELP in the garden of The Prospect of Whitby out in Wapping the summer before ELP broke big on the Isle of Wight.

A headline reading “Camel pageant thrown into chaos after 20 competitors disqualified for using hump-plumping injectables”

Yes everything is terrible but let’s not lose sight of the fact that someone has written the Headline to End All Headlines.

Video Shows US Tomahawk Missile Strike Next to Girls’ School in Iran - bellingcat New video footage shows a US Tomahawk missile hitting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility in Minab, Iran, on Feb 28, showing for the first time that the US struck the area. The footag...

Read our analysis of the video showing a US Tomahawk missile strike next to Girls’ School in Iran on February 28 here: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03...

90s nostalgia is over, we're going back to the 1970s, kids.

Filling up your gas tank on payday and either installing a lock on the gas-cap cover or learning how to siphon without poisoning yourself.

Please listen to this advice and follow it.

Martha’s rule may have saved 400 lives so far in England, figures show Exclusive: System brought in after death of 13-year-old is helping ‘transform culture’ of NHS, says patient safety director

In the UK, 446 people were saved from death from sepsis in just 6 months after creation of a healthcare helpline that allows patients or families to request an urgent review of their care. The law creating it is named for a 13yo who died from undetected sepsis. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

there's so much bad in the world but there's also people who lift up and carry an elderly bat around every day so he can pretend he's flying again, and that's the part of the world I think is worth fighting for

Volume 51 Issue 2 | Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law | Duke University Press

This issue of JHPPL, free to read, is a really good analysis of the Trump administration’s war on public health, covering who what why and how as well as key underlying trends

I recently moved and had to dispose of a family tree of Apple laptops from the iBook on up (plus some Dell and Asus hackintoshes) and a stack of iPhones back to Day Zero. Some of them were older than the kid who checked me in at the recycling station.

As I get older I am coming to increasingly radical views like “accountability comes before compassion” and “religion is not a license to misbehave”

Weird chart. What happened in 2025 in the US? Did political leadership change and then start systematically dismantling education, science, health care, and government, levying arbitrary tariffs, randomly attacking major US cities, and destroying the economy?

Just asking.

"Shield of The Americas," also known by its acronym, "ShoT A (dog)"

One of my fingers anyway

Dead to me.

Ah yes, the Get Out of Hell Free card.

PEPFAR, the program to stop hundreds of thousands of children and adults from dying of HIV/AIDS, was $6.5 billion a year.

A horizontal white card with pale teal borders top and bottom shows a cream book cover and two faces. The book cover says: “THE FORMULA FOR BETTER EHALTH: How to Save Millions of Lives — Including Your Own.” The face in the middle is Dr. Tom Frieden, former CDC director and president and CEO of the nonprofit organization Resolve to Save Lives. The woman on the right is Maryn McKenna, the interviewer. The rest of the information is in the post text.

In 2 weeks! Super-special edition of @emorycshh.bsky.social's Health Storytelling, featuring Dr. Tom Frieden, former CDC director, and his new book THE FORMULA FOR BETTER HEALTH. Co-produced with the Atlanta Science Festival. Thurs 19 March, 6pm ET, RSVP here! humanhealth.emory.edu/events/livin...

a map of openai's influence on other media companies

Amazing site here via @timnitgebru.bsky.social - a map of big tech influence on media and media companies.

imo this goes a decent way to explaining why coverage of AI specifically has been so shockingly bad recently. Very useful resource!!

nananwachukwu.github.io/media-captur...

That he bears the name of the first family of Mass yet is dunking on Dunks... the treachery.

I laughed too hard at this. Darkly and bitterly, but still.

The screenshot of a newsletter reads: “Celebrating the Censor: The White House Correspondents’ Association is facing criticism after Donald Trump said he would attend this year's annual dinner where the organization offered to welcome him as an "honoree." In a Truth Social post, Trump stunned many when he announced, "In honor of our Nation’s 250th Birthday, and the fact that these 'Correspondents' now admit that I am truly one of the Greatest Presidents in the History of our Country, the G.O.A.T., according to many, it will be my Honor to accept their invitation, and work to make it the GREATEST, HOTTEST, and MOST SPECTACULAR DINNER, OF ANY KIND, EVER!" In a statement of her own, WHCA President Weijia Jiang said, "We're happy the president has accepted our invitation and look forward to hosting him." “

Congratulations to the WHCA for fully ascending to the position of palace media. Via @status.news :

So an ‘agentic AI’ did actually write this piece. Really? Really. 🤦🏽‍♂️

US study shows rising prevalence of fungal infection

Analysis of electronic health record data shows US aspergillosis diagnoses increased by more than 5% annually from 2013 through 2023.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/f...

Photo: Joe Rubin / Flickr cc

Donald Trump in 2011 claiming Obama was going to go to war with Iran because he was “ineffective” and “could not negotiate.”

YouTube video by Al Jazeera English 🔴 Al Jazeera English | Live

As someone who was around in 1991 and 2003 I can affirm that US cable news and options like the BBC are going to be useless and intolerable on events in Iran so just watch AJE on YouTube imho www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCNe...

Team Trump Opposed War With Iran. Then They Started One Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tulsi Gabbard, Stephen Miller, and so many in MAGA claimed they would stop regime-change wars, not start them. We have the receipts.

“Team Trump Opposed War with Iran. Then They Started One”

Receipts from Zeteo on how Trump, Vance, Gabbard, RFK, Miller et al all said one thing about Iran & regime change wars… but then did the exact opposite: