Michael Greshko

@michaelgreshko.bsky.social

1719 Followers 935 Following

Associate online news editor @Science. Words at Rolling Stone, NYT, SciAm, WaPo, etc. Ex-staff writer at Nat Geo. Signal: mgreshko.01 https://linktr.ee/michaelgreshko

Splashdown of Integrity space capsule in the Pacific Ocean, surrounded by 3 orange and white parachutes

Screenshot of Google Trends search interest over time for "artemis" in the US, November 1, 2022, to April 2, 2026. The y-axis of the chart goes from 0 to 100. On the left side of the chart, a blue line creates a short peak topping out at 8. The line flatlines through 2023-2025, with minor jitters, and then spikes at the right end of the chart—this week—all the way to 100. However, the spike is a dotted line because the data are preliminary and incomplete for this week.

Whether this vision will really yield a sustained human presence on the moon, let alone Mars- bound astronauts, is an open question. Artemis is still in its early days. Starship’s first full test flight exploded minutes into launch in April. There’s also public support to consider. Since 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, multiple polls have found that less than a quarter of Americans thought that sending people to the moon should be a top NASA priority. Even during Apollo’s days, human spaceflight attracted criticism for spending billions that could address earthbound concerns. Now we’re returning to the moon at a time of climate and biodiversity crises, rising political extremism, glaring racial inequalities, and war between Russia and Ukraine.

Against this grim backdrop, NASA astronauts are acutely aware that they’re not just public figures but also inspirational symbols: of explo- ration, of science, of the national spirit. Koch has wrestled with how to handle these expectations. For 328 days, she lived and worked aboard the ISS, setting a record for the longest spaceflight by a woman. Her impulse was to downplay the milestone. Then a former colleague reminded her that her achievement might give people a sense of greater possibilities.

There’s nothing inevitable about us venturing beyond Earth’s atmosphere, let alone going to the moon. In microgravity our blood breaks down. Our bones get brittle. Our eyesight worsens. Without constant vigilance, we can perish in an instant. Overcoming our biological limits, hundreds of thousands of people have dreamed, planned, and built for decades to make the journey outward not only possible but routine. If Artemis’s vision is realized, that could extend all the way to the moon—and maybe even farther. As Koch sees it, these launches are hard-won victories, with setback after setback giving way to one of the purest of human emotions: joy at surpassing our limits.

“How awesome it is that as a species, as…

Chart showing total annual US Google search volume related to Survivor TV series in the US from 2004 to 2025. Interest is at its highest in 2004 and then declines by about half. After bottoming out in 2014-2015 at about a third of the 2004 search volume, interest has risen again over the past decade to about 55% of the 2004 search volume.

González, who helped create Venezuela’s research funding framework in the 1980s, says the only way to promote national development—and to encourage emigré scientists to return—is to reinvest money into research. Any deal with U.S. oil companies, he adds, should include that requirement. “We cannot leave everything in the hands of foreign companies.”

Scharifker, who witnessed firsthand the rise and collapse of Venezuela’s scientific system, adds that money alone won’t restore it. “Until there are basic freedoms in the country, there is no way science will flourish again.”

"Holy Child," a sketch rendered in red chalk on paper of young boy’s head inclined slightly to the side, his features sketched with feathery strokes. The drawing's creator is disputed, with some attributing it to Leonardo da Vinci and others attributing it to a student of Leonardo's.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: jeffrey E. <jeevacation@gmail.com <mailto:jeevacation@gmail.com> >
Date: Mon, Jan 8, 2018 at 2:19 PM
Subject: Fwd: radical breakthrough
To: jeffrey epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com <mailto:jeevacation@gmail.com> >

1 beards and long hair , are meant to catch and hold smells. ?

2. visiual system cohernant image. . fft . equivament. . for sound. making a coherentt sound. . ? does it make a coeherent concept.?

3. a mental object ie mobject. . action on mental objects. . ?

4. hope opposite of despair. . bias internal system . accesing reserves. .

5. writing is unnatural. assymentrc speed. . not good for eveeryone. linear. slow. rule based. .
6. nose test. telepathy. .

. 7 skin as part of brain? . memebrane. ?

8. ideas or brain connections as knots. slices. tangles links loops. is space knottted. and the speed of light simply mean one time around . obviously a constant.

9 . . intelltignce on surface , needs larger surface area. hence replication. .

10. does the eye tranmsit information.

11/ fear is pain in the future. .

12. music is horizontal and vertical inforamtion ? melody prosgy harmony , all amials. can it be looked at to reengineer the brain. harmony FFT. symphonic learning.

13 individulal vs the group ? ?

14. all senses act in a narrow band. survival. fitness. .

15. drive motivation. goal?

Gandhi says cutting clinical trials for HIV and tuberculosis would have ripple effects outside of Africa. She is most concerned that abruptly stopping treatment will allow HIV and the mycobacteria that causes tuberculosis to develop resistance to existing medicines. Even if funding is eventually restored, she says, “I don’t know if we can ever get back to where we are.”

Simplified digram of IM2's possible orientation on the lunar surface. IM2 has a hexagonal cross-section, so the six sides of IM2 are represented here by a simple hexagon. The PRIME-1 instrument appears to be on top of the sideways lander.

Image from the IM2 robotic lunar lander, taken toward the lunar horizon. Foreground is a lunar lander tipped onto its side, with two legs visibly pointing upward. The sunlit lunar landscape is in the background, with a half-Earth visible in the darkness of space beyond.

Chart showing historical subscriptions to National Geographic from 1900 to 2024. Subscriptions slowly grew from 1900 and reached 1 million in the mid-1920s. They then stayed more or less flat until the mid-1940s and quickly grew to 2 million by the early 1950s. From the early 1960s to the early 1980s, subscriptions grew at a roughly constant, meteoric rate, from 2.2 million in 1957 to more than 10 million by the early 1980s. Print subscriptions then start to decline from approximately 10 million in 1990 to fewer than 1 million today. From 1990 to today, newsstand sales and estimated digital subscriptions also grow, but not enough to offset long-term print declines. Total circulation (newsstand sales, print subscriptions, and digital subscriptions) is less than 2 million.

Chart showing breakdown of NASA's spending. 76% is "contractual services and supplies," 14.2% is "personnel compensation and benefits," 5% is "grants and fixed charges," and 4.8% is "acquisition of assets."

Table readout from German government document describing Otte Ventures GmbH's 33.33% stake in NextVision Media UG.

Screenshot of Facebook page for a publication called Climate Cosmos, with 51,000 likes and 50,000 followers. "Animals Around the Globe GmbH" is the entity responsible for the page.

Functional homepage of stacks.cdc.gov, the CDC's publication repository

Email from NSF, the beginning of which reads: Our top priority is resuming our funding actions and services to the research community and our stakeholders. We are working expeditiously to conduct a comprehensive review of our projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders.

Web page of the National Science Foundation’s Award Cash Management Service that reads: Our top priority is resuming our funding actions and services to the research community and our stakeholders. We are working expeditiously to conduct a comprehensive review of our projects, programs and activities to be compliant with the existing executive orders.

NSF has created an Executive Order Implementation webpage to ensure the widest dissemination of information and updates.We will continue to communicate with you as we receive additional guidance.

College sports mascot depicting the head and neck of a growling black and white terrier dog, with a brownish (or gold) collar studded with six black spikes

NASA officials sitting at a table for a press conference, with “Artemis” behind them on a projection

1980s television cartoon of a white seal looking hopefully up to the right

Pencil sketch of a pitbull lounging.

Pencil sketch of lounging pitbull

Man wearing blue shirt, backpack and head scarf standing in the Moroccan desert holding a dinosaur tooth

"Rolling three dice does an impressively good job at illustrating how global warming skews the chances of heat extremes over land." is an anagram of "At the climate casino, bad-luck rolls mean the world is overwhelmingly hot. Express grief, rage; the goal—job—is to save ending wonders."

Chart showing bell curve of the probabilities of rolling different three-dice sums.

Chart showing correspondence between the probabilities of 10-year heat events under different amounts of warming and the probabilities of rolling a three-dice sum of at least 15 when adding extra numbers.

Chart showing how under different amounts of climate change, once-in-a-decade and once-every-50-year heat extremes become much more common as global warming increases.

Portion of XML file from lineup-publishing.com Contains an author URL with a username "maxnoremo."