Michael Moyer

A million satellites won't happen, but only because the economics of $/kg won't smile on it. The problem's crux is that even small steps toward this quixotic goal are rewriting the sky (go to a dark place; look for yourself) while the US agency that should mind the gates brandishes a rubber stamp.

Prasad overruled FDA staff to reject Moderna's flu vaccine application The rejection is the latest instance of Vinay Prasad overruling career FDA scientists to place vaccines under harsher scrutiny.

The flu and pneumonia kill over 45,000 people a year. Moderna developed a new mRNA flu vaccine for people 50 and older--who are most at risk. Prasad, unilaterally, against the recommendation of experts within the agency, denied Moderna's appplication. www.statnews.com/2026/02/11/m...

Hobbes: What's this? Calvin: A generic snowman. Calvin: I used to make original snowmen, but it was time consuming hard work. So I said, heck, this is crazy! Calvin: Now I crank out crude imitations of what's already popular! It takes no time or thought, and most people don't care about the difference anyway! Hobbes: So cynical, yet so practical. Calvin: And what good is originality if you can't crank it out?

"What good is originality if you can't crank it out," part 10 million

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/08/b...

cover of The Economist this week

You can feel Dan's giddiness in every story, a sense of "I can't believe I get to do this for a living." His writing was great because it was so much fun to read; it was fun to read because he so clearly had fun writing it. A good lesson for everyone who makes stuff for public consumption, I think.

CHARLES RAFFERTY The Problem with Early Warnings People don't like to leave a party unless the house is actually on fire. Even then, if the flames are far enough away to be pretty, they'll finish their drink, take one more pass at the hors d'oeuvres. How things happen has always been unclear. Hurricanes begin in a place where no one lives. Agents of the government start to wear masks. Fascism is a word my neighbors won't use yet. They are following the law, they say, and the sirens are coming for someone else.

This hit so fucking hard today.

Nice article from @nattyover.bsky.social about the state of particle physics as a field. It’s historically been perhaps the highest prestige and most prominent subfield of physics but there are genuine worries about the path forward, as Natalie clearly lays out. 🧪

Screenshot of tweet from Huberman that reads: “The other is that dog breeds w/different shaped heads are predictive of their demeanor and intelligence. And while I don’t! believe in Phrenology I now do pay some attention to how the shapes of peoples heads relates to their intellect and steadiness, or lack thereof.”

In response to announcement that he will be a new CBS contributor, Andrew Huberman tweeted “I’ve always gone issue-by-issue on health & science, spoken to experts w/a range of takes & presented where I see the center of (data) mass pointed. I’ll do the same with @CBSNews”. In Sept he posted this:

Is Particle Physics Dead, Dying, or Just Hard? | Quanta Magazine Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

In the first of our new series of curiosity-driven essays, Qualia, @nattyover.bsky.social asks particle physicists whether the field is facing a profound crisis. www.quantamagazine.org/is-particle-...

U.S. makes exit from the WHO complete The U.S. withdrawal from the WHO became official Thursday, formalizing a fissure between the Trump administration and the Geneva-based global health agency.

The US withdrawal from #WHO became official today, leaving the world less prepared for dangerous disease outbreaks. “When that will bite us in the ass, it’s impossible to predict. But there is a 100% certainty that it will bite us in the ass,” one expert told me. www.statnews.com/2026/01/22/u...

* MODERNA IS CURBING INVESTMENT VACCINE TRIALS DUE TO US BACKLASH -- BLOOMBERG NEWS

* MODERNA IS CURBING INVESTMENT IN VACCINE TRIALS DUE TO OPPOSITION TO IMMUNIZATIONS FROM US OFFICIALS -- BLOOMBERG NEWS

@reuters.com $MRNA

Gourmet Magazine Gourmet is a worker-owned publication about food and the people who make and consume it.

Condé Nast forgot to renew the trademark for Gourmet and so a group of journalists grabbed it and are relaunching the food magazine as a worker-owned co-op. Love it. [gourmetmagazine.net]

Fascinated once again to see @walkingthedot.bsky.social
work his magic, explaining this story with the perfect touch. Happy to have contributed a small grain to it. Congratulations on this piece! It beautifully captures the emotion of the moment and the roller-coaster nature of research 🎢

The Year in Computer Science | Quanta Magazine Explore the year’s most surprising computational revelations, including a new fundamental relationship between time and space, an undergraduate who overthrew a 40-year-old conjecture, and the unexpect...

These are the year’s computational revelations, as curated by Quanta’s executive editor @mmoyer.bsky.social: www.quantamagazine.org/the-year-in-...

Unbelievable. This would be a terrible blow to American science, writ large. It would decimate not only climate research, but also the kind of weather, wildfire, and disaster research that has underpinned half a century of progress in prediction, early warning, and increased resilience.

"All that stuff dumped on our screens, captured in just four letters: the English language came through again."

John Noble Wilford, Times Reporter Who Covered the Moon Landing, Dies at 92

John Noble Wilford, science writing legend, dies at 92. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/s...

Y'all the latest episode of the #Kilauea #eruption just went CRAZY. It looks like pressure built up enough to explode out the ground around the two existing vents (first few seconds), leading to a massive surge in lava fountaining.🌋🤯

USGS Live stream: www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiyt...

The Stories We Most Admired in 2025: Businessweek’s Jealousy List The stories we admired most this year.

The best end-of-year list is always the Jealousy List: www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

heroic work, thank you

We saw it with big tobacco, we saw it with the fossil fuels industry. When their own internal research showed the harm from their product, the defunded the research and attacked independent researchers coming to the very same conclusions.
#ScienceUnderSiege

It's hard to escape the conclusion that the people in charge of medical research in this country think that medical research—indeed, all of modern medicine—is bad.

Apropos of nothing, have you ever wondered why magnets work? www.quantamagazine.org/the-cartoon-...

this shit looks like someone’s about to shoot franz ferdinand

I realize that Bob Iger does not personally read the explanations people give when they cancel Disney+, but still, it was cathartic.

Headline from the New York Times, 1939: “Goebbels ends careers of five “Aryan“ actors who made witticisms about the Nazi regime.”

www.nytimes.com/1939/02/04/a...

How We Came To Know Earth | Quanta Magazine Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from...

My colleagues just posted an incredibly ambitious series about the science of climate science. I hope you'll check it out: www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...

Seeking science journalists: @quantamagazine.bsky.social is hiring a physics editor!

A rare opportunity to join this great team and lead coverage of this foundational vertical. Please reach out with any questions and share widely

simonsfoundation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/simons...

I've subscribed to Defector since week 1 and it is great, long live blogs.