Davide Castelvecchi

Very excited to be at my first World Conference of Science Journalists in Tshwane, South Africa, today to talk about covering quantum technology. Many thanks to the Unesco International Year of Quantum Science and Technology which sponsored this event @wcsj2025.bsky.social

A sad story worth reading

The New York Times' story about Trump calling for the execution of members of Congress ran on Page 16 today, with an itty-bitty promo on the front about halfway down the page.
No wonder Trump thinks he can get away with anything.

Sometimes the bad thing you stop from happening is a story being covered at all — one that was better left not covered

Saudi Arabia leads attempts to block climate deal, UN chief warns in closed-door talks António Guterres notes talks could fail as a result of negotiating tactics

UN secretary-general António Guterres has identified Saudi Arabia as leading moves to block key outcomes at the #Cop30 climate summit, the Financial Times has reported

- he also identified some developed countries’ opposition to adaptation funding pledges

#climatecrisis
www.ft.com/content/edf7...

Has birds’ mysterious ‘compass’ organ been found at last? Multiple lines of evidence suggest that pigeons sense magnetic fields by detecting electric currents in their inner ears.

My latest. Perhaps quantum spin effects in the retina aren't necessary to explain birds' compass sense after all... instead, birds might use electromagnetic induction — as in AC voltage transformers — to sense magnetic fields via electric fields.
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A better way to look for signs of ancient biology It could also be useful in finding life on other planets

I wrote this short piece www.economist.com/science-and-... about this interesting paper
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

AI Uncovers Oldest-Ever Molecular Evidence of Photosynthesis A machine-learning breakthrough could lift the veil on Earth’s early history—and supercharge the search for alien life

Now on @sciam.bsky.social: A machine-learning breakthrough in detecting ancient biomolecules could lift the veil on Earth’s early history—and supercharge the search for alien life.

www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-u...

First electric cars and buses, now trucks: in the past we were often told that electric trucks would not be feasible.

But the market is picking up speed and electric trucks have become a reality. Expectations are for significant market expansion in the coming years.

It's hard to believe this is real, but I think it is.
And most depressingly: Tyler does not say "What the fuck are you even talking about Sam, and why are you in this job?"

#WCSJ2025

Let's have more people from the UK, Ireland and Europe attending the World Conference of Science Journalism 2025, Pretoria, 1–5 Dec

Discounts for ABSW & WFSJ members (~£375 / £175 students)
Register → zurl.co/Ot9ws

@wcsj2025.bsky.social @wfsj25.bsky.social
@istja.ie @eurofsj

Bill Gates’s climate comments are a dangerous distraction People do not have to dismiss or exaggerate the climate threat to justify concerted action.

Bill Gates astounded climate advocates by publishing a manifesto arguing that the climate crisis is less urgent than other major problems that humanity faces

go.nature.com/4qXJDEO

The future of AI Artificial intelligence is flying high. Nature asked leading innovators what they think will happen next.

If you're interested in AI, where it's heading, and the people behind the wheel, perhaps you'll give our new feature a look www.nature.com/immersive/d4...

In the global electrification race China is marching ahead.

The US and Europe risk falling behind clinging on to yesterday's technologies.

‘Malicious use is already happening’: machine-learning pioneer on making AI safer Yoshua Bengio talks about the dangers to humanity that he believes AI could represent.

Yoshua Bengio talks about the dangers to humanity that he believes AI could represent.

go.nature.com/3K4IUB7

No excuse for this

Google Has Chosen a Side in Trump's Mass Deportation Effort Google is hosting a CBP app that uses facial recognition to identify immigrants, while simultaneously removing apps that report the location of ICE officials because Google sees ICE as a vulnerable gr...

New: Google has chosen a side in Trump's mass deportation campaign. Google is hosting a CBP facial recognition app to hunt immigrants; no indication Google will remove. At same time Google takes down apps for reporting ICE sightings

“Big tech has made their choice”

www.404media.co/google-has-c...

a man is sitting at a desk with a computer and a ball on it ALT: a man is sitting at a desk with a computer and a ball on it

Oh, wait, Bill Gates still says that now

I am old enough to remember when very serious people like Bill Gates used to say “We should wait to cut emissions until we have breakthrough technologies, the transition would be too expensive now”. The mess that way of thinking has left us isn’t going to be cheap to clean up

The Sad Story of the Gravitational Wave Detector on the Moon — James Riordon - Relatively Easy Relativity The sad story of Joe Weber’s gravitational wave detector on the moon

conch-wolf-8hhz.squarespace.com/relatively-e...

🤣

“Riots Raging”: The Misleading Story Fox News Told About Portland Before Trump Sent Troops After reviewing coverage from the network and hours of social media videos that preceded Trump’s decision, ProPublica found that Fox’s portrayal of “Portland rioters” routinely instigating violence was misleading.

NEW: ProPublica examined months of Fox News’ coverage and reviewed over 700 videos posted on social media.

The network used five-year-old footage, mislabeled other dates and implied footage from elsewhere was in Portland.

Now someone has kindly forwarded me the email that I never received with the link on how to apply for field trips. I think I'll skip them though, and plan my own visits — I am not going to fill out a whole job application just to join a day trip. But thanks anyway.

This sounds great, but how do I sign up? There seems to be no link on the field trip pages, and when I emailed info@wcsj2025.org my email bounced back :-/

‘Godfather of AI’ becomes first person to hit one million citations The milestone makes machine-learning trailblazer Yoshua Bengio the most cited researcher on Google Scholar.

Computer scientist Yoshua Bengio has become the first person to have their work cited more than one million times on the search engine Google Scholar

go.nature.com/4oywvUV

‘It keeps me awake at night’: machine-learning pioneer on AI’s threat to humanity Yoshua Bengio talks about his efforts to identify — and address — the risks posed by AI.

My latest, with Ben Thompson ( @naturepodcast.bsky.social version to appear later this week)
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Net zero is one of the many areas where commentators are out-of-touch with public opinion in Britain. There is still broad support for cutting carbon emissions - except from among Reform supporters, who are the outliers.

“woke” is when you acknowledge that black people have contributed to the united states

What Rosalind Franklin truly contributed to the discovery of DNA’s structure Franklin was no victim in how the DNA double helix was solved. An overlooked letter and an unpublished news article, both written in 1953, reveal that she was an equal player.

On the event of James Watson's death, I highly recommend this 2023 commentary from @matthewcobb.bsky.social and Nathaniel Comfort with crucial new insights into the discovery of the double helix. (And also check out Cobb's brand new biography of Francis Crick) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The restriction only applies to review and position papers. They are still accepting the vast majority of preprints, which are those that report original research.