Francesca Pincella

The science of storytelling with author and humanist Kurt Vonnegut 😅❤️

Kurt was born #OnThisDay 1922.

Today is Lise Meitner's birthday, as well as Marie Curie. I wrote this blogpost about Meitner and her life a while back. Let's celebrate the woman who 'never lost her humanity'. occamstypewriter.org/athenedonald...

There is truly nothing quite like carbon capture and storage (CCS) when it comes to prolonging the use of fossil fuels. For decades it has served as the high-emitting industry’s unkillable fantasy, theoretically capturing CO2 emissions and storing them underground to avoid damage to the atmosphere. There is one single tune playing on repeat throughout the entire history of every flavour of this technology: massive promise, then total failure, followed by more massive promise, on repeat. The latest update from the Global CCS Institute (GCCSi) puts that capture capacity at about 64 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MTCO2-e) in 2024, which is about 0.17% of the world’s total emissions in the same year. But CCS is valuable for the fossil fuel supply and demand it enables, not the climate damage it avoids.

HEY FRIENDS

Here's a new @crikey.com.au piece: on how Google's shallow CCS gamble marks a moment where the ancient rituals of fossil industry greenwashing are passed down to big tech and its obscene expansionist energy greed!!

A lil thread for ya

www.crikey.com.au/2025/10/27/g...

Norway Wealth Fund CEO Says AI Ends the Need for Climate Hires In this Article Norges Bank Government Pension Fund Global -- Follow Norges Bank -- Follow Anthropic PBC Private company Contact us: Provide news feedback or report an error Confidential tip? Send a tip to our reporters Site feedback: Take our Survey By Frances Schwartzkopff and Heidi Taksdal Skjeseth October 22, 2025 at 8:00 AM GMT+2 Updated on October 22, 2025 at 1:25 PM GMT+2 Save Listen 4:31 Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s biggest, is giving artificial intelligence a key role in protecting its $2 trillion portfolio from climate risk. Norges Bank Investment Management will use AI for a range of tasks including to “extract signals from company dialogues,” according to its 2030 Climate Action Plan. The fund also intends to use AI to improve decision making, and “to strengthen investment processes across teams,” ultimately helping it identify corporate winners and losers, it said.

Tangen has made no secret of his enthusiasm for AI. In an interview in May, the 59-year-old former hedge fund manager said he’s been running around “like a maniac” trying to get staff to use the technology, even going so far as to say that employees shunning AI “will never be promoted.”

At Oslo-based NBIM, AI is already proving useful in determining whether the fund’s climate policy is working, Tangen said. That includes evaluating the effectiveness of its engagement with portfolio companies, crunching data to guide recommendations on proxy votes and generating quantitative climate scores, he said. “Portfolio managers get this information directly in their trading systems,” Tangen said. AI can help identify “transition winners,” which he describes as companies that are “decarbonizing faster and more effectively than the market expects.”

During the press briefing, Tangen was asked to comment on ChatGPT’s advice that a long-term investor keen to manage climate risk should reduce its exposure to fossil fuel companies. “We disagree, we won’t do it,” he said. Tangen then asked the head of his climate team, Eivind Filflet, to run the same question by Claude, the language model developed by Anthropic PBC. Claude’s response laid out the case “for continuing engagement,” he said. “But Claude knows me,” Filflet said. Tangen said the example demonstrates why it’s still important to have a “human in the mix.”

Chatbots have an impact specifically on the brains of bosses and managers that ought to be subject to an entire new field of social science

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

"a kind of celebration of ignorance"

My latest episode of NHKWorld’s “Journeys in Japan” is now up on their YouTube channel.

Okinawa and Ishigaki, on a theme of “flowers”.

Dunno why the thumbnail isn’t showing here. Screenshotted the page instead.

youtu.be/B1P3XsXdYLQ?...

In today's instalment of "Why AGI is not just around the corner". Those structures, man - to a chemist they are like fingernails on a blackboard.

If we look at 20th-century China and Germany as examples, it actually takes a few decades to recover from the type of self-harm that the US is currently inflicting on itself.

This moment from our latest episode with science writer @edyong209.bsky.social is 🔥

We asked Ed — how do we talk up the benefits of science in the face of government cuts? He told us that's the wrong approach. 🧪

Listen wherever, or watch on Spotify 👇

open.spotify.com/episode/7Evh...

📢 NEW #ChemSciCovers

'Interlayer-active layered oxysulfides NaMTiO2.2S1.8 (M = Nd, Sm) with an n = 1 Ruddlesden–Popper structure acting as photocatalysts for visible light water splitting' by Ryu Abe, Hajime Suzuki et al.

🔗 doi.org/10.1039/D5SC...

Toxic Gaslighting: How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles wit...

For chemist Kris Hansen, 3M was a family affair; her father was a creator of the company’s N95 face masks.

Yet, after she found 3M’s forever chemicals in human blood, the company repeatedly doubted her work and stopped her research on the chemicals.

(Published May 2024)
By @fastlerner.bsky.social

The PR Machine Powering Big Tech’s AI Energy Story Google doesn't want you to think AI uses up much energy

We just did an inside look at how those "propaganda-as-a-service" articles work and shouted out your bravery and foresight from 2020: hardresetmedia.substack.com/p/ai-energy-...

The Sympathetic Magic of Education Reform: Tech woo-woo — Sonja Drimmer I enjoyed reading this week Neil Kraus’s The Fantasy Economy: Neoliberalism, Inequality, and the Education Reform Movement (2023). The book’s core claim is that corporations and elites who subscri...

Maybe it’s just tech woo-woo

sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

The Crisis of the University Started Long Before Trump The University of Chicago is in crisis. Under extraordinary financial strain, it has diminished its faculty-student ratio and hired hundreds of “lecturers”: teachers whom it pays little and whom it do...

A great read on UChicago, arguing we’re seeing the result of decades of mismanagement: “The university’s trustees and leaders view it preeminently as a tax-free technology incubator, and its debt load is so great that it is abandoning ideals it once held dear in order to sustain that goal.”

RFK Jr. in interview with Scripps News: ‘Trusting the experts is not science’ HHS Secretary RFK Jr. sat down with Scripps News for a wide-ranging interview, discussing mRNA vaccine funding policy changes and a recent shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

1. "'Trusting the experts is not a feature of either a science or democracy," Kennedy said."

It's literally a vital feature of both science and of representative democracy.

I've written a fair bit about trust in expertise as a vital mechanism in the collective epistemology of science.

4/
Yet again proud of the student journalists at @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social and scores of other college papers across the country.

So many student journalists, and local journalists, doing great independent work.

(From 3 years ago: fallows.substack.com/p/this-is-wh... )

What to make of POTUS's attempt to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Let's run down what knowledgable people are saying...

We CT scanned thousands of vertebrates from US natural history collections and made them freely available. Countless people have used the data for research (>200 pubs) and to learn anatomy/morphology.

www.morphosource.org/projects/000...

"996" Isn't About Productivity. It's About Power. The “996” work schedule reflects a troubling …

Silicon Valley firms are increasingly moving to the horrific "996" schedule, according to Wired. They claim it's to boost productivity. It isn't, because it doesn't. Instead, "productivity" is a rationalizing veneer over an urge to feel powerful and important. www.aaronrosspowell.com/2025/07/23/i...

The E.P.A. intends to argue that imposing climate regulations on automakers poses the real harm to human health because it would lead to higher prices and reduced consumer choice, according to the two people familiar with the administration’s plan. They asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to discuss the draft proposal.

Yeah, they probably asked to remain anonymous because it sounds so fucking stupid.

Nikkei Asia is conducting a survey to see what foreign residents of Japan think about the rise of the anti-immigration party Sanseito. If you live in Japan, please consider filling it out if you have an opinion on this matter: s.nikkei.com/3UnwBBl

@bunburyoudoujp While I don’t really want to get involved with politics too much, I just happened to come across some Sanseitō people campaigning in the area. I took one of the flyers that was offered to me and as I was walking by one of the guys called out to me in English saying, “Thank you for taking our flyer. Can I ask what you think about us?” I told him that there is a lot of talk online about Sanseitō not liking foreigners very much. We had a bit of a conversation after that where he told me that a lot of people are misunderstanding the message and they don’t want to get rid of foreigners. They just want to prioritize the interests of Japan and live together in harmony with foreigners. I mentioned to him that I have noticed that there are some people stirring things up online, ESPECIALLY FOREIGN ACCOUNTS THAT DON’T LIKE FOREIGNERS IN JAPAN, and claiming that Sanseitō seems to want to get rid of all foreigners in Japan.

I was assured that that is a misunderstanding. I received a thank you and a firm handshake then went to get a coffee and write this post. Whether you believe what this gentleman said is up to you. But I wasn’t insulted, I had a brief but friendly conversation, and I am happy I took the time to stop and have a chat.

For those of you looking to sell a bridge, I think I've found a potential buyer.

A very good read. The piece that resonated most with me: private equity, Silicon Valley, et al. have very different criteria for assessing when generative AI is “good enough” than the people who will be forced to integrate it deeply into their workflow.

Who Goes MAGA? With apologies to Dorothy Thompson, whose 1941 essay in Harper’s, “Who Goes Nazi?” remains a worthwhile read on the cultural archetypes of who is drawn to fascism, and who would never go down such …

I think @mmasnick.bsky.social has written the most insightful and easy to understand analysis of MAGA voters. Highly recommended.

www.techdirt.com/2025/07/08/w...

How to talk to journalists (without getting in a huge amount of trouble and ruining your life)

Today Why do press? Types of press How to pitch How embargo works How to answer questions How the record works How to run a press cycle During and after the story How to manage risk Q&A

A screenshot of a very long email that unfortunately I can't OCR but it shows how I pitch a journalist on a story under embargo.

How to answer questions if they’re cueing you “But don’t you think that” / “Would you say that” This is probably a practical trick, and not a malicious one Options Be cool about it Do not be cool about it

Last year, I developed a one hour training for scientists on both "hidden curriculum" and practical pointers I've figured out for working with journalists. I'd be happy to run it for free for a few scientists who need press as a lifeline to save their labs / projects. Please feel free to reach out.

I've decided to make that offer given that this story really frustrated me. Legacy media coverage (especially that "hero shot") is a real lifeline right now, and to see an article where all of that attention goes to white scientists on purpose... didn't sit well with me. bsky.app/profile/nyti...

The Columbia hack is a much bigger deal than Mamdani’s college application A politically-motivated hack on a politically-vulnerable school is flying under the radar

personally, I think it is a problem if a Substack eugenicist has access to lists of millions of people by race www.theverge.com/analysis/703...

For perspective: a recent study suggested that economic savings from just a *single* well-predicted hurricane, thanks to NOAA research advancements, are on order of *$5 billion.* That exceeds NOAA's *entire proposed annual operating budget.* So much for government efficiency.

Notable Sandwich #129: Pan Bagnat Welcome back to Notable Sandwiches, the movable-feast where my editor David Swanson and I pull up a chair at the strange table that is Wikipedia’s List of...

many have asked what my favorite sandwich is. it's this one, the pan bagnat. only, instead of writing a love letter to it, i used it to write a love letter to the man i love. buttondown.com/theswordandt...

Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro

Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...