Rebekah White

Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

This story is a little glimmer of hope in a lot of darkness: www.science.org/content/arti...

Censorship and safety concerns cloud China’s plans to host science journalism conference Organizers of the 2029 World Conference of Science Journalists defend Beijing meeting as opportunity to connect with Chinese scientists

'He expected little interference from Chinese authorities as long as “we try to keep our event as close as possible to science, not close to politics.”'

I'm pretty sure that if the past decade taught us anything, it taught us that science and politics are inextricable...

The Gospel According to Emily Henry How the best-selling author of “People We Meet on Vacation” channelled her love of rom-coms—and her religious upbringing—into a new kind of romance novel.

The person I've travelled with most is my best friend, who is a man, and people constantly assume we are a couple.

I can't think of any films or books about a relationship like ours. I wish there was. Instead of yet another one where they get together in the end.

www.newyorker.com/culture/pers...

I can't believe that all the stuff in the supermarket is paywalled too

I do enjoy the whakatauki about a person acting like a pigeon at home but a kaka outside the house...

Forty names for kākā The bird with a big mouth. The bird who leads the flock. The bird who announces the day. The bird who sounds the alarm. The dark bird. The rare bird. The noble, silly, insomniac parrot we’re going to ...

Things kākā sound like:
“tape being torn off a box”
“a door opening for the first time in years”
“rapid, soft, fluid warbles”
“droplets falling into water, like a child blowing spit bubbles”
“a locomotive”

A richly rewarding parrot profile by @rebekahwhite.bsky.social
www.nzgeo.com/stories/fort...

So thrilled you liked it!! Thank-you for sharing it, too

Really enjoying my week at nerd camp aka the World Conference of Science Journalists. Say hi if you're here! Here are my super panellists who spoke about community-based evidence the other day... @wfsj25.bsky.social

Investigating a Possible Scammer in Journalism’s AI Era | The Local A suspicious pitch from a freelancer led editor Nicholas Hune-Brown to dig into their past work. By the end, four publications, including The Guardian and Dwell, had removed articles from their sites.

I hope this means people start to re-hire copyeditors and fact-checkers, who do things like "confirm people in stories are real" and "events definitely happened": thelocal.to/investigatin...

Science journo folks: there are travel grants available to the World Conference of Science Journalists, this December in South Africa - deadline is really short, due October 15: www.wcsj2025.org/grants/

I'll be there, come hang out.

Homeward Books: The home for books without a home Splendor over mediocrity. Stories for the hot bath & the cold plunge. Defying the constraints of genre & delving deep into your heart.

By the way, I started a publishing company, along with three of the most eye-wateringly competent people I know.

We just opened pre-orders for our first book. It's so good. I've read it twice. I edited it. You can get one here! www.kickstarter.com/projects/hom...

Magic flora Philip Garnock-Jones has spent more than a decade photographing our native flowers as they’ve never been shown before: in luscious, three-dimensional detail.

Remember the Magic Eye books of the 90s?? Now, you can have a crack at viewing New Zealand’s native flowers in 3D. Clematis, orchid, ngutukākā, korukoru, oioi… this is a luscious, spectacular feature by @rebekahwhite.bsky.social, based on the new book He Puāwai by @theobrominated.bsky.social

Thank-you, I found it super interesting to write!

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

This year at the Ig Nobels it's affirming to see empirical confirmation of a personal research project: that alcohol demonstrably improves my ability to speak a foreign language.

The sample size is a bit small but I'd volunteer for anyone's replication attempt: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Ig Nobel prize 2025: Zebra cows and Teflon food among winners The tongue-in-cheek scientific awards also recognise research into lizard's preferred pizza and garlicky breastmilk.

I know that some publications usually send the intern to cover the Ig Nobels, but I think they're important (as well as hilarious) and, omg, editors, it's my dream to write about them! Not just who wins, but what they mean. Send me, I'm funny. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Tipsy bats and perfect pasta: Ig Nobels celebrate ‘improbable’ research The annual awards are a celebration of weird but thought-provoking science.

It's my favourite day of the year! www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Country Life's never-before-published photographs of ‘101 Dalmatians’ author Dodie Smith's London flat Every Monday, Melanie Bryan delves into the hidden depths of Country Life's extraordinary archive to bring you a long-forgotten story, photograph or advert.

I think there are a number of people on here who would be interested to see these pics of Dodie Smith’s London pad.

www.countrylife.co.uk/interiors/co...

Four phones, three weeks: Everything we saw on teen TikTok We set up four brand-new social media accounts with teenage personas. Then we scrolled.

My data-journalist friend just researched and wrote this super-fascinating story about what kind of content TikTok sends teenagers, and how young people feel about it www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/i...

if you're in New Zealand: please help a left-handed snail find love!

France and Spain hit by red weather warnings as Europe burns in 44C heatwave France has only issued a red alert eight times in the past 20 years as it experiences soaring temperatures

I just experienced a 40-degree day for the first time and I reckon this level of heat is like pain: impossible to explain to anyone unless they've also experienced it

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/e...

I’m Captain Ahab and I Say We Must Never Transition Away from a Whale-Based Energy Industry When I heard that the globalist oligarchs and fat cats in the Washington marshland were conspiring to invest in alternative, non-whale-based energy...

Am I laughing or am I crying; it's getting harder to tell

www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-...

INDIANA JONES AND THE LOST FUNDING

The Library of America edition of Always Coming Home (left) and the Harper Perennial edition of Always Coming Home (right).

“If the engine of narrative is conflict, then what happens if a story organizes itself around another center?” Shruti Swamy asks in the introduction the the 2023 Harper Perennial edition of Always Coming Home (right).

Rusted screws, metal spikes and plastic rubbish: the horrific sexual violence used against Tigray’s women Tens of thousands of Tigrayan women report brutal wartime abuse by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, such as gang-rape and the insertion of objects into their uteruses. But justice seems a distant pros...

total horror is being inflicted on the women of tigray. here we document the attempts by soldiers to destroy their fertility, and their hopes for justice as most of the world looks away www.theguardian.com/global-devel... @ximenaborrazas.bsky.social

@alecluhn.bsky.social Only just clocked that you were also at the Arctic Repair conference last week - I've been following your work for ages, wish I'd said hi! Give me a shout if you're ever in Oxford... it's better than Cambridge.

This might be my favourite advertisement of all time. No beating around the bush. No lies. No exaggeration.

(also, it's biscuits in the British sense)

I really wish I was not away in July and could go to this—but you should!

that film already hit too close to home when it came out

not to mention all accommodation everywhere ever

It's my year!!!

...I hope it's not my year.