Allison Parshall

My feature is on the cover of @sciam.bsky.social !!

This is one of the more fascinating, maddening, mind-boggling stories I've reported in a long time. Please come on this journey with me.

What’s in Store-Bought Chicken Stock, and Why Are Brands so Secretive About It? A long, winding journey to find out why companies treat their chicken broth recipes like state secrets.

Lost in the Stock

Figuring out what’s actually in a box of chicken stock shouldn’t be that hard. Right?

www.eater.com/23552129/wha...

--> A wonderful look at the reality of reporting, as well as a insightful plunge into the abyss of Big Food. Answers all your questions about canned broth.

This Tiny ‘Fire Amoeba’ Just Redefined Life’s Limits It was thought that complex cells couldn’t survive above a certain temperature, but a tiny amoeba has proven that assumption wrong

It's been thought since the early 70s that eukaryotes (basically any life with a cell nucleus) wouldn't survive above 62C and no complex life had been shown living above 60C. Until the "fire amoeba"... 🧪

(These are some of my favorite stories to write, just weird neat stuff we're learning.)

Why Horror Movie Music Sends a Chill Up Your Spine Horror movie composers use musical tricks to hijack your nervous system and put you on edge

Happy Halloween 🦇🦇🦇 Horror movie music can be deeply unsettling. Here's how composers achieve that effect www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-... 🧪

Why Horror Movie Music Sends a Chill Up Your Spine Horror movie composers use musical tricks to hijack your nervous system and put you on edge

Horror movie composers use musical tricks to hijack your nervous system and put you on edge

Cells Have a Death Switch That Protects Us from Viruses but Also Leads to Aging A special class of immune proteins protect us from pathogens but also drive inflammation and cell death

A special class of immune proteins protect us from pathogens but also drive inflammation and cell death

Multiple choice question reading "A famous sculpture containing a cryptography puzzle called Kryptos has fascinated the public since 1990, when it was installed in what notable location?" Answer options are "The Statue of Liberty's torch, Area 51, the CIA's headquarters, the North Pole."

On today's @sciam.bsky.social science quiz, we've got space shuttles and cryptography puzzles. Share your score below! 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/game/scienti...

How to Train Your Brain to Act Morally Your brain gets used to wrongdoing. It can also get used to doing good

Your brain gets used to wrongdoing. It can also get used to doing good

The Most Efficient Traveler Isn’t a Bird or a Fish—It’s You on a Bike A famous graphic, now updated, compares locomotion in the animal kingdom

Congratulations to bicyclists: you're one of the most efficient movers in the animal kingdom! 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-hu...

The Most Efficient Traveler Isn’t a Bird or a Fish—It’s You on a Bike A famous graphic, now updated, compares locomotion in the animal kingdom

We used @sciam.bsky.social's 180th anniversary as an excuse to revisit an old favorite. Familiar with the efficiency of locomotion chart from the March 1973 issue? Here it is again, reimagined for 2025 by DTAN Studio, w/text by @parshallison.bsky.social 📊 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-hu...

Steve Jobs loved this original @sciam.bsky.social graphic and cited it constantly in interviews, calling computers "bicycles of the mind" for how they let us operate with max efficiency.

Turns out, though, bikes are so efficient because they make us more like... fish? Check it out 🧪

Annual COVID Vaccines Save Lives, New Study Shows A new study shows that receiving an updated COVID vaccine reduced people’s risk of severe disease and death in all age groups, regardless of immunity from prior infection or vaccination

The science is in: COVID boosters are worth it, even if you've been vaccinated and/or infected before. Stay safe out there, friends!: 🧪 🛟 www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-...

"Accessing the supports my autistic son needs can be brutally difficult, especially as he and his peers transition into adulthood. But unlike grievance parents, I believe my son deserves respect and understanding—not grievance parents’ relentless exploitation of their children as burdens."

Memorizing this

How Scientists Finally Found a Treatment that Slows Huntington’s Disease After years of heartbreak, researchers have found an experimental treatment that can slow the progression of Huntington’s disease, according to early results from a small clinical trial

After yrs of disappointment scientists have made a genuine advance in treating Huntington's. The new gene therapy slowed disease progression by 75%. But it's still experimental and will likely be $$, @parshallison.bsky.social reports for @sciam.bsky.social: www.scientificamerican.com/article/firs...

Demetre Daskalakis Saw the CDC Change from the Inside—And He’s Sounding the Alarm The former director of a CDC center reveals how political ideology is undermining science, threatening vaccine policy and endangering public health across the U.S.

Today on Science Quickly for @sciam.bsky.social: @drdemetre.bsky.social on how the CDC has decayed from a trusted source of health information to "an ideology propaganda machine that’s Orwellian"—and what we can do about it

www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...

Quiz question reading "'Earth wind' can blow particles of oxygen to the moon, where they can do what?" Answer options are "Erupt lunar volcanoes, feed lunar microbes, rust lunar minerals, and create lunar auroras"

On this week's @sciam.bsky.social science quiz, we've got earth wind and fire. (Kinda.) Can you get 6/6? www.scientificamerican.com/game/science... 🧪

"They say he was the composer's composer." Indeed.

Experimental Music Meets Neuroscience in a Haunting New Installation A museum exhibit in Australia lets visitors hear music generated by brain cells derived from the blood of a dead composer.

A museum exhibit in Australia lets visitors hear music generated by brain cells derived from the blood of a dead composer.

Every new thing I learn about Alvin Lucier is cooler than the last. He used his brainwaves to make music in the '60s--and he found a way to keep it up, even after his death. "If anyone was gonna pull off immortality, it was him," his daughter, Amanda Lucier, told me.

Enjoy the episode!🧪

Experimental Music Meets Neuroscience in a Haunting New Installation A museum exhibit in Australia lets visitors hear music generated by brain cells derived from the blood of a dead composer.

Today on @sciam.bsky.social's Science Quickly, our unofficial music correspondent @parshallison.bsky.social tells us how one experimental composer is continuing to make music from beyond the grave www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/epis...

Autistic moms feel shamed and stigmatized by Trump’s Tylenol warning Trump's remarks linking Tylenol to autism are a return to an era when mothers were blamed for children developing the disorder.

Wound up cutting this, but Jennifer Cook (Love on the Spectrum) had a great quote for all mothers freaked out by Monday's presser:

"Trust your doctor. You’re going to be ok. If you’re child is autistic, it’s not going to be a death sentence, it’s just a difference."
www.statnews.com/2025/09/25/a...

Garcia: I genuinely don’t know how to answer because we don’t know what a world that accepts autistic people looks like. I guess what I would hope is that an ideal world is one that doesn’t see an autism diagnosis as an apocalyptic one. Rather, when the diagnosis comes down, the next question is: “What can we do for them? How can we serve them? What does a good life look like for them?” That isn’t very specific. But it’s open-ended enough to fit as many people across the autism spectrum as possible, I feel.

I participated in a @nytopinion.nytimes.com @nytimes.com roundtable and they asked me what a better world for #ActuallyAutistic people would look like if Trump and RFK Jr. didn't focus so much on Tylenol or vaccines. This was my honest-to-God response.
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/23/o...

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Thanks for tuning in each week to hear host Rachel Feltman and our guests dive into fascinating conversations about the science that shapes our world 💜

Trump’s Tylenol warning cited a Harvard dean’s research. But a judge called his shifting conclusions ‘unreliable’ A Harvard dean whose work was cited as justification for curtailing Tylenol use provided what a judge called 'unreliable' expert testimony against the drug’s maker

Trump, Kennedy say the data show that Tylenol use during pregnancy causes autism.

It doesn't, but the PACER files show that the researcher whose data is fueling their conclusions was paid $150,000 to testify in a case against Tylenol.

www.statnews.com/2025/09/23/r...

Trump;‘taking Tylenol is not good’ for pregnant women and makes wild autism claims President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made an announcement declaring that they had found a link between autism and acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylen...

BREAKING: Trump goes on a wild and unhinged rant spouting misinformation and easily debunked lies about autism.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a...

Does Tylenol Use during Pregnancy Cause Autism? What the Research Shows Trump and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. plan to tie Tylenol use during pregnancy and folate deficiencies to rising autism rates—but the evidence is thin

To prepare you for today's wild ride in science news--here's what experts know and don't know about the causes of autism and the use of Tylenol during pregnancy: 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/does...

Autism Has No Single Cause. Here’s How We Know Scientists will not find a simple answer to how autism arises, despite Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s promise to announce its causes sometime this month. Here’s what makes the condition so staggeringly comp...

Scientists rarely proclaim absolutes. Yet autism researchers are all but certain that there is no simple cause of the condition. Here's why the idea of finding a "smoking gun" for autism is so absurd. www.scientificamerican.com/article/auti... 🧪

Our investigation into disappearance of Shiid-birood (“the iron rock”) reveals a journey of lies, smuggling and possibly death across the seamy world of black market collecting.