Andy Extance
@andyextance.bsky.social
Bag of chemicals posing as a science journalist, environmental activist, widower
Reposted by Andy Extance
I known it seems futile to do this sort of thing, but I think we should all do what little we can to fight the awfulness of the world and not giving money (or giving less money) to evil people is probably a good place to start.
I’ve massively cut down on my use of Amazon, and try to order books from Indies or my local Waterstones. Yes, it’s a bit more expensive but if you’re a middle-class book lover like me, you can probably afford it and it’s a small way of resisting the awfulness of the evil people ruining the world.
I'd love to think that there is a future where authors can completely disengage from Amazon and still earn a living. Where they feel no pressure to view Amazon sales rank or total Amazon reviews as a barometer of their success. We are not there yet. But some of us can hope. bsky.app/profile/dj-a...
January 4, 2026 at 9:33 AM
I known it seems futile to do this sort of thing, but I think we should all do what little we can to fight the awfulness of the world and not giving money (or giving less money) to evil people is probably a good place to start.
I have been reading the amazing 12 Days of Christmas poems compiled by Carol Ann Duffy for @candlestickpress.bsky.social and today's is eerily appropriate....
January 4, 2026 at 10:24 AM
I have been reading the amazing 12 Days of Christmas poems compiled by Carol Ann Duffy for @candlestickpress.bsky.social and today's is eerily appropriate....
Reposted by Andy Extance
#ABSWawards
📢Entries now open!!!
11 categories available for self-entry 🔗 zurl.co/fsqnj
🎤 📰 💻 🎧 🎥
⚠️The Lifetime Achievement Award - our most prestigious award - is based on nominations from ABSW members 👉 zurl.co/tYMAW
📢Entries now open!!!
11 categories available for self-entry 🔗 zurl.co/fsqnj
🎤 📰 💻 🎧 🎥
⚠️The Lifetime Achievement Award - our most prestigious award - is based on nominations from ABSW members 👉 zurl.co/tYMAW
January 1, 2026 at 9:00 AM
#ABSWawards
📢Entries now open!!!
11 categories available for self-entry 🔗 zurl.co/fsqnj
🎤 📰 💻 🎧 🎥
⚠️The Lifetime Achievement Award - our most prestigious award - is based on nominations from ABSW members 👉 zurl.co/tYMAW
📢Entries now open!!!
11 categories available for self-entry 🔗 zurl.co/fsqnj
🎤 📰 💻 🎧 🎥
⚠️The Lifetime Achievement Award - our most prestigious award - is based on nominations from ABSW members 👉 zurl.co/tYMAW
Reposted by Andy Extance
January 3, 2026 at 12:34 PM
Published today by the BBC: the Young Science Writer Award 2025 winning essay. Record entries this year and a brilliant standard of science writing from pupils across the UK. Congratulations to winner Hasset Kifle from Stoke-on-Trent. Read: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #YSWA25 #ScienceWriting 🧪
December 28, 2025 at 9:27 PM
Published today by the BBC: the Young Science Writer Award 2025 winning essay. Record entries this year and a brilliant standard of science writing from pupils across the UK. Congratulations to winner Hasset Kifle from Stoke-on-Trent. Read: www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #YSWA25 #ScienceWriting 🧪
Reposted by Andy Extance
Internal documents leaked from Meta show how its business model depends heavily on advertisers it suspects are committing fraud. Meta earns about $7B/year from just one category of scam ads. AI will super-charge this abuse.
December 23, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Internal documents leaked from Meta show how its business model depends heavily on advertisers it suspects are committing fraud. Meta earns about $7B/year from just one category of scam ads. AI will super-charge this abuse.
In October I got to go on the ship people wanted to call Boaty McBoatface before it headed off to the Antarctic to study its future in our changing climate. Mariana from @chemistryworld.com made the video, and I wrote this article: www.chemistryworld.com/features/the... I hope you enjoy them both!
December 10, 2025 at 11:13 AM
In October I got to go on the ship people wanted to call Boaty McBoatface before it headed off to the Antarctic to study its future in our changing climate. Mariana from @chemistryworld.com made the video, and I wrote this article: www.chemistryworld.com/features/the... I hope you enjoy them both!
Did you know that the gases in one tiny blue asthma inhaler can cause as much global heating as 30kg of CO2? You can read all about it in my @chemistryworld.com story at bit.ly/greeninhaler
December 8, 2025 at 4:46 PM
Did you know that the gases in one tiny blue asthma inhaler can cause as much global heating as 30kg of CO2? You can read all about it in my @chemistryworld.com story at bit.ly/greeninhaler
Reposted by Andy Extance
A few thoughts on the future of science journalism from a talk I gave recently--at UCL for the American Association of Science Journalism.
open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...
open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...
From Print to Prompts
What the past tells us about the future of science journalism
open.substack.com
November 17, 2025 at 10:28 AM
A few thoughts on the future of science journalism from a talk I gave recently--at UCL for the American Association of Science Journalism.
open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...
open.substack.com/pub/overmatt...
This line hit me hard: "For decades, the oil and gas industry has promised jobs but delivered health risks, poisoned groundwater and dead fisheries."
So many promises at the moment, we need to be very careful about which ones to trust
So many promises at the moment, we need to be very careful about which ones to trust
"Her story is a reminder that even the largest corporations can be stopped when ordinary people refuse to back down."
Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from a small town in Texas, took on ExxonMobil.
Guess who won?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Diane Wilson, a fisherwoman from a small town in Texas, took on ExxonMobil.
Guess who won?
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
How a Texas shrimper stalled Exxon’s $10bn plastics plant | Shilpi Chhotray
Diane Wilson recognized Exxon’s playbook – and showed how local people can take on even the most entrenched industries
www.theguardian.com
November 17, 2025 at 11:31 AM
This line hit me hard: "For decades, the oil and gas industry has promised jobs but delivered health risks, poisoned groundwater and dead fisheries."
So many promises at the moment, we need to be very careful about which ones to trust
So many promises at the moment, we need to be very careful about which ones to trust
Reposted by Andy Extance
My fear is scientists will just sit by & be complicit. Saying you are for 1.5C or net zero is not ambition.
If rich country GHG or CO2 emissions are not dropping at >5% per year, they are not remotely consistent with 1.5C, nor net zero in a reasonable time frame.
Scientists need to point this out.
If rich country GHG or CO2 emissions are not dropping at >5% per year, they are not remotely consistent with 1.5C, nor net zero in a reasonable time frame.
Scientists need to point this out.
Rich, historical polluter countries that had the highest legal responsibility to take climate action failed. And now some of these same countries are speaking about '1.5C ambition'. What a charade
November 15, 2025 at 8:03 AM
My fear is scientists will just sit by & be complicit. Saying you are for 1.5C or net zero is not ambition.
If rich country GHG or CO2 emissions are not dropping at >5% per year, they are not remotely consistent with 1.5C, nor net zero in a reasonable time frame.
Scientists need to point this out.
If rich country GHG or CO2 emissions are not dropping at >5% per year, they are not remotely consistent with 1.5C, nor net zero in a reasonable time frame.
Scientists need to point this out.
Reposted by Andy Extance
New reflections from me about the challenge of countering disinformation when the state itself is distributing it
christinapagel.substack.com/p/the-erosio...
christinapagel.substack.com/p/the-erosio...
November 15, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Reposted by Andy Extance
1/2
We just published the Global Carbon Budget 2025, with a mix of bad news (CO2 emissions continue to grow) and encouraging news (35 countries saw emissions decline over the past decade while growing their economies).
Read the highlights in a short article:
theconversation.com/the-worlds-c...
We just published the Global Carbon Budget 2025, with a mix of bad news (CO2 emissions continue to grow) and encouraging news (35 countries saw emissions decline over the past decade while growing their economies).
Read the highlights in a short article:
theconversation.com/the-worlds-c...
November 13, 2025 at 12:16 AM
1/2
We just published the Global Carbon Budget 2025, with a mix of bad news (CO2 emissions continue to grow) and encouraging news (35 countries saw emissions decline over the past decade while growing their economies).
Read the highlights in a short article:
theconversation.com/the-worlds-c...
We just published the Global Carbon Budget 2025, with a mix of bad news (CO2 emissions continue to grow) and encouraging news (35 countries saw emissions decline over the past decade while growing their economies).
Read the highlights in a short article:
theconversation.com/the-worlds-c...
Reposted by Andy Extance
NEW: Global fossil fuel use will peak before 2030 – unless 'stated policies' are abandoned
Contra some terrible news coverage, IEA World Energy Outlook shows coal near peak, oil peaking by 2030 & gas by 2035 (see chart)
What's going on? 🧵 + cool charts
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-fossil-f...
Contra some terrible news coverage, IEA World Energy Outlook shows coal near peak, oil peaking by 2030 & gas by 2035 (see chart)
What's going on? 🧵 + cool charts
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-fossil-f...
November 12, 2025 at 9:02 AM
NEW: Global fossil fuel use will peak before 2030 – unless 'stated policies' are abandoned
Contra some terrible news coverage, IEA World Energy Outlook shows coal near peak, oil peaking by 2030 & gas by 2035 (see chart)
What's going on? 🧵 + cool charts
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-fossil-f...
Contra some terrible news coverage, IEA World Energy Outlook shows coal near peak, oil peaking by 2030 & gas by 2035 (see chart)
What's going on? 🧵 + cool charts
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-fossil-f...
This amazing-looking solar farm uses an exciting new technology now being manufactured in China. You can read about it in my new Chemical and Engineering News story at bit.ly/ChinaPerovskite
It's good to share some positive news for a change! 🧪
It's good to share some positive news for a change! 🧪
September 22, 2025 at 2:24 PM
This amazing-looking solar farm uses an exciting new technology now being manufactured in China. You can read about it in my new Chemical and Engineering News story at bit.ly/ChinaPerovskite
It's good to share some positive news for a change! 🧪
It's good to share some positive news for a change! 🧪
Permastink is as gross as it sounds. It's the lingering smell on polyester sportswear, and leads to people throwing away otherwise good quality clothes. Preventing permastink is therefore important for our environment. My explainer in @chemistryworld.com: www.chemistryworld.com/news/explain... 🧪
Explainer: The chemistry of permastink and how to prevent it
How to avoid throwing out smelly polyester sportswear
www.chemistryworld.com
August 6, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Permastink is as gross as it sounds. It's the lingering smell on polyester sportswear, and leads to people throwing away otherwise good quality clothes. Preventing permastink is therefore important for our environment. My explainer in @chemistryworld.com: www.chemistryworld.com/news/explain... 🧪
Rare genetic diseases like Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy in are desperately horrible, and when people die from treatments that's tragic. But when the need is so great, sometimes the risk is worth it. My story in @chemistryworld.com www.chemistryworld.com/news/sarepta...
Sarepta gene therapy deaths highlight tragic rare disease dilemma
Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy
www.chemistryworld.com
August 6, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Rare genetic diseases like Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy in are desperately horrible, and when people die from treatments that's tragic. But when the need is so great, sometimes the risk is worth it. My story in @chemistryworld.com www.chemistryworld.com/news/sarepta...
Reposted by Andy Extance
Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy.
Sarepta gene therapy deaths highlight tragic rare disease dilemma
Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy
www.chemistryworld.com
August 4, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy.
Reposted by Andy Extance
Two physicists from different disciplines met at a climate protest (as you do). They got to talking about their research (as you do). Within a year or so, they'd designed a new type of dark matter detector experiment (as you...wait, what?). First results here: 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/new-experi...
New experiment uses levitated magnets to search for dark matter – Physics World
Although it hasn’t detected dark matter yet, its developers say it offers an alternative path that is worth exploring
physicsworld.com
July 29, 2025 at 8:34 AM
Two physicists from different disciplines met at a climate protest (as you do). They got to talking about their research (as you do). Within a year or so, they'd designed a new type of dark matter detector experiment (as you...wait, what?). First results here: 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/new-experi...
Enjoying hearing from Jon Roozenbeek at #abswss25 about the tobacco 'disinformation playbook' shared pseudonymously by a 'Mr Butss' with three elements:
- Sow doubt
- Counter attack
- Don't lie (too much)
Sound familiar?
- Sow doubt
- Counter attack
- Don't lie (too much)
Sound familiar?
June 26, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Enjoying hearing from Jon Roozenbeek at #abswss25 about the tobacco 'disinformation playbook' shared pseudonymously by a 'Mr Butss' with three elements:
- Sow doubt
- Counter attack
- Don't lie (too much)
Sound familiar?
- Sow doubt
- Counter attack
- Don't lie (too much)
Sound familiar?
Reposted by Andy Extance
Recycled PV cells achieve efficiencies similar to commercial cells, promoting material reuse. Recycling methods recover 60-95% of materials, but face challenges like emissions and costs.
🧪
🔌💡
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧪
🔌💡
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Photovoltaic module Recycling: A review on material recovery methods and waste management approach
The increasing demand for sustainable energy solutions has driven a massive rise in the installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) modules. This, in turn…
www.sciencedirect.com
June 24, 2025 at 8:38 AM
Recycled PV cells achieve efficiencies similar to commercial cells, promoting material reuse. Recycling methods recover 60-95% of materials, but face challenges like emissions and costs.
🧪
🔌💡
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
🧪
🔌💡
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Andy Extance
Ireland joins the growing number of nations that are now coal free for electricity generation. 💪 🧪🔌💡☀️💨🔋 electrek.co/2025/06/20/i...
Ireland just became Europe’s newest coal-free country
Ireland just shut down its last coal plant – part of a clean energy shift that’s making Europe coal-free, one country at a time.
electrek.co
June 21, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Ireland joins the growing number of nations that are now coal free for electricity generation. 💪 🧪🔌💡☀️💨🔋 electrek.co/2025/06/20/i...
Climate activism is scary, and is facing increasing resistance, but also connects you to some amazing people. That was my message when interviewed in January by Deutsche Welle, the German equivalent of BBC World Service, about my arrest while protesting with Just Stop Oil: pod.link/livingplanet...
Living Planet
Looking to reconnect with nature? Want to make better decisions for the health of the planet? Every Friday, Living Planet brings you the stories, facts and debates on the key environmental issues of o...
pod.link
June 18, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Climate activism is scary, and is facing increasing resistance, but also connects you to some amazing people. That was my message when interviewed in January by Deutsche Welle, the German equivalent of BBC World Service, about my arrest while protesting with Just Stop Oil: pod.link/livingplanet...
My latest story for Chemistry World describes UK oil refineries' ambitious attempts to ensure they don't go from economic lynchpins to historic relics. 🛢️
Read it here: 🤳
www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...
Read it here: 🤳
www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...
How decarbonisation will help the UK’s last refineries survive
Carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen are central to any possibility of supplying liquid fuels compatible with net zero, reports Andy Extance
www.chemistryworld.com
June 10, 2025 at 2:08 PM
My latest story for Chemistry World describes UK oil refineries' ambitious attempts to ensure they don't go from economic lynchpins to historic relics. 🛢️
Read it here: 🤳
www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...
Read it here: 🤳
www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...
#abswss25 is on June 26th, but registration closes this Friday, June 13th, at 5pm. Tickets start at just £30, including a hybrid option if you can't be in London on the day. I hope to see many of you there - register now to make it happen, if you haven't already!
#abswss25 #SummerSchool
⚠️This is a hybrid event
🔗 zurl.co/tUAAn
💻Your digital future 💻
The evolving digital landscape of media and a review of the digital tools key to your job as a journalist
📢Speakers:
@munkeatlooi.bsky.social @bmj.com Olivia Hains @aeon.co
⚠️This is a hybrid event
🔗 zurl.co/tUAAn
💻Your digital future 💻
The evolving digital landscape of media and a review of the digital tools key to your job as a journalist
📢Speakers:
@munkeatlooi.bsky.social @bmj.com Olivia Hains @aeon.co
June 9, 2025 at 10:09 AM
#abswss25 is on June 26th, but registration closes this Friday, June 13th, at 5pm. Tickets start at just £30, including a hybrid option if you can't be in London on the day. I hope to see many of you there - register now to make it happen, if you haven't already!