Ed Yong

@edyong209.bsky.social

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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

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Ferris's beautiful book BECOMING EARTH is out tomorrow (25 Jun). I loved it. It's a glorious paean to our living world, and the many ways in which life has shaped the planet itself. bookshop.org/p/books/beco...

Finished copies are here! A few boxes containing finished copies of my book, Becoming Earth, recently arrived on our doorstep. Jack helped me open them. I think he approves! Just two weeks until pub day!

Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life a book by Ferris Jabrbookshop.org A vivid account of a major shift in how we understand Earth, from an exceptionally talented new voice. Earth is not simply an inanimate planet on which life evolved, but rather a planet that came to l...

Barn swallow 🪶 📷Hayward Regional.

Wilson's warbler, having a good shake. 🪶 📷Claremont Canyon

This American avocet is doing a broken-wing display, feigning an injury to distract us away from... 🪶

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Google's AI Overviews must create entirely new information in response to a search query. That costs an estimated *30 times* more energy than simply extracting information from a source through a traditional search. 🧪 www.scientificamerican.com/article/what... by @parshallison.bsky.social

What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment?www.scientificamerican.com Google is bringing AI answers to a billion people this year, but generative AI requires much more energy than traditional keyword searches

Black skimmer 🪶 📷 Hayward Regional My fav pic of the year so far. Skimmers have a big underbite, and drag the lower mandible through the water as they fly. If it hits something, the beak snaps shut. Amazing birds, and I was ecstatic when this one skimmed straight at us. This photo is uncropped.

Western screech-owl 🪶 📷Mill Creek Rd I first found this owl a few weeks ago, and tried to show it to a passer-by; the owl then ducked into its hole before I could get a pic. Which was a shame because at that time, the fuckin' leaf and stick in this photo were NOT THERE.

Anna's hummingbird, pooping 🪶 📷Lake Elizabeth. You can see little droplets to the right of the bird.

Hooded oriole, gently levitating 🪶 📷Lake Elizabeth

Summer tanager 🪶 📷Burckhalter Park, Oakland. This stunning bird showed up in a random small park that hardly ever gets birded. A dozen people got to see it before it left overnight. One of my fav things about birding is the realization that there's rare stuff *everywhere*.

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⚠️ Israel spent millions on a secret social media campaign posing as Americans and targeting U.S. political leaders with pro-Israel messaging to garner support for its campaign in Gaza. The campaign included digital blackface accounts. Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/t...

Israel Secretly Targets U.S. Lawmakers With Influence Campaign on Gaza Warwww.nytimes.com Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effor...

Tree swallow 🪶 📷 Coyote Hills

Osprey 🪶 📷 Middle Harbor

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"...it’s also a battle over the soul of our society, over the question of whether we can remain human, in the face of fear, in the face of trauma, whether we can make sure that we choose life over death, or we choose solidarity over hatred and starvation.” www.theguardian.com/world/articl...

‘Solidarity over hatred’: the small band of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid truckswww.theguardian.com Peace activists confronting settlers who want to stop aid getting to Gaza acknowledge they are ‘a minority within a minority’

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NEW: Records that I received from the NIH offer new insight into how RECOVER, the agency's flagship #LongCovid research program, was set up for slow progress from the start. Full story at @thesicktimes.bsky.social: thesicktimes.org/2024/05/31/t... Documents: www.documentcloud.org/projects/rec...

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In July, I'll be publishing a project that I've spent 10 years thinking about, and 5+ years pitching. It's a documentary podcast about sports, bodies, and what is fair. And now you can sign up for the newsletter to get updates, behind the scenes stuff, additional essays, etc. buttondown.email/tested

TESTEDbuttondown.email A surprising history of women’s sports. Since the very beginning of women’s sports there has been a struggle to define who, exactly, gets to compete in the women’s category. A century later, this stru...

I’ve heard so much about this project throughout the years and I guarantee you it’ll be great. Sign up now 👇🏼

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Average American president has been convicted of .74 felonies

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Four! More! Years!

Sentencing set for July 11, 2024. Justice Merchan has complete discretion to sentence to anything from probation to 4 years imprisonment. Sentences must run concurrently, so 4 years is the max. Trump will be able to appeal once the sentencing order is entered.

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Today is the day Donald Trump became precedent

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Reply to

Talia Lavin

oh! oh! jail for Donald! jail for Donald for One Thousand Years!!!!

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Since 2020, I’ve been dreaming of a collective. Thanks to you, @ambikamath.bsky.social @edyong209.bsky.social @juliesquid.bsky.social @neillewisjr.bsky.social & Sara Yeo, I’m listening harder, learning more, & taking more interesting creative risks than I dared hope. Cannot wait to see where we go.

"At the heart of everything we do at Liminal is our conviction that science communication is not just one art, or one science: it’s many arts and many sciences...we cannot do the work alone." Announcing the Liminal Collective! buttondown.email/liminalcreat...

Announcing the Liminal Collective!buttondown.email file under: PROCESS NOTESthis one is from: AMBIKA At the heart of everything we do at Liminal is our conviction that science communication is not just one...

Prothonotary warbler 🪶 📷Congaree National Park Truly amazing how hard it can be to spot this bright yellow bird with an extremely loud voice amid the swampy undergrowth. (Also a great example of a bird I was really excited to find because I knew it from Wingspan. 8 points!)

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Hello Berkeley! I'll be talking to the astounding @edyong209.bsky.social on 6/18 at the Hillside Club, about my new book, "Stories Are Weapons," a history of psyops and culture war in the USA. Expect dunking on junk science, geeking out about archives, and more. www.booksmith.com/event/storie...

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I wrote about the protests. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Western tanager, I promise 🪶 📷 Del Valle

"What explains this growing student movement? Sometimes the correct answer is the one right in front of you. The students want an end to a war that has been executed with breathtaking violence and killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, most of them women & children." www.newyorker.com/news/essay/t...

The Kids Are Not All Right. They Want to Be Heardwww.newyorker.com What explains the student movement against the war in Gaza? Sometimes the correct answer is the one right in front of you.

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UNOCHA spokesman: “The two main arteries for getting aid into Gaza are currently choked off"...The Israeli military “is ignoring all warnings about what this could mean for civilians” Aid workers in Gaza report that “panic and despair has taken hold”, he said. “People are terrified.” menasky

Hope turns to panic in Rafah as Israel begins assaulton.ft.com Palestinians celebrated after Hamas said it accepted ceasefire deal — then found themselves under attack again

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Speaking as college faculty...no. Rather, it is precisely **because** college students are forming strong bonds of community, interaction, and care that all of this is even possible. It's much of the rest of the US that's forgotten how to do that, and so looks on in terror.