staff writer @theatlantic // writing a book for @randomhouse // rep’d by @elysecheney // ross@theatlantic.com
Washington, DC
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- Followers 16,660
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I wrote about the effort to decipher sperm whale language with artificial intelligence.
I reached out to philosophers, linguists, animal rights lawyers, marine biologists, field scientists who specialize in whales, and paleontologists. Assume that this works, I told them. Assume that we are able to communicate something of substance to the sperm whale civilization.
What should we say?
Gift link: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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1/9 This is a thread about my new feature from our March issue.
It's called, ~~A Journey Into the Animal Mind~~
It's about consciousness.
Specifically, animal consciousness.
(There may not be any other kind.)
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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For months, @edyong209 has wrangled the pandemic's complex science & politics into 1 journalistic masterwork after another.
His searing, epic cover story brings together all that work & more to explain, with unsuprassed force & clarity, how we got here:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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"Although Philly produced a genuine boxing champion in Joe Frazier, the city has a statue of Rocky Balboa, an Italian-American fighter who never existed." - That's from this essential @AdamSerwer piece, explaining how Creed flipped Rocky's racial subtext theatlantic.com/entertainmen…
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SPOOKY: An A.I. developed its own language without being asked to theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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“An upheaval of this scale and speed—the destruction of black farming, an occupation that had defined the African American experience—might in any other context be described as a revolution or historical fulcrum. But it came and went with little remark.” theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Sleep is a complete mystery from an evolutionary perspective: Why would an animal lay down, unconscious and defenseless, not eating or procreating, for hours-long stretches. We sent @vero_greenwood to Japan to find out. Read her dazzling feature here: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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I lost my Dad yesterday, and already miss him terribly.
I wrote about his life here:
theatlantic.com/family/archi…
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Hearing yourself interrupt someone who is saying something interesting while transcribing <<<<<<<<<<
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Our new cover story by @JenSeniorNY is a 20-year saga about a family still grieving the loss of their son on 9/11, each in their own way. It’s one of the most humane pieces we’ve ever published, and it cracked me open like few magazine stories ever have. theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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A deer was caught on camera licking a fox—and @PaulBisceglio wrote a lovely piece about it theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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~*~ Some personal news ~*~
I have a new job!
And the best part is...
It's at @TheAtlantic
theatlantic.com/press-releas…
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In the 90's, a white 63-year-old doctor from Beverly Hills had a stroke and...
1. Began speaking in rhyme
2. Started rapping at Project Blowed, L.A.'s hip hop mecca
3. Became friends with KRS-One
His story, by the one and only @jeffmaysh, is here:
theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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*This* is the piece to read:
5,000 words from @edyong209 on how the Covid-19 pandemic will end.
theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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China may make first contact (with 👽 ) before America—I went to see its new alien-hunting dish to find out what that would mean. My story for our December issue: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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This is one of my favorite Atlantic traditions—in which we all pick the best book we read all year and say why. There are so many gems on this list: theatlantic.com/entertainmen…
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1/x THREAD:
In our new issue, I have a big story about AI and the human future drawn from conversations with Sam Altman and others at OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters, and in East Asia during the closing stretch of Altman's recent world tour.
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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This excellent @jameshamblin piece is a careful, but vivid window on what the next 90-120 days of American life could look like:
theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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Let @marinakoren take you through the birth of the solar system in three beautiful sentences theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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My highlighter ran out of ink reading the new @tanehisicoates theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Our collective understanding of Vladimir Putin and Russia would be seriously impoverished without @juliaioffe — read her cover story on the myth of Putin as master strategist here: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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This @edyong209 story about the ~origin of life on Earth~ blew my mind three different times: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Mushrooms evolved magical powers because they wanted to stop insects from eating the poop they wanted to eat theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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A bit of minor key ~personal news~
I'm staying right here at @TheAtlantic—greatest mag & colleagues on Earth—but in June I'm becoming a staff writer.
I've been mulling this change for a long while and when I returned from book leave, I knew it was time.
Wish me luck y'all.
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Wild and fascinating @RocMorin story about a Japanese company that rents actors out to fill gaps in people's lives theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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There is simply no one who writes animal stories like @edyong209 theatlantic.com/author/ed-yo…
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In our June issue, I argue that we should never give AI a say in nuclear command and control. As a great lover of War Games and T2, it distressed me to learn that this even needs saying, but for a whole host of new reasons, it does:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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This @julieebeck piece on the meta architecture of human conversation is so much fun theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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The best news: @zeynep is joining @TheAtlantic as a contributing writer theatlantic.com/press-releas…
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I never thought we'd publish 🚨 Don DeLillo 🚨 in the science section at The Atlantic, but here we are: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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At its essence, Bitcoin is an arbitrage game that turns electricity into money theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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Just read Muir’s account of climbing a tree to better experience a High Sierra windstorm to my 8-year-old and afterwards he just sighed and said, “I love this book” 💜
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What happens when climate change brings resource scarcity to a global metropolis with pre-existing race and inequality issues?
@fivefifths went to Cape Town to find out, and wrote a brilliant feature about it.
It reads like a warning from the future:
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Read @edyong209 on a very grisly and very mysterious mass die-off theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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1/12 This is a thread about my new feature from our September issue.
It's called 'When China Sees All.'
Last year, when such things were still possible, I visited one of China's national labs for artificial intelligence.
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Read this righteous @alexismadrigal piece about how Google and Facebook failed us again today theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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Most crops get nitrogen from the soil. That’s why the world uses so much nitro-rich fertilizer. This Mexican corn gets it *from the air* thx to a slick microbe-filled layer of mucus on its above-ground roots. The hunt for the miracle genes that do it is on theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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That @PeterBrannen1 sure can write.
Read him on the ancient climate catastrophe that paved the way for the reign of the dinosaurs:
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Only @YAppelbaum could reel off an erudite history of the memo as a technology of politics
1. The WSJ reports that the NSA’s deputy director made a memo of a conversation between Mike Rogers and Trump: wsj.com/articles/mueller-pro…
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For the better part of a year, @jameshamblin has been looking into the possibility that Trump is experiencing some kind of neurological decline. Read his careful, thoughtful investigation here: theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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I wrote about the inner lives of animals, and how they experience death
gift link: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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My all-time favorite prank is to make @edyong209 think I've published a story before the embargo is up
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One night late last year, Cullen Murphy slipped into the Vatican Museum after dark to walk its empty halls and galleries until dawn. He came back with this gorgeous, immersive piece that I never, ever wanted to end:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Homicide detectives on MARS will have to adjust for:
- Blood spatter in low gravity
- Rate of body decay
- Easily staged "accidents"
- Off-world jurisdiction
- Can't use guns indoors
All that and more in this wild and delightful feature from @bldgblog:
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Love this Cullen Murphy piece about all the technological butterfly effects set in motion by the printing press, including this one: theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv…
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So, so proud to republish Annie Dillard's masterpiece 'Total Eclipse'—read it @TheAtlantic through August 21 theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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SCIENCE FIGHT:
Researcher 1: This grid shows that more than half the ocean is being fished!
Researcher 2: Er, if you make the grid squares smaller, it's waaaaay less than that
@edyong209: Let me get to the bottom of this
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Our science, tech, and health teams did amazing work this year, and for your reading pleasure they sifted out the most mind-blowing nuggets, which we’ve condensed into a single list: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Only @edyong209 could take a synoptic view of ~the entire scientific fight against COVID-19~ and actually pull it off with this kind of style and force:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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It’s hard to tell if Albert Brooks is the most interesting man in the world, or if he merely appears so in @AdrienneLaF’s hands. Either way, this is the most absorbing profile I’ve read in ages: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Today @TheAtlantic we have a page-turner of an excerpt from @mkonnikova's fantastic new book—The Biggest Bluff—about how she became a poker champion inside of a year.
It made me want to be her when I grow up:
theatlantic.com/health/archi…
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🚨 🚨 🚨 JOB: We are hiring a science editor! Come work with our amazing team. And if you're interested, feel free to DM me with questions 🚨 🚨 🚨 atlanticmedia.applytojob.com…
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Ta-Nehisi Coates is writing Captain America 😳theatlantic.com/entertainmen…
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“Forest fires might come to be seen as the particularly horrific edge of a sword that is coming for us all” - @yayitsrob theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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SCIENCE EDITORS: We're hiring a contract editor for a special series @TheAtlantic - remote applicants welcome! atlanticmedia.applytojob.com…
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Read @GrahamDavidA on the crazy technofuturism in a Mark Twain short story that appeared in the March 1878 issue of @TheAtlantic theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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"These are the questions that vibrate beneath the vibranium bedrock of Marvel’s Black Panther" - Read this beautiful and deep excavation of Black Panther's many layers of historical and cultural context by @fivefifths theatlantic.com/entertainmen…
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This @nijhuism story has it all:
- An encounter w/ wolves in ~Norway~
- A meditation on the increasingly global politics of the urban/rural divide
- Anthropoceney q's about coexisting w/ predators
- The most beautiful writing you may read this year
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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CSI for elephant-killing cartels:
FIRST, scientists use dung to map Africa's elephants.
SECOND, they trace tusks from intercepted shipments to places on that map.
THIRD, they match separated tusk pairs across shipments to implicate a larger cartel.
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Scientists are getting so good at growing blobs of brain tissue that some are starting to worry that we won't know if and when they become conscious—read @edyong209 on the tricky ethics of organoids theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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I wrote about the jhanas—and the scientists and technologists who are trying to bring them to the masses
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One of the disturbing takeaways from this decades-spanning story of sexual abuse: It took a village theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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For this issue, @edyong209 traveled across the Congo & U.S. to test our readiness for the next big pandemic. He then wrote a piece that is nothing short of majestic in its sweep. Every line is rich with telling detail. And the writing is so very beautiful: theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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1) I have a new feature in our October issue called ~The Search for America's Atlantis~
"Atlantis? In America?" you might say. Let me explain (🧵)
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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The thing I love about @AdrienneLaF’s magnificent new cover story:
She reports deeply on America’s escalating cycle of political violence *while also* zooming out to several global historical analogues that offer us hope of escape.
Don’t miss it:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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That @elainaplott sure knows how to keep a great kicker in reserve theatlantic.com/politics/arc…
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Do not miss this deeply researched and wonderfully written @rebecca_altman piece about the 'Benzene tree' theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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4-year-old daughter just asked me, apropos of nothing, “do you know what it’s like to be a bat?”
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.@GrahamDavidA is a great politics writer, but he may have missed his calling as a tech critic
Read him here on the surprising reasons that Wite-Out and products of its ilk continue to survive and even thrive in a digital world:
theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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9/9 As perhaps the first culture to extend mercy to animals, Jains pioneered a profound expansion of the human moral imagination
I went to India to see their animal hospitals and places of worship and to think through animal consciousness in their midst:
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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As always, read @fivefifths: “Democrats were saved by a community already fighting against the grain to be heard in the din of democracy” theatlantic.com/politics/arc…
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It’s a pleasure to publish an excerpt from The Tangled Tree, a fabulous new book written by @DavidQuammen, whose larger body of work is a North Star for all that we do in @TheAtlantic’s science section theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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We’ve published our new cover story ahead of schedule because, well... theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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Read @patrickc and @michael_nielsen's fascinating—and convincing—argument that we're starting to see diminishing returns from scientific research.
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Are cities making animals smarter? @PaulBisceglio journeyed to Sri Lanka to find out, and returned with this riveting, fascinating feature about the (rapidly urbanizing) fishing cat
theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Read @AdamSerwer on Obama's bounce pass to Gina Haspel theatlantic.com/politics/arc…
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I asked @edyong209 for a nice uplifting Valentines story and he gave me this sad tale about crickets that can no longer sing for their mates, despite much trying. And that's not even the worst part: theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Been waiting to drop this beautiful, mind-bendy @PeterBrannen1 feature for way too long theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Scientists gave octopuses too much ecstasy and they "freaked out and started doing all these color changes” theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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Stephen Hawking was the world's most famous physicist—and yet, somehow, he was still underrated. In this gorgeous piece, written in a fever overnight, @AmandaGefter explains what made his thinking about the universe so very radical theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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“You were a child once too”
The world badly needs @TomJunod to write about Mr. Rogers at more regular intervals than every twenty years.
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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The President can't even be bothered to understand the basic rudiments of climate science theatlantic.com/science/arch…
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I started at @TheAtlantic two years ago (to the day) and I still get a thrill when I get off the elevator in the morning
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We're hiring another tech reporter @TheAtlantic, to be based in the Bay Area — come work with us! atlanticmedia.theresumator.c…
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Can’t say enough about this @ibogost essay on suburban malls theatlantic.com/technology/a…
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THREAD: Our new cover story, by @DavidTreuer, has just dropped.
It’s one of the most powerful essays I’ve ever had the pleasure of working on.
I hope you’ll read it...
theatlantic.com/magazine/arc…
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