Humberto Basilio

What’s a Potato? A Nine-Million-Year-Old Tomato.

An ancient hybrid of tomatoes and potato-like plants may have given rise to the modern spud, a new study suggests.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/31/s...

Zimbabwe's HIV Medicine Black Market is Flush with Sex Workers and Asian Cash Legally purchasing PreP and PEP pills from private pharmacies can be expensive for sex workers, who are required to submit to expensive medical tests on top of purchasing the pills.

NEW: The Trump administration's dismantling of USAID is fueling a black market of HIV medication in Zimbabwe. Desperate nurses are plundering PrEP and PEP pills from the hospitals where they work, and selling them to sex workers well-funded by their Asian clients, worsening the country's HIV crisis.

Most of Earth’s critical underground fungus is unprotected First global map of mushrooms that form beneficial relationships with plant roots reveals 90% live outside of conservation areas

SPUN is featured in @science.org in a piece written by @humbertobasilio.bsky.social. Learn where some of the most unique fungal communities exist, such as West Africa’s Guinean forests, Tasmania’s temperate rainforests, and Brazil’s Cerrado savanna.

Read here: www.science.org/content/arti...

How a string of deadly shark attacks made a remote island a hub of lifesaving research After 11 deaths, Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean became a center for shark attack science

Once a surfer's paradise, a string of deadly attacks made Réunion Island synonymous with one word only: sharks. But a team of scientists turned this tiny island into a hub of lifesaving research. For @science.org, I wrote about this fascinating place.

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

Eureka! The brain science behind lightbulb moments Experiences of insight come with a burst of brain activity — and a memory boost.

Studying the AHA! moments. This story about insight by @humbertobasilio.bsky.social is truly inspiring. Take on the test within to see if you feel it, too.

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

The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future.

NEW: The US government has collected DNA from over 100,000 migrant children—including a 4-year-old—and uploaded their genetic profiles into a national biometric database meant for sex offenders and violent criminals.

www.wired.com/story/cbp-dn...

Lawyer for Venezuelans deported to El Salvador prison arrested Ruth López held without access to lawyers at secret location accused of ‘embezzlement’ a decade ago

None of the 278 men sent to CECOT have been returned. Meanwhile their lawyer has been arrested and "disappeared" in El Salvador.

NYU strongly denounces the choice by a student at the Gallatin School’s graduation today—one of over 20 school graduation ceremonies across our campus—to misuse his role as student speaker to express his personal and one-sided political views. “He lied about the speech he was going to deliver and violated the commitment he made to comply with our rules. The University is withholding his diploma while we pursue disciplinary actions. “NYU is deeply sorry that the audience was subjected to these remarks and that this moment was stolen by someone who abused a privilege that was conferred upon him.”

A principled student said in a grad speech that the “only appropriate thing to say in this moment” is to acknowledge the “atrocities” currently being committed in Palestine.

In response, NYU is withholding their diploma + apologizing to the community for the trauma the audience was “subjected to.”

Renewal of NIH grants linked to more innovative results, study finds Survey of hundreds of scientists’ work suggests that cutting off funding disrupts focus and reduces the novelty of research.

Just published: US scientists who received renewals from the NIH over the past four decades produced more novel research than those who didn’t, study finds

You can then imagine what happens when scientists are shut out of renewals by Trump's NIH

Article by the talented @humbertobasilio.bsky.social

The Brazilian Judge Taking On the Digital Far Right Alexandre de Moraes’s efforts to fight extremism online have pitted him against Jair Bolsonaro, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump.

Jon Lee Anderson profiles Alexandre de Moraes, the crusading Brazilian jurist who took on the Bolsonarist insurrection—and Elon Musk.

Nike Says Its Factory Workers Earn Nearly Double the Minimum Wage. At This Cambodian Factory, 1% Made That Much. Nike has made an expansive effort to convince consumers, investors and others that it is improving the lives of factory workers who make its products, not exploiting them. A rare view of wages at one ...

www.propublica.org/article/nike...

Starved in Jail Why are incarcerated people dying from lack of food or water, even as private companies are paid millions for their care?

Sarah Stillman investigates a crisis of care in county jails: a scandal involving, at its worst, state-sponsored homicides of the country’s most vulnerable citizens.

NEW: Here are the terminated grants by division, from an NSF source. Total is 434, higher than DOGE's claim of 402.
Top 3 divisions:
Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings - 51
Equity for Excellence in STEM - 50
Engineering Education and Centers - 43

Mi Ro <3

Mexican whale researchers sound the alarm on an energy megaproject A planned gas terminal would routinely send huge tankers through a marine mammal oasis, scientists fear

In Mexico, a planned gas terminal threatens an important whale sanctuary. The controversial megaproject would routinely send huge tankers through the Gulf of California. If the project moves forward, "we are going to regret it a lot," a whale researcher told me.

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

@aaup.bsky.social

The Trump Administration Accidentally Texted Me Its War Plans U.S. national-security leaders included me in a group chat about upcoming military strikes in Yemen. I didn’t think it could be real. Then the bombs started falling.

American war planning usually takes place in highly secure facilities. But the Trump administration planned its strikes on the Houthis using a group chat—and accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg. theatln.tc/IuULQFiY

The smartest and most beautiful person I know will now be covering Science for The New York Times. Please go follow her to keep reading her amazing work.

Te amo, Alexa 🦭❤️

@eso.org

@astronomy.blue @emily.space

Light pollution threatens fleet of world-class telescopes in Atacama Desert The effects of a proposed green-energy facility in Chile could be devastating for some of the most powerful instruments available to astronomers.

🚨The world's darkest skies are at risk. A massive hydrogen plant could cause enough light pollution to affect the observations of the most powerful telescopes on earth.

It could be “the beginning of the end” for astronomy in Chile, scientists say

My story @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘My career is over’: Columbia University scientists hit hard by Trump team’s cuts The US government has begun slashing US$400 million in research grants at Columbia University over pro-Palestinian campus protests.

"At this point I believe my academic career is effectively over"--a postdoc studying schizophrenia at Columbia, in the wake of the government's $400 million funding cut. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

‘My career is over’: Columbia University scientists hit hard by Trump team’s cuts The US government has begun slashing US$400 million in research grants at Columbia University over pro-Palestinian campus protests.

🚨This week, many Columbia scientists lost grants that funded over half their annual income. Others will no longer be able to do research that helps treat thousands of sick patients across the US.

"It hurts," they told me.

My story for @nature.com 🧪

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

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