Carl Zimmer
NYT columnist. Signal: carlzimmer.31 web:carlzimmer.com
AIR-BORNE: THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE LIFE WE BREATHE penguinrandomhouse.com/books/724793/air-bo…
[This account includes a tweet archive]
- Reposted by Carl Zimmer"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging." Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council. I wrote about my decision in TIME. time.com/7285045/resi...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerRobert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, posted photos on Sunday of himself and his grandchildren swimming in a contaminated Washington creek where swimming is not allowed because it is used for sewer runoff.
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerSCOOP: On Friday, the US Copyright Office released a blockbuster report on AI training. On Saturday, the USCO director was unceremoniously fired. Today, two men claiming to be Trump appointees—including a new acting USCO director—showed up at the office: www.wired.com/story/us-cop...
- Reposted by Carl Zimmer[Not loaded yet]
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerThe Justice Department’s No. 2 official now has a second job: running the Library of Congress. Trump appointed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting librarian after firing the library's top official.
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerHHS insists legally-required programs are still running. Workers on those programs tell us otherwise. “The idea that you can have a program with no people in it and no money in it, and that somehow, then you have not eliminated it — that’s just smoke and mirrors” www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerCutbacks have gutted the staff at NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, who work to protect the public from toxic algal blooms. Severe spending limits have made it difficult to purchase ordinary equipment for processing samples, such as filters and containers.
- Trump fires top US copyright official www.politico.com/news/2025/05...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerThe corruption here isn’t even my biggest concern. The security risk!?! The security risk is astronomical and totally unfixable. Listening devices? Tracking devices!? Software backdoors!? Intentional AND unintentional!? Unmeasurable risk.
- Just don’t inhale the Andromeda Strain and you’ll be cool!
- This week I was busy on a new project (details to come). I fell behind on the wrecking ball news about US science. So I put together a round-up of cuts and chaos in my email newsletter today. (Plus some nice news and cheery photos to keep things from getting too dark.) buttondown.com/carlzimmer/a...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerI was going to write a book on this topic (airborne spread of COVID-19 and why it was overlooked) but never found the space. @carlzimmer.com did a far better job than I’d have done. Great interview, @erictopol.bsky.social, and great book!
- AIR-BORNE, @carlzimmer.com's new book, is an enthralling deep dive into airborne diseases. The colossal failure to recognize that #COVIDisAirborne is thoroughly reviewed. Our podcast erictopol.substack.com/p/carl-zimme... Open-access, with transcript and full video, + relevant links
- Greetings, Earthlings nyti.ms/4lTOW5E 🧪
- Thanks for the intel!
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerRetweeting again in the hopes that members of the media can use this awesome resource when they report on vaccines and calls for "new" placebo controlled trials. @statnews.com @nytimes.com @washingtonpost.com @carlzimmer.com @apoorvanyt.bsky.social
- < 72 h from launch → 48 placebo / active-controlled vaccine RCTs logged - now including all 5 COVID trials 1.43 M participants Crowd-powered, freely accessible evidence that buries the “never placebo-tested” myth. Browse or drop a PMID 👇 bit.ly/3EuYzqI cc @bradspellberg.bsky.social
- “Bigotry in science.” Trump Administration Slashes Research Into L.G.B.T.Q. Health. Gift link: nyti.ms/3ELy40l
- Reposted by Carl Zimmer[Not loaded yet]
- The extent of the links from the pioneering days of aerobiology in the 1930s to biological warfare work in World War 2 and beyond surprised me too.
- Reposted by Carl Zimmer[Not loaded yet]
- Scary in some places, and awe-inspiring in others (I hope). The aerobiome contains multitudes! (To crib from @edyong209.bsky.social )
- In this weekend's Sunday Times!
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerRemember when you first learned about genetics at school? All those fascinating examples of human traits that are each apparently determined by just a single gene? Time to check in on some of your favourites to see how they’re doing. 🧬🧵🧪 1/n
- “Five former National Weather Service directors have taken the unusual step of signing onto an open letter warning that cuts to the organization by the Trump administration may soon endanger lives.” Gift link: nyti.ms/3YrIw3Q
- Here's a quick look at how science fares in the proposed Trump budget, from William Broad, @katrinamillerphd.bsky.social @kchang.bsky.social and me. nyti.ms/437jhFw
- RFK plans to look for measles treatments. "Public health experts were baffled by Mr. Kennedy’s decision to hunt for new treatments, rather than endorse shots that have decades of safety and efficacy data." Story by @teddyrosenbluth.bsky.social gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/02/h...
- Proposed Trump budget caps NSF indirect cost payments to universities at 15% www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
- "The nation’s forecasting agency is in tatters as what could be a destructive hurricane season nears...current and former agency meteorologists told CNN they are concerned forecasts and life-saving warnings are not going to be issued in time." By @afreedma.bsky.social www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/w...
- @nytimes is blogging the 2026 budget proposal. For example: "In eliminating the E.P.A.’s environmental justice program, the administration mocked decades of study showing that communities of color are more likely to live in areas with higher levels of toxic pollution" www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05...
- Time to catch up on the past week’s news about science and medicine in the US. Whew. 1/10
- For fellow airborne nerds: "Advancing transcriptomic profiling of airborne bacteria" journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...
- There are dozens of theories of consciousness. Winnowing them down isn't easy. Here's my story on a big, seven-year "adversarial collaboration," and the fireworks it has set off. Gift link: nyti.ms/4lThg8f
- Happy Independent Bookstore Day! (Talking about Air-Borne the other night at the Frenchtown Bookshop.)
- Catching you up on the chaos: here's today's issue of Friday's Elk, my email newsletter buttondown.com/carlzimmer/a...
- Thanks to the good folks at Radiolab for having me on their latest episode to talk about the current decimation of science. (I bring the bad news at about 35:00) radiolab.org/podcast/the-...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerKash Patel has deleted this post on X, but arrest is confirmed: www.jsonline.com/story/news/b...
- Reposted by Carl Zimmer[This post could not be retrieved]
- Federal Officials Promise to Restore Funding to Women’s Health Initiative. Gift link: nyti.ms/3Gotu8K
- NSF director to resign amid grant terminations, job cuts, and controversy www.science.org/content/arti...
- NASA is terminating its lease for the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a major center for global warming research, @nasawatch.bsky.social reports. nasawatch.com/personnel-ne...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerTrump denies aid for Arkansas after storms that killed more than 40 people
- I stopped by @thehill.com to talk about K2-18b and how we won't know for sure if it has alien life for a long time. thehill.com/video/aliens...
- My annual ritual of having college students inspect my genome
- On Thursday, I'll be talking about AIR-BORNE at the Frenchtown Bookshop, in Frenchtown NJ. frenchtownbookshop.com/events/23617...
- Cuts to the the Women’s Health Initiative “will lead to incalculable losses to scientific discovery and human health.” www.statnews.com/2025/04/22/w...
- @katrinamillerphd.bsky.social & I took a look at over 400 active National Science Foundation grants that got killed in the past few days. Here's our story (gift link) nyti.ms/4jp4aOx
- It was a great pleasure to join Alan Alda again on his Clear+Vivid podcast, this time to talk about AIR-BORNE. Listen here: clear-vivid-with-alan-alda.simplecast.com/episodes/car...
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerWorkers who track data on car crashes, drownings, traumatic brain injury, falls in the elderly, and other perils lost their jobs. Advocates worry life-saving work will stop.
- Reposted by Carl ZimmerWe're learning more about NIH's plans for Secy Kennedy's new autism studies NIH Director Bhattacharya says they're amassing a swath of confidential medical data to link together for first time, ranging from broader access to CMS records to smartwatch data www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-...
- NIH moving to ban all future grants to universities with DEI programs or Israel boycotts, document suggests. Story by @aniloza.bsky.social www.statnews.com/2025/04/21/t...
- Trump-Allied Prosecutor Sends Letters to Medical Journals Alleging Bias. Story by @teddyrosenbluth.bsky.social & Rebecca Robbins Gift link: nyti.ms/4ipOhGf
