Rich Haridy

Thanks Starre! Lemme know if you got any crazy ideas! Weirder the better 😉

Get in touch to chat about rates (they vary depending on scope) and ideas. I'm interested in those stories that may have been sitting in a drawer for a while after being "not quite right" for other places.

Share around. Happy to talk.

Contact me: rich[at]refractor.io

#scicomm #science #journalism

I'm open to all stories, from short news pieces to longer, exploratory features. Everything in the spectrum of science is game (biology, geology, psychology, space, medicine).

Refractor has no house style, instead I'm looking for unique human voices, journalistic rigour and compelling storytelling.

CALLING ALL SCIENCE WRITERS!
NEW PITCH OPPORTUNITY!

I'll be leading a new science and health publication called Refractor. It's a spin-off from New Atlas with a new editorial approach. We'll be launching very soon and as Founding Editor I'm calling out to all science writers keen to pitch.

Louise Adler sets the record straight on Adelaide Writers' Week The Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) debacle might have served as a “life lesson” to politicians and lobbyists about the risks involved in interfering with the independence of arts organisations. But as w...

More food for thought from Louise Adler about the idea of 'balance' in the curation of writers' festivals, and the selective hyperventilating about the inclusion of one Palestinian writer: johnmenadue.com/post/2026/03...

Anthony Jeselnik's new book club gives me hope. He's getting people to read!

1st month was Jim Thompson's The Getaway. Dream pulp!

Then he bombarded ppl with Fernanda Melchor's Paradais, an assault of a novel.

Current selection: Vonnegut's Mother Night.

The man has good taste.

Wouldn't be surprised if that's trialled sooner or later.

The actual study frames this all a bit differently. You could draw that line but more specifically it's about a particular type of neural activity suggesting focused neuromodulation could enhance psilocybin induced plasticity.

Of course, I do agree with your general point though 😉

Quaid is a great analogy! I was thinking he was tracking like Alec Baldwin who also failed as that big leading man movie star but Quaid is way more on point.

OpenAI announces Pentagon deal after Trump bans Anthropic Shortly after the president's ban of artificial intelligence company Anthropic, rival OpenAI announced it had done a deal with the Defense Department to provide its technology for classified networks.

And there you go. No one dares beat Sam Altman in a race to the bottom of the ethical barrel.

Vegetarians have ‘substantially lower risk’ of five types of cancer Study shows lower risk for multiple myeloma as well as pancreatic, prostate, breast and kidney cancers

Lots of weird details in the study to undercut that headline.

Vegetarians were twice as likely to get oesophageal cancer.

No difference in bowel cancer rates btw vegetarians and meat eaters but 40% higher rates in vegans!

Reckon I could make a different headline out of those data points.

Flat out absurd decision by the WCSJ to hold a science journalism conference in a country notorious for curtailing press freedom.

Paramount Skydance Poised to Acquire Warner Bros. Discovery After Netflix Bows Out of Bidding War Paramount Skydance is poised to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery now that Netflix has declined to increase its existing offer valued at $83 billion.

A real disastrous outcome. Everyone in Hollywood who played the streamer scare card is gonna eat their words soon.

Mass firings as the company consolidates double assets. Reduced overall outputs. And that's not touching on the terrible people at the top of the business.

Just a few years ago we were talking about trying to stop tech companies from developing autonomous weaponry systems and now we have governments pushing the companies to take the safety limits OFF the AI systems. This is insane.

Of course, the devil is in the details here, and being a press release we have very little detail.

R-MDMA is an interesting drug. Reportedly quite different subjectively compared to MDMA.

Maybe safer? But also, longer half-life so what were the dose days like? We talking 6 to 8 hour sessions?

Really interesting stuff. Phase 2a data from R-MDMA for social anxiety.

No psychotherapy. Just two dose days, 28 days apart.

6-week endpoint reportedly similar to efficacy seen in SSRI trials at 8 to 12 weeks.

Censorship and safety concerns cloud China’s plans to host science journalism conference Organizers of the 2029 World Conference of Science Journalists defend Beijing meeting as opportunity to connect with Chinese scientists

'He expected little interference from Chinese authorities as long as “we try to keep our event as close as possible to science, not close to politics.”'

I'm pretty sure that if the past decade taught us anything, it taught us that science and politics are inextricable...

‼️New paper‼️ Does your psychedelic facilitator shape your experience?

This is a key question considering that the psychedelic experience can predict treatment outcomes.

We analyzed the largest dataset of its kind, featuring 20yrs+ of psilocybin trials from @jhpsychedelics.bsky.social

Look, this is certainly a cool image for a poster. I'm excited for the new season of this show and get what it's trying to convey.

But to be "that guy".

It really misses the point of the juxtaposition in the Kubrick image, especially in replacing the tag words.

Elon Musk: AI will run out of electricity and transformers in 2025 "I've never seen any technology advance faster than this." The chip shortage may be behind us, but AI and EVs are expanding at such a rapacious rate that the world will face supply crunches in electri...

Just in case you need to add another wrong prediction to this guy's already massive list, here is a recent one from 2024 that didn't happen in 2025.

Is the creative state crumbling? Defunded arts organisations fear the answer is yes Eight successful arts organisations have suddenly been defunded, while others have only been funded for two years instead of four, with an uncertain future ahead.

Arts funding in Victoria gutted.

And with a Labor government at the helm no less.

Complete defunding of orgs like Writers Victoria is baffling and feels deeply political.

Betteridge's law holds!

If MDMA is the perfect drug to mitigate acute war-induced PTSD then what if it's use was brought even closer to the front lines?

Interrupt the consolidation of those awful war experiences and keep the fighters active on front lines for longer?

Psychedelic medicine in 2026.

Recent reports suggest an mdma pilot study is now underway at Forest Glade.

Considering the facility seems to be an interstitial space for currently serving soldiers it's pertinent to ask about the ethics of using drugs like MDMA to get soldiers back to the front lines as quickly as possible?

I went to a place deep in the forest where Ukraine’s wounded soldiers go to heal. This is what they told me | Ksenia Savoskina A former Soviet military facility offers an unlikely respite – before its patients return, too quickly, to the frontline, says Ukrainian film-maker Ksenia Savoskina

Compelling account of "Forest glade", the rehab facility in Ukraine giving soldiers respite from the front lines.

Interestingly, no mention of the use of MDMA or ketamine at the facility despite the director being one of the country's foremost proponents of psychedelic therapy.

YouTube video by Daft Punk Daft Punk - Veridis Quo (Official Audio)

Not gonna argue this season of Industry hasn't been a wild, hot mess but you don't get some high highs without big swings and the use of this Daft Punk track in the latest episode was about as perfect a needle drop as you can do. Great track, masterfully dropped.

It's a reminder to me why I like my isolated echo chamber. Jesus, some of the takes going around are awful.

"The Cyclops," painted by Odilon Redon, 1914. Via Wikipedia

The origin of our eyes over half a billion years ago is looking more and more weird--from a cyclops to four eyes to two. Here's my story (gift link): nyti.ms/4rzisQP

'Your word against his': Women's complaints against surgeon dismissed by regulator Australia's medical regulator, AHPRA, faces criticism for failing to act on complaints from patients about surgeries by Melbourne gynaecologist Simon Gordon.

Good to see this investigation zooming in on the behaviour of AHPRA. Our central body set up to oversee clinical practice is not functioning as it should.

The way this article outlines the orgs process is wild. Complaint issued to doctor. Doctor responds. AHPRA says, OK, if you say so Doc.