Christian Elliott
@christianelliott.me
Science journalist & audio producer / Making podcasts at NASA / Other words in Nat Geo, The Atlantic, Science, Sci Am, Hakai, bioGraphic, Undark, etc. / Iowan 🌽
Views expressed here are my own.
Portfolio: christianelliott.me
Views expressed here are my own.
Portfolio: christianelliott.me
Pinned
Christian Elliott
@christianelliott.me
· Jun 30
You hear this a lot on the left but it isn't true. USAID did not "fail to tell its story to Americans," the right targeted the agency with lies and misinformation.
Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...
Ultimately this narrative turns conservative attacks into even more calls for the left to reform.
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/o...
NASA just won an Emmy for our live broadcast of the total solar eclipse last year. We produced a documentary film about the James Webb Space Telescope that's out in theaters and on Netflix. We have podcasts, we write feature stories. People wear the agency logo on t-shirts. We're still getting cut.
Reposted by Christian Elliott
have you ever been somewhere so dark you could step outside & immediately spot the Milky Way? i traveled to the Upper Peninsula to learn about efforts to balance industrialization & economic growth with the preservation of starry skies:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/s...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/s...
Fighting for ‘The Right to Night’ Under Starry, Rural Skies
www.nytimes.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:21 PM
have you ever been somewhere so dark you could step outside & immediately spot the Milky Way? i traveled to the Upper Peninsula to learn about efforts to balance industrialization & economic growth with the preservation of starry skies:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/s...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/s...
Reposted by Christian Elliott
My latest labor of editing love is this stunner by @christianelliott.me about herbicide drift, a silent ecological crisis ravaging the remaining native hardwood trees of the U.S. Midwest.
Sadly I did not get to use my preferred hed, The Fast and the Furious: Midwest Drift
Sadly I did not get to use my preferred hed, The Fast and the Furious: Midwest Drift
For @biographic.bsky.social, I reported from across rural Illinois on an environmental crisis unfolding in the Midwest: herbicides drifting off millions of acres of crop fields are slowly killing oaks and other native tree species. #longreads
The Scourge of Native Oaks is Blowing in the Wind
Scientists and conservationists in the U.S. Midwest are working to stop herbicides from industrial agriculture from drifting onto the region’s remaining hardwood trees
www.biographic.com
November 25, 2025 at 6:06 PM
My latest labor of editing love is this stunner by @christianelliott.me about herbicide drift, a silent ecological crisis ravaging the remaining native hardwood trees of the U.S. Midwest.
Sadly I did not get to use my preferred hed, The Fast and the Furious: Midwest Drift
Sadly I did not get to use my preferred hed, The Fast and the Furious: Midwest Drift
For @biographic.bsky.social, I reported from across rural Illinois on an environmental crisis unfolding in the Midwest: herbicides drifting off millions of acres of crop fields are slowly killing oaks and other native tree species. #longreads
The Scourge of Native Oaks is Blowing in the Wind
Scientists and conservationists in the U.S. Midwest are working to stop herbicides from industrial agriculture from drifting onto the region’s remaining hardwood trees
www.biographic.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:43 PM
For @biographic.bsky.social, I reported from across rural Illinois on an environmental crisis unfolding in the Midwest: herbicides drifting off millions of acres of crop fields are slowly killing oaks and other native tree species. #longreads
I just tried to highlight a section of text in a PDF about deep-sea mining regulations and I accidentally clicked "Generate Image" instead of highlight and I HATE AI I HATE IT I DON'T WANT AN IMAGE OF WHATEVER THIS IS IN MY PDF PLEASE MAKE THE AI GO AWAY
November 24, 2025 at 4:08 AM
I just tried to highlight a section of text in a PDF about deep-sea mining regulations and I accidentally clicked "Generate Image" instead of highlight and I HATE AI I HATE IT I DON'T WANT AN IMAGE OF WHATEVER THIS IS IN MY PDF PLEASE MAKE THE AI GO AWAY
Can we get directions to the ones that are still in need of defacement
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
November 24, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Can we get directions to the ones that are still in need of defacement
This is also how I learned today that when deep-sea ecologists find just one individual of a species at single sampling location during an expedition (which apparently happens often, the deep-sea has high species diversity but low abundance), they call it a SINGLETON. 😭
November 23, 2025 at 11:58 PM
This is also how I learned today that when deep-sea ecologists find just one individual of a species at single sampling location during an expedition (which apparently happens often, the deep-sea has high species diversity but low abundance), they call it a SINGLETON. 😭
Spending my Sunday reading about the BBL community
November 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Spending my Sunday reading about the BBL community
This fall marks 25 years of continuous human life in space aboard the ISS. This feature was delayed a bit by the government shutdown, but now it's finally time to celebrate. Check out what NASA's learned from the last quarter century:
25 Years of Scientific Discovery Aboard International Space Station - NASA
November marks 25 years of human presence aboard the International Space Station, a testament to international collaboration and human ingenuity. Since the
www.nasa.gov
November 21, 2025 at 4:59 PM
This fall marks 25 years of continuous human life in space aboard the ISS. This feature was delayed a bit by the government shutdown, but now it's finally time to celebrate. Check out what NASA's learned from the last quarter century:
The folks at @nyutandon.bsky.social asked me to write a feature for their annual magazine. It was a pleasure talking to a really diverse group of scientists and engineers there and trying to grab hold of the common thread that ties all their research together. 🐦🐝🦴
The Birds and the Bees (Of Engineering)
engineering.nyu.edu
November 19, 2025 at 2:55 PM
The folks at @nyutandon.bsky.social asked me to write a feature for their annual magazine. It was a pleasure talking to a really diverse group of scientists and engineers there and trying to grab hold of the common thread that ties all their research together. 🐦🐝🦴
I love writing book reviews. If you'd told 10-year-old me I'd be getting paid to read books I got in the mail I simply would not have believed you.
November 18, 2025 at 3:39 AM
I love writing book reviews. If you'd told 10-year-old me I'd be getting paid to read books I got in the mail I simply would not have believed you.
I just listened to the audio version of this story and it played a liberty mutual emu ad first 😭
Who Would Want to Kill 314 Ostriches?
How the plight of a few hundred birds in Canada became an all-out fight for freedom
www.theatlantic.com
November 16, 2025 at 7:02 PM
I just listened to the audio version of this story and it played a liberty mutual emu ad first 😭
"Recognized by AI" not a selling point 😭
November 16, 2025 at 5:34 PM
"Recognized by AI" not a selling point 😭
If he didn't name it the Borealis idek what to say
Gabe Newell caps off Steam Machine week by taking delivery of a new $500 million superyacht with a submarine garage, on-board hospital and 15 gaming PCs
"We knew we were asking for unusual things," says Newell, "and Oceanco embraced it with open arms."
www.pcgamer.com
November 15, 2025 at 9:02 PM
If he didn't name it the Borealis idek what to say
Reposted by Christian Elliott
Scientists long assumed that inactive vents, without the mineral-rich plumes that make active vents so mesmerizing, didn’t host unique lifeforms.
“It turns out that we just weren’t looking very closely,” says marine biologist Jason Sylvan.
www.biographic.com/life-finds-a...
“It turns out that we just weren’t looking very closely,” says marine biologist Jason Sylvan.
www.biographic.com/life-finds-a...
Life Finds a Way, Even on Inactive Hydrothermal Vents - bioGraphic
In the darkness of the deep sea, animals flourish on hydrothermal vents that have gone cold.
www.biographic.com
November 14, 2025 at 12:59 PM
Scientists long assumed that inactive vents, without the mineral-rich plumes that make active vents so mesmerizing, didn’t host unique lifeforms.
“It turns out that we just weren’t looking very closely,” says marine biologist Jason Sylvan.
www.biographic.com/life-finds-a...
“It turns out that we just weren’t looking very closely,” says marine biologist Jason Sylvan.
www.biographic.com/life-finds-a...
Air fryer?? I was told there's no air in space.
Watch Chinese astronauts enjoy '1st ever space BBQ' from Tiangong's brand-new oven (video)
Now serving microgravity gourmet.
www.space.com
November 5, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Air fryer?? I was told there's no air in space.
Why would I want 37g of protein in my Starbucks latte 😭
October 24, 2025 at 1:58 PM
Why would I want 37g of protein in my Starbucks latte 😭
Oh and even better, here are JFK's post-speech action items, if someone knows how to get these to him?
October 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Oh and even better, here are JFK's post-speech action items, if someone knows how to get these to him?
We've been putting old speeches and mission recordings into Otter for an upcoming podcast series and its so funny to see the AI try to do a meeting summary of like, JFK's Moon speech
October 23, 2025 at 6:21 PM
We've been putting old speeches and mission recordings into Otter for an upcoming podcast series and its so funny to see the AI try to do a meeting summary of like, JFK's Moon speech
Unironically I LOVE getting my features fact checked. You are so right, mallard ducks and quails do sometimes eat insects. Saved me from looking like a fool in front of the birders 🦆
October 23, 2025 at 2:49 AM
Unironically I LOVE getting my features fact checked. You are so right, mallard ducks and quails do sometimes eat insects. Saved me from looking like a fool in front of the birders 🦆
I adore a good editor's note. This one is hall of fame worthy (from the @wired.com story on cybertruck owners)
October 17, 2025 at 5:00 PM
I adore a good editor's note. This one is hall of fame worthy (from the @wired.com story on cybertruck owners)
Reposted by Christian Elliott
Do we really want 250,000 mirrored satellites in Low Earth Orbit? Hasn't the Starlink megaconstellation already done enough damage?
🧪 @mjibrown.bsky.social
🧪 @mjibrown.bsky.social
A US startup plans to deliver ‘sunlight on demand’ after dark. Can it work – and would we want it to?
Satellites beaming sunlight down to Earth sound like science fiction – and they have astronomers very worried.
theconversation.com
October 10, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Do we really want 250,000 mirrored satellites in Low Earth Orbit? Hasn't the Starlink megaconstellation already done enough damage?
🧪 @mjibrown.bsky.social
🧪 @mjibrown.bsky.social
I need someone to explain to me who on earth wants this. And how its creators can convince me that it could possibly do anything other than harm.
Kiss reality goodbye: AI-generated social media has arrived
With the launch of Sora 2, OpenAI has opened a new chapter in addictive, and some worry dangerous, AI video content.
www.npr.org
October 4, 2025 at 1:29 PM
I need someone to explain to me who on earth wants this. And how its creators can convince me that it could possibly do anything other than harm.
This is a really lovely museum. Now I want to go back and see the ship in its new digs 🛶
A more than 1,000-year-old Viking ship goes on a very short, final voyage
It took 10 years of work to prepare a Viking longship for a trip no longer than a football field. How it got to that spot goes back even further — over a millennium.
www.npr.org
October 3, 2025 at 12:48 AM
This is a really lovely museum. Now I want to go back and see the ship in its new digs 🛶
Reposted by Christian Elliott
Scientists in the Bay Area have gotten corals to spawn in a lab at the same time they do in the wild in Australia. One of their tools: LED lights that simulate sunrises, sunsets, and even moonlight.
The High-Tech Lab Unlocking Secrets Of Coral Reproduction
At a lab in the heart of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, scientists are breeding corals to be more resilient to rising ocean temperatures.
buff.ly
October 2, 2025 at 1:14 PM
Scientists in the Bay Area have gotten corals to spawn in a lab at the same time they do in the wild in Australia. One of their tools: LED lights that simulate sunrises, sunsets, and even moonlight.
Reposted by Christian Elliott
ScienceWriters2025 will take place in Chicago, November 7-9
sciencewriters2025.org
North America's largest gathering of science writers. An important coming together in a pivotal year for science.
Early bird registration ending Oct. 1
sciencewriters2025.org
North America's largest gathering of science writers. An important coming together in a pivotal year for science.
Early bird registration ending Oct. 1
September 24, 2025 at 4:46 PM
ScienceWriters2025 will take place in Chicago, November 7-9
sciencewriters2025.org
North America's largest gathering of science writers. An important coming together in a pivotal year for science.
Early bird registration ending Oct. 1
sciencewriters2025.org
North America's largest gathering of science writers. An important coming together in a pivotal year for science.
Early bird registration ending Oct. 1