Michael Greshko

Thank you @spinfocl.bsky.social for the kind words about my research on the Voynich Manuscript, which I’m pleased to announce has been accepted for publication in Cryptologia following peer review. Read more about my work and the previous research that motivated it in Hermes’s blog post:

5,000 Podcasts. 3,000 Episodes a Week. $1 Cost Per Episode — Behind an AI Start Up’s Plan Former Wondery exec Jeanine Wright is leading a new firm, Inception Point AI, that's betting on flooding the zone with audio content: “I think that people who are still referring to all AI-generated c...

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this company's AI podcast on the Gilded Age has a thumbnail misspelling it "Guilded Age." Somewhat ironic. www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-...

www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

*typo: magic THROUGH the millennia. A huge thanks to the book's fact-checker and proofreader, too!

This book was a massive lift. Huge thank-you to my coauthors Nina Strochlic and Pat Daniels and to our incredible editor @mayamyersbooks.bsky.social, as well as to the whole team at WonderLab Group and National Geographic, with a special shoutout to Kate Olesin and Jennifer Emmett.

National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult: A Visual History A Visual History

Personal news: I wrote ~3/8 of a book, and that book is out today! If you want a visually rich, historically grounded look at magic though the millennia, this book's for you. The National Geographic Book of Magic and the Occult is available wherever books are sold:
bookshop.org/p/books/nati...

Thanks! FYI, I am building out a Python implementation of the Naibbe cipher, as well as an automatic decryption script and a more robust Python version of Voynichesque. I will make those scripts available to the community as soon as I can.

Personal news: As an unusual hobby, I study the weird 15th-century text known as the Voynich Manuscript. I am giving a talk on some of my research on August 3: www.voynich.ninja/thread-4827....

I haven’t cracked it. Rather, I have devised a reference model for how the text may have been generated.

Well, this makes it real: I'm retiring in September and this is the just-posted job listing for my replacement. @Science.org is a fabulous place to work, so @sciencewriters.org, apply here! recruiting.ultipro.com/AME1123ASEM/...

Pterosaur died with belly full of plants—a fossil first New discovery confirms the long-debated hypothesis that the ancient winged reptiles ate plants

Do you ever stop and think about how there used to be pterosaurs? A fun new study shows that pterosaurs used to eat plants (they'd been expected to be carnivores) & like modern birds, they had stones in their gullets called gastroliths that help break down plants 🧪 @science.org

Fair point. The first alternate that comes to mind is "feedification," with platforms training people to distribute + consume news & entertainment thru algorithmic feeds. 1/3 of US adults "believe that they no longer have to actively seek the news to be well informed": ijoc.org/index.php/ij...

This gets to broader point: For all its benefits, democratization is deprofessionalization. As the barriers to entry lower, more people will do unpaid work to buy algorithmic lottery tickets. Tech platforms seem to have realized that dreams alone can pay for the median piece of "engaging content."

To add here, the sheer difficulty of scaling this up makes it all the more tempting to rely on platforms like Substack for audience acquisition and growth. But among other things, the writer risks the same situation as publications a decade ago: tech platforms wanting to be audience landlords.

It has been so gratifying to see this issue—much of which is my October 2020 feature for Nat Geo Magazine—still have legs, nearly 5 years on.

Headlines are an art form all their own—and they are are incredibly important to get right. The way I think of it, it's the hed, the dek, and the social copy in combination. If you can achieve snappiness and nuance thru a mix of all three (which is how many people enter stories), you're doing OK.

This is exactly representative of my experiments with ChatGPT as a research tool (to be clear, I don't use any generative AI in my work). One time I gave it a web-searching task, it said it was performing the task, it wasn't performing the task, and then BS'd at length when I called it out.

Exclusive: NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy “I have done all I can,” says Sethuraman Panchanathan, a Trump appointee who has led agency since 2020

🧪🚨 BREAKING @science.org exclusive, courtesy of @policyhound.bsky.social: In a letter to NSF staff obtained by Science, NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan says he is resigning 16 months early, amid mass firings and grant terminations/freezes. www.science.org/content/arti...

It was a pleasure to work with @joshuasokol.bsky.social on this piece! Check it out:

Trump seeks to end climate research at premier U.S. climate agency White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted

BREAKING from @science.org: The Trump admin is seeking to kill nearly all climate research at NOAA, its climate science agency.

Its near-final budget proposal would end all NOAA research labs, academic institutes, and regional climate centers. And it wants to fully end the NOAA Research division.

Weather Fox is another brand owned by Animals Around the Globe GmbH, of which Jan Otte is CEO. So yes.

Trump administration purges U.S. health agency leaders Reassignment letters come as reductions in force begin at NIH, FDA, and CDC

One high level HHS official shown the door told @science.org, “I couldn’t have worked with these asshats anyway.”

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

Strengthens the hypothesis of a French affinity for the manuscript, on the basis that "Grey Poupon" is clearly just a corruption of "Green Coupon."

Maybe they didn't want to create confusion over the quality of their work?

@hannah-richter.bsky.social did a phenomenal job reporting this story out:

Saying ‘pandemic is over,’ NIH institute starts cutting COVID-19 research Grant terminations halt research on improving vaccinations and preventing future pandemics

Exclusive: Science has learned that grant termination letters went out last night to principal investigators of 29 awards made by NIAID, including nine grants that were part of a program hoping to deliver antiviral drugs to prevent future pandemics. scim.ag/4iVm7mY

I have been combing through similar datasets and have come across some of the same grants/contracts. I can also confirm that these datasets are messy.

This is besides the point, but this is the optimal mug shape. Excellent choice.

🧪 Flagging for the science feed: A big @science.org exclusive just went out the door on fears that NIH will slash grants to health researchers working in South Africa.

Gandhi says cutting clinical trials for HIV and tuberculosis would have ripple effects outside of Africa. She is most concerned that abruptly stopping treatment will allow HIV and the mycobacteria that causes tuberculosis to develop resistance to existing medicines. Even if funding is eventually restored, she says, “I don’t know if we can ever get back to where we are.”

Terrific reporting here from @sarareardon.bsky.social that very clearly lays out the stakes. A lot of these grants focus on HIV/AIDS—about 13% of South Africans live w/ HIV, more than anywhere else in the world—and tuberculosis (of interest to @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social?).

Fear spreads that NIH will terminate grants involving South Africa Trump has promised to cut off funding, claiming nation discriminates against white citizens

A big @science.org exclusive: Health researchers who work in South Africa are hearing that NIH could soon axe all grants in the country—apparently in response to a Trump executive order alleging discrimination against white South Africans. www.science.org/content/arti...

Dinosaur-era mammals’ fur color revealed for first time Preserved pigments suggest Jurassic mammals had dark fur, consistent with a nocturnal lifestyle

ICYMI, @rpocisv.bsky.social had a terrific story for @science.org earlier this week about our furry forebears: In a first, we know the fur colors of Jurassic mammals! They most likely came out at night dressed in a uniform dark brown. www.science.org/content/arti...