Sarah DeWeerdt
banner
sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social
Sarah DeWeerdt
@sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social
Freelance science journalist covering biology, medicine, environment. Always gets the name of the dog, but may be too besotted with the dog to remember the name. Working on a family history of my local whales.
The boy is back in town! ❤️ ❤️😍
Wisdom’s mate joins
her!
🎼 #Reunited
USFWS staff spotted band EX25 on 11/25. No, he has not been named; we await that news.
So far we have a few photos and we'll share more as we receive them.
Here's to a successful egg laying and hatching season for these two!

Photos by Chris Forster.
#Birds
December 1, 2025 at 7:53 PM
Honestly if RFK Jr could get the Snake River dams torn down and make the southern resident killer whales healthy again (MSRKWHA) I wouldn't be mad about it.
Okay, this causes me physical pain to say, but RFK is (for once) not actually being a total weirdo here. He’s a guest of the Nez Perce at a fish hatchery. The Pacific lamprey and the salmon are culturally important to the Nez Perce people, and they are lobbying to remove dams from the Snake River.
The head of health services in the United States, letting parasitic lampreys bite his arms for some godforsaken reason.
November 21, 2025 at 11:16 PM
The way I yelped with joy and let out a breath I hadn't even realized I'd been holding!
#Wisdom is back!
The world’s oldest known living banded bird, Mōlī (Laysan albatross) queen, has returned to Kuailhelani (Midway Atoll). #Birds
November 21, 2025 at 6:37 PM
I wish this came in adult sizes!
Are your kids glued to their screens? For just under $8,000, your teenager can live in a college dorm for four weeks with no tech access.

The first week is rough, but eventually the kids relearn how to spend time offline, said the camp’s executive director.
Frazzled parents turn to screen-time coaches, $8,000 detox camps to rein in kids’ tech
Parents trying to raise their kids in a tech-saturated world are getting overwhelmed with the amount of work and fighting it takes to protect kids, which can be a full-time job.
www.washingtonpost.com
November 17, 2025 at 6:50 PM
Oh I'm so excited to see this!!
November 17, 2025 at 6:48 PM
Thrilled to share my first piece for @biographic.bsky.social about the plants -- from adorable to punk-rock -- that might help us ever so gently source the minerals we need for a low-carbon economy: www.biographic.com/critical-min...
November 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM
A sneaky, snarky new wave of climate disinformation is being propagated across social media, I report in my latest for @anthropocenemag.bsky.social :
www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2025/11/look...
Looks like science, lies like propaganda. Inside a new wave of climate misinformation
An AI analysis shows that climate deniers increasingly use charts, data visuals, and academic design to appear trustworthy. Researchers warn that fact-checking alone can’t counter the power of these d...
www.anthropocenemagazine.org
November 8, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Reposted by Sarah DeWeerdt
Over-active excitatory neurons in the cortex in infant mice lead to social deficits, according to a new preprint that study researchers claim can sway the debate over how signaling imbalances contribute to autism.

By @sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social

www.thetransmitter.org/spectrum/ram...
Ramping up cortical activity in early life sparks autism-like behaviors in mice
The findings add fuel to the long-running debate over how an imbalance in excitatory and inhibitory signaling contributes to the autism.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 30, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Sarah DeWeerdt
Neurons in the brain form functional connections with small-cell lung cancer cells that have spread there, fueling the growth of these brain metastases, two independent studies show.

By @sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social

#neuroskyence

www.thetransmitter.org/neurobiology...
Neurons fuel lung tumors that have spread to brain
Functional synapses between brain cells and cancer cells are key to the metastatic growth, according to new findings from two independent teams.
www.thetransmitter.org
October 6, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Sarah DeWeerdt
Whale spa! Orcas in Washington are creating grooming tools out of kelp stalks, using them as a kind of tool for massage.

@sarahdeweerdt.bsky.social reports.

nautil.us/scratch-my-b...
Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours
Orcas in Washington are creating grooming tools out of kelp stalks
nautil.us
July 3, 2025 at 9:16 PM