Thank you to all the researchers who so generously took the time to speak with me for this story. It wouldn't have been possible without you. And thank you to my editor for taking a risk on me with this story! It's wild to see something I wrote on a magazine cover.

The Free Energy Principle is an ambitious framework that started in cognitive science but now defines what it means for something to exist at all. For New Scientist, I asked what the FEP is, really: a theory of everything? Or maybe not a theory at all? .

Thinking about this, I wonder whether networks formed by researchers agreeing with each other would look different than networks formed when papers cite each other mainly to bash each other. .

Does anyone have a good tool for visually seeing scholarly citation networks? I'd love a way to quickly get a sense of which papers are "hubs" within a field and who cites who.

I'm working on a story about hair loss and want to talk with a few folks who've experienced it. I'm esp. interested in hearing from women who lost hair in menopause AND/OR people who tried treatments for hair loss. DM if you want to talk or connect me to someone.

Jokes aside, I'm enjoying this book (Ends of the World by Peter Brannen) enough to look past the author's merciless takedown of the ecosystem I researched for two years during my masters. But now that I mention it, I was studying. microbial slime. So, point taken I guess.

I've never seen such a savage take on stromatolites. "uninspiring mounds of muck" — oof.

RT @QuantaMagazine: How emergence happens has long been debated amongst physicists, biologists and philosophers alike. A new framework iden….

I love astrobio but I'd also love it if planets themselves could get half the hype biosignatures do — especially since, right now, we could barely interpret an atmospheric exoplanet biosiganture even if we found one.

The little hill I will die on is that planets are still interesting even if there's nothing alive on them. JWST is poised to answer some seriously amazing questions about planets. Whether aliens live on any of them is not one of them.

RT @QuantaMagazine: With new computer models and inspiration from nature, scientists are decoding the secrets of how water freezes. @elisec….

The cats kinda blur into an abstract pattern if you're far enough away. But only if you're far enough away. I don't know if I should be proud of this or ashamed. Probably both.

Realized that the most formal piece of clothing I own is an olive-green, cat-print dress. And no, not cat print like cheetah spots. I mean literal cats all over the dress.

Me again on the "biosignatures are tricky" beat:. DMS, that biosignature gas that was ***maybe*** found on habitable-zone exoplanet K2-18b has now been found on a lifeless comet. Barring unimaginably weird comet life, DMS must have an abiotic source.

Scientists exhumed some 6 million year old (!!!!) ice from Antarctica. That's truly wild. The continuous ice core record goes back 800,000 years. And the oldest ice ever found until now was 2.7 million years old. Reported from #egu2024 .

Presenting awesome research at #EGU24 that the public should know about? . I’m a science journalist at the conference and want to meet scientists while I’m here. Just shoot me a DM or email if you’d like to connect to talk about your work!.

RT @phil_lol_ogist: I'm hungry. I could really go for some loanwords about now

RT @christianflatz: Im aktuellen @sciam berichtet @elisecutts über die Forschung von @CmTonauer zu exotischen Eisformen. Sie erzeugt im Lab….

RT @AGU_Eos: “A bit like on Earth—people are using communication cables to do seismology on Earth. So why not on the Moon?”. New research f….

RT @CmTonauer: Honored and excited that our research on❄️ordering deuterated ices❄️published in @PNASNexus caught the attention of @sciam !….