Hannah Waters
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hanner.bsky.social
Hannah Waters
@hanner.bsky.social
senior editor @quantamagazine.bsky.social covering biology | pitch me: [email protected] | quantamagazine.org/biology
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Hii! Last week Quanta published a project I've been working on all year — a special issue about climate science, or what research into climate change is revealing about how our planet works www.quantamagazine.org/how-we-came-...
How We Came To Know Earth | Quanta Magazine
Climate science is the most significant scientific collaboration in history. This series from Quanta Magazine guides you through basic climate science — from quantum effects to ancient hothouses, from...
www.quantamagazine.org
Ever wonder how your brain builds a sense of direction? New research in bats exploring an island off the coast of Tanzania resolves debate over the mammalian internal compass. Words by @yaseminsaplakoglu.bsky.social + graphic by @markabelan.bsky.social 🦇🌐 www.quantamagazine.org/how-animals-...
How Animals Build a Sense of Direction | Quanta Magazine
Researchers documented the activity of neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania.
www.quantamagazine.org
January 25, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
just amazing work by my colleagues at @wsj.com - a frame by frame analysis of the shooting

incredible that some continue to rationalize this

www.wsj.com/us-news/vide...
Videos Contradict U.S. Account of Minneapolis Shooting by Federal Agents
See how immigration officers escalated a fatal confrontation on Saturday.
www.wsj.com
January 25, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
The entire fed system is being weaponized against Minnesota.
January 21, 2026 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
How does your brain build a sense of direction? New studies into animals’ internal compass could help explain the feeling of getting “turned around”, or even why some of us are so bad at finding our way. @yaseminsaplakoglu.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/how-animals-...
How Animals Build a Sense of Direction | Quanta Magazine
Researchers documented the activity of neurons that shape directional navigation as bats explored a remote island off the coast of Tanzania.
www.quantamagazine.org
January 21, 2026 at 3:23 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
The National Science Foundation sign on our Eisenhower Av building is now gone.

The NSF mural in the foyer is removed and torn off in sheets.

We were supposed to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the agency in May 2025. That never happened.
January 18, 2026 at 2:00 AM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
The 2026 Audubon Photography Awards contest is now accepting entries! www.audubon.org/press-room/2...
2026 Audubon Photography Awards Open for Entries
Grand Prize winners will receive $5,000 and a voyage to Antarctica with HX Expeditions.
www.audubon.org
January 15, 2026 at 5:17 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Holy hell, what an obituary
Renfrew Christie Dies at 76; Sabotaged Racist Regime’s Nuclear Program
www.nytimes.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
BREAKING: The controversial hepatitis B vaccine trial in Guinea-Bissau has been *cancelled,* I can now report. A senior official with Africa CDC confirmed the cancellation and said GB officials are working to make sure any research is conducted ethically:
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Controversial US study on hepatitis B vaccines in Africa is cancelled
$1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 3:28 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Having seen several abductions up close, it is really hard to convey how much the thing they’re doing is roaming in military convoys until they see someone who is alone and isn’t white, and then jumping out in large numbers, pulling them into a van, and screeching off, all in 90 seconds or so.
"“They specifically asked me if I knew where the Hmong families lived on my street & in the neighborhood.” Lugert-Thom responded, “I don’t know anything about that” & she said they then asked, “Well, what about the Asian families?”"

"“I was a bit shaken & a bit shocked of what I was asked to do.”"
A St. Paul resident says federal officers knocked on her door and asked her to identify Hmong and Asian households in her North End neighborhood last week.
January 14, 2026 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
in understanding the impact of the Trump administration’s policies. The extraordinary decision to execute a search warrant at a journalist’s home should shock and dismay everyone who cares about a free and independent press. (2/3)
January 14, 2026 at 5:52 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...
January 14, 2026 at 12:44 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
The history of civilian mass detention on the basis of identity without due process or recourse (which is how I defined concentration camps in my history of them) shows that it invariably leads to permanent harm—and typically significant loss of life as well. The longer it goes on the worse it gets.
As detention expands, conditions get worse, thanks to overcrowding and the chaotic transfers of people all over the country.

ICE detention has always had problems, but they're worse than ever now and the impact is clear. Deaths hit a record level in 2025, and 2026 is already looking to be worse.
The detention system has grown so rapidly that already harmful conditions have worsened.

Thousands of immigrants arrested in the interior are detained in hastily built tent camps, where conditions are brutal.

More people died in ICE detention in 2025 than in the past four years combined.
January 14, 2026 at 4:43 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Heat and greenhouse gas pollution rise in lock-step — until 2023, when the thermostat goes bonkers.

🎁🔗 The 2025 climate numbers are in.
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...
January 14, 2026 at 2:12 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
BIG: The case for Tren de Aragua being invading narco-terrorists, key to Trump's attacks on Venezuela and immigrant communities at home, is just another manufactured threat, as revealed in a trove of intel documents we provided to @dell.bsky.social / @wired.com. #FOIA www.wired.com/story/trump-...
Trump Warned of a Tren de Aragua ‘Invasion.’ US Intel Told a Different Story
Hundreds of records obtained by WIRED show thin intelligence on the Venezuelan gang in the United States, describing fragmented, low-level crime rather than a coordinated terrorist threat.
www.wired.com
January 14, 2026 at 4:53 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
People not in Minnesota: please read this excellent summary of what life is like in Minneapolis since the murderous scum ICE swarmed here. And more are on their way. By local reporter / writer / bike dude / legend @dbrauer.net .
January 13, 2026 at 10:38 PM
the best explanation of a membrane potential i've ever read, and more fun facts and new science about the bioelectricity running through our body's tissues, by @elisecutts.bsky.social www.quantamagazine.org/cells-use-bi...
Cells Use ‘Bioelectricity’ To Coordinate and Make Group Decisions | Quanta Magazine
The discovery that tissues use electricity to expel unhealthy cells is part of a surge of renewed interest in the currents flowing through our bodies.
www.quantamagazine.org
January 13, 2026 at 4:09 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Please stop and read this statement from Renee Good's wife.
Renee Macklin Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement and it moved me to sobbing tears:

archive.is/ur35j
January 9, 2026 at 5:41 PM
Happy new year! Quanta is hiring a senior editor who will work across all our subject areas - biology, math, physics and more. Feel free to reach out with any questions about the role + working here, come be my new coworker

simonsfoundation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/simons...
Senior Staff Editor, Quanta Magazine
POSITION SUMMARY Quanta Magazine is seeking a senior staff editor to support the award-winning magazine’s coverage across all parts of the newsroom. This senior staff editor will work on developing ne...
simonsfoundation.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
January 5, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Research into how a father’s choices — such as diet, exercise, stress, nicotine use — in the weeks and months before conception may transfer traits to his children has become impossible to ignore.

Ending a year of Quanta biology with a bang: www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA | Quanta Magazine
Research into how a father’s choices — such as diet, exercise, stress, nicotine use — may transfer traits to his children has become impossible to ignore.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 23, 2025 at 1:22 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
This year, Quanta’s biology stories ranged widely, from ancient life’s relationship with plate tectonics, to the neurons that feel geological rumblings. 🧵
December 15, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
In a recent study, the fitness of a father mouse at the time of conception was found to have metabolic and mitochondrial benefits for his offspring. Similar signatures were found in the sperm of well-exercised human men. @ivanamato.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/how-dads-fit...
How Dad’s Fitness May Be Packaged and Passed Down in Sperm RNA | Quanta Magazine
Research into how a father’s choices, including diet, exercise, stress and nicotine use, may transfer traits to his children epigenetically has become impossible to ignore.
www.quantamagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
This, too, is outrageous -- firing an immigration judge because he granted asylum to six people. Trump's folks have made clear they want "deportation judges." Just rejecting any semblance of due process. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
US army lawyer fired as immigration judge after defying Trump deportation agenda
Christopher Day was fired barely a month into the job after granting asylum to migrants at a high rate
www.theguardian.com
December 20, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
Santa says Starbucks gift cards are a NO, NO, NO!

Baristas are striking because Starbucks refuses to remedy 100s of unfair labor practices and negotiate a fair contract.
Stand with workers by skipping Starbucks gift cards. #NoContractNoCoffee

solidaritywithbaristas.org
December 19, 2025 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Hannah Waters
"I refuse." This is it. There's no reason we should accept a narrative of an already settled future which marginalizes humans and individual agency. No one wants this. No one asked for it.
"This promise of an AI future, is really just a collective anxiety that wealthy people have about how well they're gonna be able to control us in the future."

- @tressiemcphd.bsky.social with an absolute mic drop moment about AI bullshit.

Incredible words.
Listen to all of it!
December 19, 2025 at 1:21 PM