Ariel Waldman

Watch LIFE UNEARTHED with Ariel Waldman on @pbs.org Stream, watch, rent or download in the U.S. and Canada! Episodes released weekly. Season 1 explores Antarctica and the North American Prairies.

It’s true! I’m mailing postcards direct from Antarctica to you or an awesome person of your choosing! www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald... 🧪 Each postcard helps support my two month expedition in Antarctica! 🫶

It’s true! I’m mailing postcards direct from Antarctica to you or an awesome person of your choosing! www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald... 🧪 Each postcard helps support my two month expedition in Antarctica! 🫶

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Also, if you’d like to gift someone a postcard from Antarctica: click the Gift Now button at the bottom:

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Amazing! Thank you so much! 😊 Excited to send you one of these tardigrade friends in the mail soon! 14 left here: www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald...

Amazing! Thank you so much! 😊 Excited to send you one of these tardigrade friends in the mail soon! 14 left here: www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald...

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Bluesky fam! 👇

Alright ocean 🌊 lovers, I could really use your help right now. FathomVerse, a citizen science 🧪 app for discovering ocean life 🦑, has been nominated for the Anthem Impact Awards (Sustainability, Environment, Climate). Please vote and help us win! celebrate.anthemawards.com/PublicVoting...

Ted the Tardigrade still lives on my fridge years after a previous campaign. Sign up.

Bluesky fam! 👇

In case you missed it, I have a big new update about returning to Antarctica and how I could use your help! 🧪 🦠 #scicomm

Get a postcard from Antarctica! Sign up here: www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald... I am headed back to Antarctica to film an entirely new documentary and I could use your help to bring this project to life. Please share!

Scientists left in the dark by National Science Foundation grant application delays www.scientificamerican.com/article/scie...

If you’re up to help with a documentary about Antarctica, here’s one from a filmmaker and science communicator with a superb track record. And she’ll send you - or someone you nominate - a postcard from McMurdo Station. (Or a cute 3D-printed tardigrade.)

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NASA said its space archive was down for ‘maintenance.’ Its security office shut it down. www.urgentmatter.press/nasa-said-it...

Five of the world's space agencies joined forces for the five-year mission that will attempt to land a robotic prospector plus a rover on Phobos, the larger and closer of Mars' two pint-sized moons. https://to.pbs.org/4hSAE5s

Get a postcard from Antarctica! Sign up here: www.patreon.com/cw/arielwald... I am headed back to Antarctica to film an entirely new documentary and I could use your help to bring this project to life. Please share!

Meet the researchers leaving the US because of Trump’s funding cuts and politicization of science

Agency-wide, NSF made far fewer new grants (~6,200, down from an average of ~11,000) and underspent its buget by 1.4 billion. See previous coverage:

The Nobel Prize in physics goes to Francis Halzen, who figured out how to turn a cubic kilometer of Antarctic ice into a neutrino detector. The resulting IceCube experiment is now studying extreme events across the universe. 🔭🧪 www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physi...

From Physics Today (physicsworld.com/a/francis-ha...): ‘When asked what he will do for the rest of today, Halzen replied “I’m working on a proposal. I hope this prize will help get it approved.”’

Earth’s getting rounder. (Ice at the poles squishes the planet so it bulges at the equator; as glaciers melt, there’s less flattening.) agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

🧪 “The National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year, according to internal data reviewed by The New York Times.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...

Enraging. Agency Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress. The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...

O.M.B. announcing a set of pocket rescissions (including funding at HHS) this evening www.statnews.com/2026/09/25/t...

Available to watch for free on the PBS streaming app until the end of the month! Alternatively you can watch LIFE UNEARTHED on Apple TV and Amazon. 🧪 🦠

Available to watch for free on the PBS streaming app until the end of the month! Alternatively you can watch LIFE UNEARTHED on Apple TV and Amazon. 🧪 🦠

Your tax dollars are being stolen from working Americans trying to improve the country in all 50 states. They’ve “cut or frozen up to $177 billion in federal grants since the 🤡 took office…health, nutrition, the environment & disaster relief making largest share of cuts” apnews.com/article/trum...

"For many U.S. scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency they know and loved died on 10 September."

It can be hard to appreciate the vastness of just one (1) light-year. The most distant human-made object has been hurtling into space for almost 50 years, and its distance from Earth is just about to reach 1/365th of a light-year.

New in PNAS today: we projected how climate change will reshape the body size of marine life across the entire ocean. 23,329 mollusc species, every ocean basin. The headline everyone expects is "life shrinks." The real answer is far stranger. 🧪 #marinelife www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

"There are... four hundred...twenty...three... callers ahead of you." 😳 Or, what happens when a website breaks in the state of California.

Look at that hockey stick!

OMB's proposal to remake federal grantmaking was flooded with comments Now, they are withdrawing some from the public record — including some that point out Russell Vought's connection to the federally funded research that led to Trikafta www.statnews.com/2026/08/25/r...

Airborne diseases like Covid are so tricky because transmission depends on so many crazy factors. One person with Covid may not have any detectable viruses in their breath. A single swab from another person may pick up 10 billion viruses! Review: paijournal.com/index.php/pa...

On Tuesday the Monterey County Board of Supervisors is voting to approve funding for >100 new license plate surveillance cameras and a 10 year contract. Comments can be emailed by Monday, or you can attend the meeting and speak in person. When did we consent to constant surveillance by the police?

U.S. immigration officials worked with Iran to deport Iranians in 2025, newly released emails show, revealing a working relationship between the U.S. and Iranian governments despite tensions mounting between the countries. https://to.pbs.org/46bLlcx

Here’s a good reminder to donate to your local PBS station.