John Mashey

1/ Given CDC evisceration, attacks on climate science, NASA... here's a short tale of worrisome prescience from 2014. I attended an early showing in San Francisco of the fine film "Merchants of Doubt". It has book's foci of climate denial/tobacco, but adds more. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRWE...

RFKjr is lying as usual.

A new paper with Dr Lori Leigh explores illicit tobacco use and probes how people rationalise engaging in this market. Spoiler alert - it's about more than just money! theconversation.com/cost-is-not-...

Why RFK Jr. is planning an attack on a little-known vaccine program: to increase vaccine costs, benefit lawyers at the expense of claimants, and drive vaccines companies out of the market with frivolous lawsuits. wapo.st/4zfrnKU via Ross Marchand, @postopinions.bsky.social

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

Big news- I am a winner this year for the Wendy and Eric Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications! More here: www.nationalacademies.org/news/nationa... 🔭🧪🎢

BREAKING: Preliminary injunction granted in the golf course case by Judge Reyes! The threat to close & destroy this historic property is the latest act of Trump corruption that the courts have responded to Kudos to our wonderful clients & cocounsel @democracyforward.org & Lowell & Associates

San Diego and LA both have more than 100 yr of tidal records, and today both sites saw their highest tide levels on record with no storm or high winds (h/t to @drjeffmasters.bsky.social and @edwardsanthonyb.bsky.social for great coverage of this) balancedweather.substack.com/p/san-diego-...

Scientists: you have the right to speak up for pro-science candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, and we have resources to help you do so safely. Read about the legal risks scientists face from politically-motivated attacks, & how to defend against them: www.csldf.org/resource/poc...

Dr. Richard Pan vs. Kevin Kiley: Hunger. Kevin Kiley voted to slash funding for food assistance, leaving over one million children without food. I’ve always fought to make sure children and families can put food on the table.

Today, our election research team published our updated (from 2024) framework for understanding how most rumors that sow doubt in election processes mislead. A lot of what we see is on that right side of the graph, real issues that get wrapped into false rumors. uwcip.substack.com/p/spot-the-l...

In the rush to build data centers, companies are starting to use their own off grid gas generators. This results in much higher emissions – 60% to 80% – compared with using their local electricity grid and risks locking in longer-term fossil dependence. www.theclimatebrink....

Along with free classroom-ready lessons, NCSE provides teachers with the tools, strategies, and training they need to teach climate change with confidence. #edusci ncse.ngo/teaching-cli...

Good news: Maurene Comey is back at SDNY after a judge ruled her firing unlawful Who trusts a case if the prosecutor’s job hangs on pleasing the president? Rules keep the answer simple, & today they protected more than one person -TN

It's an honor to be selected as a winner of the National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications (@scicommexcellence.nationalacademies.org)! Learn more: www.nationalacademies.org/news/nationa...

Speaking of health risks, floodwaters spread pesticide and fertilizer stores, and overpowered a sewage treatment plant. Raw sewage, farm chemical soup. bsky.app/profile/fkea...

Fortunately no one died in the major flooding events that devastated parts of New Mexico and elsewhere in the 4-Corners region of the US this weekend, but those floods are a good example of the point Taran Deol is making in this essay. @docsforclimate.bsky.social @gchalliance.bsky.social

High level observation from some of our election rumor work this season: The Trump admin & right wing media ecosystem are focusing a lot of energy on California — which with all of their congressional seats and the long counting period could set the stage for some "rigged election" shenanigans.

Musk said he restricted Starlink in Ukraine- causing fast moving drones to lose connectivity - and that he had every right to do so because of some terms of service or contract that he didn't show us. (He didn't address suddenly doing this with no warning to Kyiv.) www.cnbc.com/2026/10/24/u...

whoa www.nytimes.com/2026/10/26/w...

The money's real. 💸💸💸 "Founded only three years ago, FISN is still just a concept, as the prospectus itself underlines (p. 8): “The Gravity Reactor remains in conceptual and early engineering stages."

Young has published “papers” saying the link between PM2.5 and public health should not be taken seriously.

Just in case you think I'm making this up. Via www.wired.com/story/trump-...

So in a huge surprise to absolutely no one, it turns out that NIH director Jay Bhattacharya's new journal based on the premise of letting his friends and only his friends publish essentially whatever they want is full of crackpot nonsense from retired cranks.

The Australian newspaper has been claiming a "forensic audit report" shows BoM's temperature data has "widespread error". For 15 years climate sceptics have been claiming a conspiracy around the data. Is anything different this time?

📢📢 @csldf.org is hiring! If you're an attorney and want to put your passion and expertise to work supporting scientists involved in climate litigation, join us: www.csldf.org/about/work-w...

Our research team is doing real-time coverage of emerging news and rumors related to election integrity. We put out several outputs this week. Several of the rumors we covered are still percolating. Some of the stories may become seeds for conspiracy theories later in the cycle. Some highlights...

Imagine being able to walk into a pharmacy, finding abortion pills on the shelf, and purchasing them without a prescription. New research suggests this could be possible. www.mimi4all.com

Dr. Richard Pan vs. Kevin Kiley: Democracy. Kevin Kiley is ruining our democracy. Dr. Pan will fight to protect it.

Bill Ruddiman vindicated ⚒️🧪 arstechnica.com/science/2026...

"A recent @eprinews.bsky.social report plots global failures of commercial and grid-scale batteries ... and shows that the annual rate of failure has fallen precipitously as installations have grown exponentially," reports Julian Spector: www.canarymedia.com/articles/bat... 🔌💡

Simply imagine a Lockheed, Boeing or other prime defense contractor - out of nowhere, no communication - implementing some terms of service or term in a contract they think they have without reaching out first to say we think you are violating this. As a result we will nerf your crucial technology.

Yet another implicit/hidden subsidy to the fossil fuel industry. Make polluters pay, I say!

Vance changed his name 4 times

Top Ten Fun Facts about what climate change is doing to Florida’s home insurance market: Fact #1 is that it’s already the most expensive in the country, and predicted to double or triple in years ahead. 🧵

The toxicity that @ericlipton.nytimes.com and his colleagues have uncovered is everywhere but if you live in Texas, Louisiana, or Alabama pay special attention

This is not some sort of insane emergent AI native behavior that humans couldn't come up with, it's a type of exploit that cyber professionals are taught and almost certainly is something all frontier models are aware of. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre...

Raccoon culture: www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t... If human civilization disappears, maybe racoons will evolve to be next, although their petroleum geophysicists may winder where the easy-to-get oil went.

I am happy to see a downplaying retraction notice corrected with more candor. The emphasis on praising admissions of honest error to create exit strategies is pragmatic but has created too many face-saving efforts.

Thoughtful article : Market dilution, fair use, and generative AI. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Lead author Pam Samuelson is world-class on such topics: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_...

Of the 50,000 heat deaths in Europe in the summer of 2026, 32,000 were killed by fossil fuels. Meanwhile, $65 billion in windfall profits for five biggest oil and gas companies in second quarter of 2026. www.npr.org/2026/10/23/g...

In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web.

Death rates from cardiovascular disease have fallen dramatically 🧪 ourworldindata.org/cardiovascul...

And it is utterly illegal and unconstitutional

🚨BREAKING: In a win for Utah voters, a Trump-appointed federal judge dismissed the DOJ's lawsuit seeking to obtain the state's unredacted voter registration list. The ruling puts the department at 0-27 in its sweeping legal effort for access to states' voter data.

🤔🤔🤔

These NIH institute director positions have a lot of power. Under current rules, the directors make final decisions on where billions of dollars go. So this is important.

By my napkin math, total Bell Labs research expenditures from 1930-1980 were on the order of $50 billion in 2026 dollars. AI companies have spent ~$1 trillion so far: The equivalent of ~20 Bell Labs histories. In its history, Bell Labs researchers discovered the transistor, the solar cell, the laser