Michael Marshall

I find it hard to see this as anything other than an indirect form of mass murder

MAHA just announced that states will be able to prohibit people from purchasing junk food with SNAP.

They claim this will make people healthier. That it’ll force them to make better choices.

It won’t.

Why? They aren’t addressing the privilege involved with healthy eating 🧵

Will AI put fiction writers out of work? Authors Naomi Alderman, Curtis Sittenfeld and more on why artificial intelligence is stirring fears for the future of book publishing

“It’s almost taboo among writers to say, ‘I am interested in finding out what a person could do with this technology.’”

I spoke to @naomialderman.bsky.social, @richbeard.bsky.social and Sarah Hall about what AI means for novelists, in this week’s @ftweekend.com Books Essay:

A cartoon showing a woman with short brown hair holding up her hand, with a gold ring on the third finger - and the ring is emitting blue beams that trace out the contours of her face. Credit: Josie Ford

@newscientist.com's Feedback writer (who could it be) is delighted to learn about "smart jewellery" that tracks its wearer's movements and emotions. It's a technology with no downsides whatsoever, nosirree.

https://loom.ly/4bHxm7o

Government quietly releases multiple disability research reports on the same day… eight days too late for MPs The government has quietly published 12 detailed research reports, nearly all related to disability employment, disability poverty and the benefits system, all on the same day, just eight days afte…

The government has quietly published 12 research reports, nearly all related to disability employment, disability poverty and the benefits system, all on the same day, just 8 days after MPs voted to impose £2 billion-a-year cuts to disability benefits.
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/government-q...

Another favourite:

When you attend a funeral,
It is sad to think that sooner’r
Later those you love will do the same for you.

Tom Lehrer, Influential Satirist Whose Topical Songs Poked and Prodded America in the ’50s and ’60s, Dies at 97 Tom Lehrer, an influential musical satirist who came to fame with songs addressing topical events in the '50s and '60s, has died at age 97.

We will all go together when we go,
All suffused with an incandescent glow.
No one will have the endurance
To collect on his insurance,
Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

https://variety.com/2025/music/obituaries-people-news/tom-lehrer-dead-satirist-topical-singer-songwriter-1236471506/

Photo of Tom Lehrer

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

Finding Peter Putnam The forgotten janitor who discovered the logic of the mind

If you haven’t yet read Amanda Gefter’s incredible story about the forgotten philosopher Peter Putnam, I can’t recommend it enough.

This man worked as a janitor - but previously came up with a groundbreaking theory of the human mind.

https://nautil.us/finding-peter-putnam-1218035/

Asimov’s unwritten fourth law of robotics: never go full Karen

A cartoon showing a person climbing a ladder to inspect a collection of growing teeth in a white bowl, surrounded by oversized lab equipment like a microscope and test tubes. Credit: Tim Alexander

If you lose a tooth, the dentist will offer you a metal replacement.

What if, instead, you could grow a whole new tooth? @newscientist.com

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2487555-how-regrowing-your-own-teeth-could-replace-dentures-and-implants/

A cartoon showing a vending machine with robot arms, with "CLAUDE" written in white letters at the bottom. It is surrounded by whizzing lights and has a speech bubble filled with unintelligible letters and symbols. Credit: Josie Ford

@newscientist.com’s Feedback watches with raised eyebrows as an AI is given the job of running the company vending machine.

It turns out AI really is creative: the machine made mistakes no human would.

https://loom.ly/Ihs58Fc

Now this is how to write an obituary 🔥

Prehistoric remains in Tassili n'Ajjer in southwestern Algeria. This huge plateau, inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage since 1982, hosts rock carvings chronicling nearly 10,000 years of history. Credit: Rostasedlacek / Shutterstock

I was excited to write a piece for the UNESCO Courier, @unesco.org's official magazine, about the current state of archaeology.

TL:DR Thanks to new techniques and finds, many "classic" narratives of human (pre)history are being rethought.

https://loom.ly/IzKwYHk

A cartoon showing three people listening to music on headphones, with musical notes floating all around them, on a purple background. Credit: Josie Ford

As AI-generated music swamps streaming services, @newscientist.com's Feedback asks: what should these fake bands call themselves?

Some suggestions that were cut for space: Fairport Compression, Nick Cache and the Back Ups, R.O.M.

https://loom.ly/drZtdsU

“Without immediate intervention, the last remaining reporters in Gaza are going to die.”

A cartoon showing a human hand (left) clasping fingers with a metallic robot hand (right), against a purple background. Credit: Josie Ford.

Most invitations to scientific conferences are boring, but the invite to a meeting about sex with robots was electrifying, says Feedback at @newscientist.com

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26735512-700-is-this-the-raciest-conference-invite-ever/

Artist's impression showing a group of ancient humans living in a dense forest. There are six adults, one of them carrying a baby, and they are foraging for food among the trees. Credit: Lionel Bret / Eurelios / Science Photo Library.

Ancient humans in Africa changed their behaviour in a major way 70,000 years ago.

It could explain how their descendants managed to people the rest of the world - @newscientist.com

https://loom.ly/BpEpFZI

Geologist Harold Berghuis collected more than 6,300 animal fossils from an artificial island in the Madura Strait. The fossils, including some shown here from elephant-like and hippopotamus-like creatures, are helping to re-create what a landscape now drowned by the sea once looked like.

A company in Indonesia dredged up a load of seafloor sediments to build an artificial island - and uncovered the remains of ancient humans called Homo erectus. @sciencenews.bsky.social

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/seafloor-clues-ancient-human-relatives

I went on the @newscientist.com podcast to tell hosts @rowhoop.bsky.social and @pennysarchet.bsky.social about the first complete genome of an ancient Egyptian.

https://loom.ly/oj_KLx4

And once again, the publishing industry’s policy of not fact-checking non-fiction books bites us all in the bum.

First full genome of Ancient Egyptian sequenced; Wild killer whales offer gifts to humans; First demonstration of interstellar navigation The world, the universe and us · Episode

The World, the Universe and Us this week:
☠️First ancient Egyptian genome
🐋Orcas giving gifts TO HUMANS
🛰️First interstellar navigation!
open.spotify.com/episode/3tUH... with @pennysarchet.bsky.social, @alexwilkins.bsky.social and @michael-marshall.bsky.social

The front cover of New Scientist, issue 3550. The main caption is "The people who vanished: We finally know what happened to our ancient relatives who set out to conquer the world - and didn't make it." The image is artwork of a vast white plain, dotted with footprint trails, and one silhouetted figure walking off into the distance.

The latest issue of @newscientist.com is out now and includes my feature on lost human populations from prehistory - along with this gorgeous cover art (for which I can take exactly zero credit).

https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3550/

A cartoon showing a copy of Bleak House by Charles Dickens, with a black cover, sitting upright. Next to it is a computer with Bleak House: Charles Dickens on the screen. The computer is melting and surrounded by whizzing clouds and other magical energy. Credit: Josie Ford

A new use for AI: make the prose in tricky books easier to read, regardless of how awful the result is.

@newscientist.com's Feedback has drafted "Pride and Prejudice and AI": "Everyone knows that rich, single men want to get married."

https://loom.ly/_j7zVlU

A fresco from the Theban necropolis depicting potters in ancient Egypt. Credit: DeAgostini / Getty Images

The first complete genome of an ancient Egyptian has been sequenced.

It hints that Egypt had connections to Mesopotamia - @newscientist.com

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2486737-an-ancient-egyptians-complete-genome-has-been-read-for-the-first-time/

Artwork showing a vast, flat white plain - perhaps covered in snow - with mountains in the distance, against an orange and green sky. Seven isolated human figures are wandering away over the plain, leaving trails of footprints behind them. Credit: Harriet Lee-Merrion

Over millennia, waves of humans set out across Europe and Asia, only to mysteriously vanish.

Meet the lost souls of prehistory in @newscientist.com

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2484740-the-remarkable-tale-of-how-humans-nearly-didnt-conquer-the-world/

We finally know what the face of a Denisovan looked like A skull from China has been identified as Denisovan using molecular evidence – so ancient humans once known solely from their DNA finally have a face

A skull from China has been identified as Denisovan using molecular evidence – so ancient humans once known solely from their DNA finally have a face

Out now: @newscientist.com's latest Concepts issue

Me on animal consciousness, @rowhoop.bsky.social‬ on symbiosis, @leahc.bsky.social‬ on quasiparticles and much more. It's a cornucopia (not like The Hunger Games).

https://www.newscientist.com/issue/3549/

I agree with all of that. I think it’s also a question of industrial pressures. Many journalists are having to churn out 4 or more stories per day (your story was by a senior BBC correspondent, so probably not quite that dire). That means no time to think or dig, and causes all sorts of problems.

It’s always a balancing act. Of course you want to be accurate, especially when the terminology has historical sensitivities. But at the same time, if you don’t make it crystal clear to readers what you’re on about, they won’t read it at all - and then you’ve *definitely* failed to communicate 😆