Mark Harris

Firefighters received chemical burns at Elon Musk's Boring Company construction site | TechCrunch The firefighters had to be treated at a hospital and received permanent scars, according to a report from Fortune. But the Boring Company was not fined after it met with state officials.

- firefighters do safety drill at Boring Company tunnel and get chemical burns/permanent scars
- ff say they weren't warned
- Boring Co blames firefighters
- NV OSHA cites Boring Co
- Steve Davis calls NV Gov office, has meeting
- citations/proposed fines go away

techcrunch.com/2025/11/13/f...

The first new subsea habitat in 40 years is about to launch Unveiled by the buzzy startup Deep, Vanguard will let teams of scientists live and work on the seabed for a week at a time.

I went to the launch of the world's first new subsea habitat in 40 years. The Vanguard will be deployed near the Florida Keys early next year and DEEP, the company behind it, promises more and larger sea bases soon...
www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/07/1...

MIT Tech Review's 10 Climate Tech Companies To Watch is always worth a read. This year, I was lucky enough to write about one - Kairos. No flashy fusion gadgets or improbable designs, just a sensible, safer fission reactor that could make a real difference.
www.technologyreview.com/2025/10/06/1...

US Coast Guard Report on Titan Submersible Implosion Singles Out OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush A report on the death of five people in the Titan submersible blames design, maintenance, and inspection flaws for its failure. “It all came back to Mr. Rush,” the head of the investigation told WIRED...

New from me: first read of the US Coast Guard report into the OceanGate Titan implosion. It's a litany of mistakes, evasions, and corner cutting, for which CEO Stockton Rush gets much of the blame.
www.wired.com/story/us-coa...

Q&A: Ryan Calo on why 'we need to take a page from the Amish' Ryan Calo holds a joint appointment as a professor in the Information School and as the Lane Powell and D. Wayne Gittinger Professor at the UW School of La...

We sat down with @rcalo.bsky.social , a professor at the iSchool with a joint appointment at the University of Washington School of Law, to discuss some of the most pressing challenges at the intersection of law and technology, as well as his upcoming book.

Read the full Q&A:
bit.ly/46o522i

There will be A LOT of engineering content in the book --probably more than my editor is ready for

Thanks! Carbon fiber is really feasible as a material, and has been used for (non-crewed) deep ocean vessels, so it sounded plausible to those who assumed Rush would follow all the engineering standards and guidelines. We now know he didn't.

I think he couldn't bear to fail, or to be seen to fail. His identity was so wrapped up in OceanGate, he had to keep moving forward.

I'm still hard at work interviewing people and ploughing through documents for my OceanGate book, which will have more detail and nuance, and a few surprises. It will be published by Norton, although you'll have a little while to wait.

LTA Research's Massive Airship Combines Luxury and Sustainability in a Big Way The age of airships returns with LTA Research's Pathfinder 1, a 124-meter helium giant, soaring over San Francisco Bay. Funded by Google cofounder Sergey Brin, this milestone marks a step towards sust...

A colourised photo of the Graf Zeppelin over Rio de Janeiro in 1930? Nope. It's LTA Research's 'Pathfinder 1' over San Francisco Bay in 2025. An excellent, new article just out by @meharris.bsky.social‬ writing for the @spectrum.ieee.org journal. Can't wait to book passage. (📸 LTA Research) | 🛩️ 🎈 🥇

sorry Scott, it was the same day, and just a couple of minutes long. The
Netliix documentary has more of me - it's out June 11.

I was lucky enough to be the first journalist to see the completed Pathfinder 1, the prototype next-gen helium airship from Sergey Brin's LTA Research, now flying over SF Bay. I also had a sit down with the startup's CEO, Brett Crozier. Story in IEEE Spectrum: spectrum.ieee.org/lta-research...

I'll be on BBC News at 1245 Pacific/845pm UK time to talk about the new BBC/Discovery OceanGate documentary, Implosion. Netflix is also releasing a documentary, Titan, in a few weeks, which I had a hand in. www.netflix.com/tudum/articl...

I'm really sad to leave Anthropocene, as it's a great publication with an important mission, but I'm also excited to focus on my OceanGate book, tentatively titled The Deep End, which I'll be working on for at least the next year. Keep an eye out for updates!

Here's my last story for Anthropocene Magazine: a look at Deep Fission, a startup hoping to deploy subterranean fission reactors a mile underground. Deep nuclear could be cheaper and safer than today's light water reactors - with built-in waste disposal
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/04/nucl...

Happy Twin Peaks Day, my friends ☕️

Well done Tom - richly deserved recognition!

Please please please do not start using FOIA systems as a form of protest. No one outside of a handful of FOIA officers at most will ever see it, and it'll just clog things up for anyone actually trying squeeze valuable information out of the government.

Globally representative evidence on the actual and perceived support for climate action - Nature Climate Change Global support and cooperation are necessary for successful climate action. Large-scale representative survey results show that most of the population around the world is willing to support climate ac...

89% of the world’s population want their govts to “do more” to fix climate change. However, those 89% don’t know that they are the overwhelming majority — that most other people on Earth also want govts to take stronger climate action #ClimateAction
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Announcement of a book deal for Mark Harris to write a narrative non-fiction book about OceanGate for Norton

Some personal news: I'm excited to expand my OceanGate reporting into a book, tentatively titled The Deep End, and doubly excited to be working with Norton, one of my very favourite publishers. Busy times ahead!

At the risk of stating the obvious, there's nothing "efficient" about simply ceasing government services. That's called "failure."

the text-only NPR site is an absolute delight for someone who's trying to simultaneously lessen my consumption of news while still staying somewhat abreast of current events: text.npr.org

Anyone other journalists getting cancellations of (non-political) interviews with people in US federal departments/facilities? I was told the Dept of Energy has ordered a media blackout.

Some personal news: TechCrunch and I have decided to part ways. It's been a learning experience and I met a lot of great folks while I was there. I'm on the hunt, so if anybody is looking for an experienced newsroom leader with a history of training up young reporters to break news, give me a shout.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is Tunneling Beneath Las Vegas With Little Oversight Given Musk’s role advising President-elect Donald Trump on ways to slash regulations and government oversight, Boring and the Vegas Loop project might be a harbinger for the country.

NEW: Given Musk’s role advising President-elect Donald Trump on ways to slash regulations and government oversight, Boring and the Vegas Loop project might be a harbinger for the country.

w/ City Cast Last Vegas

What Parler Saw During the Attack on the Capitol ProPublica sifted through thousands of videos taken by Parler users to create an immersive, first-person view of the Capitol riot as experienced by those who were there.

I was among those who covered the immediate aftermath of the January 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. Politicians may not want to talk about. But it happened. Here's how it was captured by the insurrectionists themselves. projects.propublica.org/parler-capit...

Bluesky please add laugh emoji

Interesting! 2 involuntary disengagements and 7 safety-related voluntary disengagements coast to coast

me too. I notice that atheists tended to do well.

This kind of gamesmanship with public records requests does not serve the public interest. Is it illegal? Maybe, but agencies know that news orgs (and especially freelancers) have fewer and fewer resources to fight.