Dan Samorodnitsky
@dsamorod.bsky.social
i'm an editor and science writer. i cover biology, genetics, the environment, stuff like that. i live in Minneapolis. my pronouns are he/him. i am the news editor at biospace and am a cofounder at @sequencermag.bsky.social
dansamorodnitsky.com
dansamorodnitsky.com
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
The Elsevier investigation mentioned was initiated after a STAT news piece on the problem, co-authored with Cathryn, @dsamorod.bsky.social, @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social, @jedidiahcarlson.com, @jameslingford.bsky.social and @jowiph.bsky.social
www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...
www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...
Journals that published Richard Lynn's racist 'research' articles should retract them
Richard Lynn's work has been repeatedly condemned for using flawed methodology and deceptively collated data to support racism. It's past time to retract the studies.
www.statnews.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:33 PM
The Elsevier investigation mentioned was initiated after a STAT news piece on the problem, co-authored with Cathryn, @dsamorod.bsky.social, @stairwaytokevin.bsky.social, @jedidiahcarlson.com, @jameslingford.bsky.social and @jowiph.bsky.social
www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...
www.statnews.com/2024/06/20/r...
MPR reported earlier today that the number of Somali people in the entire *country* with TPS is 705.
www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...
www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...
November 24, 2025 at 2:23 AM
MPR reported earlier today that the number of Somali people in the entire *country* with TPS is 705.
www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...
www.mprnews.org/story/2025/1...
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
I also collated some responses to my request for encounters with James Watson in the wild:
www.sequencermag.com/a-few-encoun...
www.sequencermag.com/a-few-encoun...
A few encounters with James Watson
We asked for stories about the famed biochemist James Watson.
www.sequencermag.com
November 21, 2025 at 5:28 PM
I also collated some responses to my request for encounters with James Watson in the wild:
www.sequencermag.com/a-few-encoun...
www.sequencermag.com/a-few-encoun...
In the wake of James Watson's death, I tried really, really hard to come up with something to say. And all I really had to say was: we really fucked up with treating this guy like a hero. Watson sold the world a bill of goods. For @sequencermag.bsky.social.
www.sequencermag.com/james-watson...
www.sequencermag.com/james-watson...
James Watson sold the idea of himself
How much could a man like Watson, an unrepentant racist, really understand about what DNA is?
www.sequencermag.com
November 21, 2025 at 5:14 PM
In the wake of James Watson's death, I tried really, really hard to come up with something to say. And all I really had to say was: we really fucked up with treating this guy like a hero. Watson sold the world a bill of goods. For @sequencermag.bsky.social.
www.sequencermag.com/james-watson...
www.sequencermag.com/james-watson...
The Making of the Atomic Bomb is one of the best books ever written.
Ok BlueSky: what are your favorite history books in terms of sheer page-turning, narrative propulsion? Thinking along the line of Killers of the Flower Moon, etc. Nonfiction chronicles that read like novels or movies.
November 19, 2025 at 11:20 PM
The Making of the Atomic Bomb is one of the best books ever written.
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
Very rare to see someone lay out so explicitly that they do not consider "never again" to be a universalist creed. I don't know how people who talk like this can stand to look themselves in the mirror.
I'm struck by this clip of former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz saying Holocaust education has backfired in part because people Palestinians as victims: "They think the lesson of the Holocaust is…you fight the big powerful people hurting the weak people."
www.reddit.com/r/JewsOfCons...
www.reddit.com/r/JewsOfCons...
From the JewsOfConscience community on Reddit: Former Obama speechwriter Sarah Hurwitz speaking to the Jewish Federation and lamenting that young people are learning the wrong lessons from Holocaust e...
Explore this post and more from the JewsOfConscience community
www.reddit.com
November 18, 2025 at 7:29 PM
Very rare to see someone lay out so explicitly that they do not consider "never again" to be a universalist creed. I don't know how people who talk like this can stand to look themselves in the mirror.
this really irks me. she means "the bullet hypothetical."
they're calling it "some of the worst writing of the century"
November 17, 2025 at 8:05 PM
this really irks me. she means "the bullet hypothetical."
LOCAL ANGLE: we need to talk about how every physicist on planet earth was on Epstein island
November 12, 2025 at 11:18 PM
LOCAL ANGLE: we need to talk about how every physicist on planet earth was on Epstein island
The Central Dogma is really more of a guideline.
Despair seems like a reasonable course of action
'Some estimates are that up to 20% of the entire proteome can bind RNA and moreover that about 20% of all known protein complexes have an RNA component in them and you really have to think about how to deal with such large figures.'
'Some estimates are that up to 20% of the entire proteome can bind RNA and moreover that about 20% of all known protein complexes have an RNA component in them and you really have to think about how to deal with such large figures.'
RNA and Proteins: Who Bosses Whom?
www.science.org
November 12, 2025 at 3:28 PM
The Central Dogma is really more of a guideline.
wrong
59/ I haven't liked a Mountain Goats album in 20 years. Those early ones though... worth keeping in rotation.
November 10, 2025 at 11:25 PM
wrong
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart.
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
November 7, 2025 at 10:18 PM
In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart.
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
If you have a James Watson story you'd like to share with me, DM me here or msg me on signal, dsamorod.25
November 7, 2025 at 8:15 PM
If you have a James Watson story you'd like to share with me, DM me here or msg me on signal, dsamorod.25
It's really important to note that not only was Watson a racist and misogynist but his contribution to the double helix was listening to a Rosalind Franklin lecture and getting mad because Francis Crick wouldn't invite him to his sex parties.
Hey folks, as news of Watson's demise spreads, please don't set aside his weighty legacy of misogyny and racism. He was truly among the worst of us. www.vox.com/2019/1/15/18...
DNA scientist James Watson has a remarkably long history of sexist, racist public comments
“People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty,” he said in 2003. “I think it would be great.”
www.vox.com
November 7, 2025 at 7:59 PM
It's really important to note that not only was Watson a racist and misogynist but his contribution to the double helix was listening to a Rosalind Franklin lecture and getting mad because Francis Crick wouldn't invite him to his sex parties.
That sucks ass but I find succor in Jacob Frey being miserable for another four years.
jacob frey won
November 5, 2025 at 5:40 PM
That sucks ass but I find succor in Jacob Frey being miserable for another four years.
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
It only ratchets one way — until the fear-mongering hate and consultant-class grift are called out for what they are.
Earle-Sears ran what felt like 12 billion ads about how much she hated trans kids and I didn’t hear a single pundit say she should stick to real issues that affect real people.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrat Abigail Spanberger wins Virginia governor’s race.
November 5, 2025 at 1:43 AM
It only ratchets one way — until the fear-mongering hate and consultant-class grift are called out for what they are.
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
Waterfall in Fall Creek Gorge, Ithaca, NY
November 4, 2025 at 12:29 AM
Waterfall in Fall Creek Gorge, Ithaca, NY
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
Remembering fondly how there used to be a really nice park at the foot of the Sabo Bridge, and a nice green space parkway on Franklin and Cedar. But, literally because Jacob Frey is a huge asshole, neither of those things are available anymore. What kind of mayor takes nice things away?
Someone who likes his neighbors and wants to improve the place he lives probably wouldn't have fenced off half the city and spitefully dropped concrete rubble on any given open space where someone might sleep for the night.
November 2, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Remembering fondly how there used to be a really nice park at the foot of the Sabo Bridge, and a nice green space parkway on Franklin and Cedar. But, literally because Jacob Frey is a huge asshole, neither of those things are available anymore. What kind of mayor takes nice things away?
Jacob Frey being a miserable asshole with a palpable disdain for his own constituents is a perfectly good reason to vote him out. That attitude permeates his policies.
Sorry for cringe-posting, but I believe there’s real value in the politics of joy.
The Frey Guys just seem like genuinely miserable people who think it’s edgy and funny to be assholes without a care as to whether you like them or not. I imagine that attitude comes from the top-down.
The Frey Guys just seem like genuinely miserable people who think it’s edgy and funny to be assholes without a care as to whether you like them or not. I imagine that attitude comes from the top-down.
Also the manager of team Minneapolis has spoken
November 2, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Jacob Frey being a miserable asshole with a palpable disdain for his own constituents is a perfectly good reason to vote him out. That attitude permeates his policies.
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
@boneshakerbooks.bsky.social is looking so good at 26th and lyndale 🌟 open now, go check it out!!!
November 1, 2025 at 8:02 PM
@boneshakerbooks.bsky.social is looking so good at 26th and lyndale 🌟 open now, go check it out!!!
See also the non-stop histrionics about there being more than two sexes, or sex being a spectrum, or similar, because to them it implicitly gives people permission to be trans (even if the two concepts really have nothing to do with each other).
That’s because the purpose of biology for the right is naturalizing social hierarchy and defining a subaltern “other” to stand in contrast to the “normal”.
I think that an underreported key to understanding the contemporary evangelical right is that they hate Darwinism (performatively) but they fucking LOVE evopsych nonsense, especially when, as is so often the case, their thoughts turn to gender.
October 30, 2025 at 6:01 PM
See also the non-stop histrionics about there being more than two sexes, or sex being a spectrum, or similar, because to them it implicitly gives people permission to be trans (even if the two concepts really have nothing to do with each other).
the posture brothers
October 29, 2025 at 5:18 PM
the posture brothers
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
Come join me, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social, @sabs.bsky.social, and @maddiebender.bsky.social on October 24, for a virtual session discussing “How Worker-Owned Media Outlets Can Work.” It’s one of a bunch of events kicking off the national Science Writers meeting! #SciWri25
sciencewriters2025.org
sciencewriters2025.org
Schedule - ScienceWriters2025
sciencewriters2025.org
August 14, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Come join me, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social, @sabs.bsky.social, and @maddiebender.bsky.social on October 24, for a virtual session discussing “How Worker-Owned Media Outlets Can Work.” It’s one of a bunch of events kicking off the national Science Writers meeting! #SciWri25
sciencewriters2025.org
sciencewriters2025.org
clocking in at the Maine Guy Tattoo Takes Factory, hope you all had a good shift, take it easy now
October 22, 2025 at 7:42 PM
clocking in at the Maine Guy Tattoo Takes Factory, hope you all had a good shift, take it easy now
Reposted by Dan Samorodnitsky
It's pub day!! The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2025 is out. I'm thrilled to appear with @sequencermag.bsky.social alongside many talented writers whose work I revere. Including the pieces in this anthology
Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...
Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...
October 22, 2025 at 4:22 AM
It's pub day!! The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2025 is out. I'm thrilled to appear with @sequencermag.bsky.social alongside many talented writers whose work I revere. Including the pieces in this anthology
Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...
Get a copy from an indie store to support the series
bookshop.org/a/114150/978...