Saugat Bolakhe

A quiet island experiment reveals a battle of the bees When beekeepers introduced honeybees to a protected island, wild bees nearly vanished. Could removing the hives reverse the damage?

My latest for National Geographic

The piece dives into the spring showdown between managed and wild bees on a tiny Italian island 🐝.

Researcher imagined what if they could make honey bees disappear from the island to study wild bees and their routine.

www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...

#GiveInMay Support Asian American & Pacific Islander nonprofits across the country and join us for a month of giving in honor of AAPI Heritage Month!

🌸 AANHPI Heritage Month is here — and so is #GiveInMay! Join us in honoring the strength, stories, and struggles of AANHPI communities by supporting orgs on the frontlines.

🎁 We're fundraising to support our summer newsroom intern, in partnership with the CUNY Newmark J-Corps. Give today:

Looking for who to follow? Here's a great list to start with.

Every story is a science story.

Congratulations to the ten journalists awarded a 2025 Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship! Read about the full list of fellows at fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/bcsp/2025-fe...

The Xylom - Open Collective We grow science with words. The only Asian American-serving science newsroom: independent, nonprofit, run by Gen-Z!

In a second Trump administration, we will fight to deliver coverage of Asian Americans, science, and society that you can trust.

Support independent, nonprofit reporting that cuts through the noise: opencollective.com/thexylom#cat...

Trekking across Nepal to bridge its gender gap in the sciences Biochemist Babita Paudel strives to change Nepal’s standing as the Asian country with the lowest participation of women in science.

Biochemist Babita Paudel brings professional development and workshops to the farthest reaches of Nepal to boost the participation of #womeninSTEM there.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Not all insects stay in one place—some, like birds, migrate to avoid harsh weather, to find food or to breed, perhaps trillions each year. Yet tracking insect migration is not as straightforward as tracking birds or mammals, writes @scigat.bsky.social:
buff.ly/6KDsjUB

Shaking up earthquake safety in Nepal with a folk song Geophysicist Shiba Subedi combines science and songwriting to raise awareness and debunk earthquake myths.

In this @nature.com profilfe, geophysicist Shiba Subedi tells @scigat.bsky.social how he brought together music and science to write his award-winning Nepali folk song, Earthquake Awareness Song (Be sure to watch the super fun music video!)

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

He's back!

@scigat.bsky.social is rejoining us as one of ten Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellows. He will be reporting about the mystic and cult following surrounding mad honey, an unregulated psychedelic harvested from the Himalayan cliffs of Nepal and promoted by "podcast bros". 🧪

Congrats to TON's @scigat.bsky.social, a newly announced 2025 Ferriss-UC Berkeley Journalism Fellow who will be reporting about the mystic and cult following surrounding mad honey, which is harvested from the Himalayan cliffs of Nepal. 🧪

ICYMI, the fantastic @scigat.bsky.social - a talented, thoughtful and indispensable member of the TON team - won a prestigious award from the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology for his impressive body of journalism, reflecting efforts to strengthen coverage of, for, and in his home country.

Many thanks again to @humbertobasilio.bsky.social for his interview, and shout-out to @scigat.bsky.social, Nepal's freshly-minted science journalist of the year, who has embodied The Xylom's mission of growing science with words!

Huge thank you to the program directors & admissions folks who provided the information in this guide, like @danfagin.bsky.social, @sethmnookin.bsky.social, @erikacheckhayden.bsky.social, and others! And to @scigat.bsky.social, who leads TON's int'l student Slack community, for urging this resource!

Amazing. That sounds like a cool newsletter. You got a new subscriber then 😉😄!

Thank you for the shout out Jodi. Indeed, I found the idea of tracking butterfly migration through pollen so fascinating. Glad you liked it!

The secrets of butterfly migration, written in pollen Trillions of insects move around the globe each year. Scientists are working on new ways to map those long-distance journeys.

Fascinating! Analyzing pollen collected from 264 butterflies in 10 countries, researchers found 398 different plants to track the butterflies’ movements backward, finding that swarms of 🦋 in Russia, Scandinavia, & the Baltics
were likely offspring of butterflies from Arabia & the Middle East.

Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky After recent changes to Elon Musk’s X, a gradual migration turns into a stampede

Thoughts, folks?

www.science.org/content/arti...

One of the scientists I interviewed said that it was tracking GPS.

This took quite a bit of back and forth with my wonderful editor, Bob Holmes, who also helped me shape the structure better. Thank you so much Rosie, Eva and the rest of the copy editing and fact checking team at Knowable.

We have all heard of Monarch butterflies’ epic migration from southern Canada to central Mexico.

There are also painted lady butterflies that migrate over several generations from the Middle east, Europe to Africa. But how do you follow them. Now, scientists are using pollen to track them.

The secrets of butterfly migration, written in pollen Trillions of insects move around the globe each year. Scientists are working on new ways to map those long-distance journeys.

Hey everyone,

I am excited to share a recent short feature article on Butterfly migration that I wrote for the Knowable Magazine.

This took quite a bit of work and lots of back and forth. I am still incredibly proud and excited to have you all read it.

knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

I’m genuinely surprised by how quickly my follower count is growing on this platform (Blue Sky)—nearly 600 people without much effort! It’s amazing to see how this space is thriving, and I’m definitely not complaining 😉

Keep them coming, folks!

If you're in Madison, please come to @theopennotebook.bsky.social's event at Leopold's Books/Bar at 6 p.m. on Tues, Nov. 19! I'll be talking about THE CRAFT OF SCIENCE WRITING (published this month) with @kellyperil.bsky.social, a signature cocktail will be available, & it'll be great. 📚🍸

Best wishes ahead, Laura! You seem like an amazing leader.

Transitioning from tweets, NASW migrates across to Bluesky NASW is transitioning to Bluesky as its short-form social media platform for community building. Find out how NASW members can join the conversation.

Science Writers: NASW is transitioning from Twitter to Bluesky as its short-form social media platform for community building. To facilitate Bluesky signups for our member network, we've created a code donation and receiving tool. See you all here soon! www.nasw.org/article/nasw... 💚

Once started, I couldn't put it down.

Run Saugat Run!
Sunnyside --- Long Island City

Are these moths blinding children? Nepalese researchers seek answers Researchers are carrying out environmental surveys and genomic sequencing to try to learn more about SHAPU, a severe eye condition that mainly affects children — but funding is still scarce. Researc...

My latest for Nature,

On a mysterious eye illness called SHAPU that starts afflicting children in Parts of Nepal at the end of Monsoon every two years and efforts from researchers to get to its roots.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A book I am really excited to grab.
Heard that the Best American Science and Nature Writing is out now. And it's been edited by the incredible Carl Zimmer (@carlzimmer.bsky.social)