Ed Yong
Writer, journalist. Science, health. Pandemics, animals. Birder, photographer. Many words, some awards. AN IMMENSE WORLD, I CONTAIN MULTITUDES. Married to Liz Neeley, parent to Typo. he/him
📷 Canon R6mkii + RF 800mm
Edyong.me
- I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
- One of the reasons I love this piece is that, in clearly showing why the administration’s attacks on medical research funding are so devastating, it also makes one of the clearest cases for why that funding has always mattered. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...
- I can’t recommend this enough. UNBREAKING, a new project from @lizneeley.bsky.social & co, documents & explains our many concurrent institutional collapses. It’s beautifully executed work, full of intellectual & moral clarity. 3 pages are live, more will come. It’s SO GOOD, & I learned so much.
- AN IMMENSE WORLD: YOUNG READERS EDITION is out today! 🥳 I’m really grateful to AnnMarie Anderson for adapting it, Rebecca Mills for illustrating, Tom Russell for shepherding, and Rose Eveleth for reading the audiobook. (And it’s dedicated to Typo.) bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...
- 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼
- Every week @lizneeley.bsky.social’s newsletter manages to pull coherence & moral clarity out of the wreckage of the news around science and higher ed. This week it feels particularly impressive (and more critical than ever!) to have pulled off. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
- The latest issue of @lizneeley.bsky.social’s essential weekly newsletter on the continuing attacks on science & higher-ed, and living through these times: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
- I’ve had a several dozen requests to write or be interviewed about the 5th anniversary of Covid and said no to all of them… except this one with @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social. Here’s our chat on the things we’ve memory-holed, and where we go from here. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...
- Vermilion flycatcher🪶 📷 Alameda Creek This bird, which is rare for the Bay Area, was spotted in last year's Christmas Bird Count. No one has seen it for 7 weeks, and a lot of folks have looked. And then it just showed up in the same spot 2 days ago.
- One last thing I’ll say about this is that judging by people’s messages, the audio version has some stuff not in the edited online transcript, including a discussion of the false tension around empathy in journalism, and a bit about paying attention to sparrows.
- On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
- This is excellent
- On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
- Here’s @lizneeley.bsky.social’s latest newsletter, documenting the ongoing attacks on science and higher ed, and figuring out what to focus on: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
- (and my newsletter, explaining why I’m so proud of Liz. And bird photos buttondown.com/edyong209/ar...)
- @lizneeley.bsky.social is publishing a weekly newsletter to track the ongoing attacks in science and higher ed. If you want to keep abreast without drowning in the news, I recommend it: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
- And I really appreciate this framework too bsky.app/profile/lizn...
- And finally, this isn’t about exhaustive knowledge about what is happening - it’s about figuring out what to DO. We made an acronym to help us cope each time we feel our adrenaline spike. That & more in this week’s issue: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
- I was trying to photograph this beautiful glaucous-winged gull when I got unexpectedly photobombed by a harbor seal that had caught a very large fish--presumably a salmon. 🪶 📷Ballena Bay
- The gull did get some fish. 📷🪶
- Mountain bluebird 🪶 📷Cedar Mountain WInery (which is now closed, but remains very birdy)
- Sigh. Yet another way to waste my time. Curse my weak will.
- David Attenborough vs the Bible: tinyurl.com/bvfomt
- @RandomVentures You are WEAK!!!! This will only distract you from your preparations for the Zombiepocalypse
- Fuck, this is moreish. A bit like crack
- @shinygemma You owe us, but we will accept payment in the form of salacious gossip. If you have to fabricate stuff, then feel free.
- Chinese physics students more knowledge than Americans, but not better at reasoning. Education FAIL tinyurl.com/aauvkv
- @davemunger Aw thanks Dave. I think it's more accurate that I will love this place and hate *myself* for loving it.
- @LicenceToGil @RandomVentures @RhodriT This bodes poorly - Gil, I blame you entirely for what is to come tinyurl.com/c4d6hg
- @kzelnio Cool. It's like the T-1000, only much less terrifying and murdery.
- @kzelnio @davemunger. They should just give it a nice, non-threatening name. Like "Skynet".
- I'm concerned about the 80-min play tonight. Shorter length means typical 10 min nap in middle leads to proportionally larger confusion
- @kzelnio Shrimpoluminescence FTW!
- @RandomVentures - the wankometer doesn't work. I typed in "value-added learnings" and it gave it a "low" rating.
- Broadband: "The technology is complex but basically we're talking about a big pipe of nutcases shoved through your door." tinyurl.com/c2wavd
- With Guantanamo about to close, Cheney was forced to be more inventive... tinyurl.com/b7x22e
- Spoilt for choice for next week's blog posts. Soooo much cool stuff.
- @justarikia Congrats. Have now congratulated you in at least three different ways. Social media is silly.
- Soundwave, but not as you know him: tinyurl.com/bws5ea
- BBC on Xenopus: "has same organs, molecules and physiology as man" tinyurl.com/cmqt74 O RLY? Maybe they have a blog too? Sigh.
- Testing this stuff from a mobile.
- I wonder how I ever managed to blog into the night before I bought an electric blanket.
- Watching butterflies at Wisley. Incredible. Especially the glasswings.
- @nerdychristie Well hello there.
- @justarikia - Heh - thank God you stuck up the glamorous new profile pic *beforehand*...
- @kzelnio Now, which thought came first? "Poor bird", "Hope window's okay" or "I wonder what species that was?" ;-)
- Experienced first pangs of wanting to update status while out doing something else. It's like FaceSmack all over again...
- @Irradiatus It's from the Bleinmans who gave you Zooillogix.
- @kzelnio Your heart is made of ice, Zelnio ;-)
- From Karl Priest: "Please send David Attenborough's email address." That was it. I'm thinking... no.
- @kzelnio Bohemian waxwing? tinyurl.com/bs23ow
- Re: T2, wonder if you can actually reload a shotgun by twirling it round?
- Having to force myself to not write these in third person. Curse Facebook.
