Stephanie Pappas

Happy Penguin Day everyone!

Kennedy, obsessed with vaxxed/unvaxxed studies that would not be approved by US ethical review boards, planned to fund one in West Africa — one that would have caused unnecessary disease and death for extremely vulnerable children. After negative media attention, it was canceled. Coverage matters.

FDA deletes warning on bogus autism therapies touted by RFK Jr.‘s allies The agency used to warn of chelation, used by RFK Jr.'s anti-vaccine ally David Geier.

Hm.

Trump administration cuts up to $1.9 billion from mental health and addiction treatment programs SAMHSA canceled up to $1.9 billion in grants without staff consultation, accelerating the mental health agency's deterioration under President Trump.

#Breaking: SAMHSA canceled up to $1.9 billion in grants without staff consultation, accelerating the mental health agency's deterioration under President Trump. www.statnews.com/2026/01/14/s...

One agent literally moves to stand in front of the vehicle (she has no other way to move) and two
more agents, including the one who shot her, approach the vehicle. Those are not the actions of people who have a reasonable belief that they are in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury

Honk if you love RSV, I guess.

It would be an honor to be hated by Nelly Dean.

Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach More than 400 leather hobnailed boots, thought to date back to the 19th Century, have been found.

Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach

R.F.K. Jr. Likely to Swap U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule for Denmark’s

RFK Jr. is expected to announce in the new year that American children should be immunized according to the schedule followed by Denmark — which is much smaller, mostly homogenous and has universal health care.
(Free link)

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/19/h...

Thanks for talking with me about this! Such a cool find.

Fossil bee nests in fossil bones! News article by @sipappas.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social (with a few quotes by Yours Truly) about this very cool discovery from a Late Quaternary cave in the Dominican Republic. 🧪🐝🕳️🦴

Purple and white flowers on the desert floor with sunrise-color on the distant mountains

Rare winter bloom in the Anza Borrego desert

@anzaborrego.bsky.social

Abstract landscape: swirling storm clouds with a wall cloud and rain underneath, yellow field and trees

For #ArtAdventCalendar day 13, one from my 2018 Turbulent Skies Project.

I Can See It…With My Imagination
44x60 112×152cm
Oil on Canvas
2018

It feels WEIRD

Today is an upsetting day. <20 infants a year contracting a chronic, often ultimately fatal virus was too few for these people, I guess.

A large, abstract frog in shades of orange and yellow with a pink green and yellow gradient belly. Behind it is a background of blues and greens that somewhat resembles northern lights. The frog isn’t mad, just disappointed.

Day 2 of #ArtAdventCalendar: A frog that’s not mad, just disappointed.

#watercolour #watercolor #frog

My person was temporarily replaced by a being of pure light roaring "science journalists exist" when I got to this section

Neat neat neat

Ozian hydrology is off the hook

A map of Oz from Frank L Baum's books showing a rectangle split diagonally into four parts surrounded by desert. On the upper right outside of the desert and the dominion of something called the "nome king" is a bit of ocean.

Would landlocked Oz even use a tide-based calendar system??? This demands investigation.

CDC website edited to say that maggots spontaneously generate from spoiled meat, and all studies demonstrating this fact have been ignored by science authorities.

Well, this is depressing.

Rising Tide by John Barry; The Big Burn by Timothy Egan; and my all-time favorite In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides

I scrolled down to see if anyone mentioned this one. SO good.

Bird Flu on Dairy Farms May Be Airborne After All Infectious bird flu virus was found in milk, on equipment, within wastewater and aerosolized in the air on California dairy farms

Worth adding that there is evidence of airborne virus in milking barns, as well: www.scientificamerican.com/article/bird...

This is incredible work.

North America May Soon No Longer Be Officially Measles-Free, Experts Say A meeting of the Pan American Health Organization this week will address the resurgence of measles in the Americas

Measles could officially become endemic again in the U.S. The country (and Canada) risk losing their measles elimination status if they have a year of continuous transmission, which could have happened already. By @sipappas.bsky.social‬ @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/meas...

An abandoned building by the beach where a window overlooks the sea. The water through the window resembles a painting, so someone has scrawled Free Rothko on the wall.

Good morning.
I don't know who did this, but I love you.

Off-the-beaten-path favorites: The Mammoth Site in Hot Springs, SD (Pleistocene sinkhole!!) and the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, WY (one of only 2 places to see a real archaeopteryx outside of Europe!). Oh, and the Grey Fossil site in East TN for everything Pliocene.

Baby KJ, in a tiny tuxedo, shows up at the #STATSummit. His parents Kyle and Nicole Muldoon give an update on how he’s doing after his life-saving CRISPR treatment for a rare liver disease earlier this year.

Read their story: www.statnews.com/2025/05/15/c...