Fayth Tan
@fungalpals.bsky.social
Science writer open to work, recovering Caltech biology PhD. Itinerant dabbler in science history, definitely not a fungal symbiote. Writes about science and the sociocultural zeitgeist. Portfolio: authory.com/FaythTan
Pinned
Fayth Tan
@fungalpals.bsky.social
· Feb 16
New ✨open to work✨ intro post! I always get stuck on resumes/cover letters so I'm letting my lungfishsona do it instead. I'm mostly freelancing now, but I'm on the lookout for contract/part-time work, or the right full-time remote role! P.S. Help me feed my cat, she gets hangry
Reposted by Fayth Tan
Part of this week’s newsletter was inspired by the post below. Was there a way to show the distance between normal Americans and the super wealthy?
1/8
www.howtoreadthisch.art/putting-the-...
1/8
www.howtoreadthisch.art/putting-the-...
November 15, 2025 at 4:55 PM
Part of this week’s newsletter was inspired by the post below. Was there a way to show the distance between normal Americans and the super wealthy?
1/8
www.howtoreadthisch.art/putting-the-...
1/8
www.howtoreadthisch.art/putting-the-...
About a year ago I wrote a bunch of longform nature documentary scripts for a youtube channel and I thought my decidedly un-algo friendly interests wouldn't result in a ton of pickup but they have like >1.5M views collectively now??? damn
November 15, 2025 at 12:48 AM
About a year ago I wrote a bunch of longform nature documentary scripts for a youtube channel and I thought my decidedly un-algo friendly interests wouldn't result in a ton of pickup but they have like >1.5M views collectively now??? damn
Reposted by Fayth Tan
This really gets at what rubs me the wrong way with this description. Clearly Altman and others think "PhD level" just means "really smart" rather than what it actually means, dedicating time and effort to push the boundaries of our current body of knowledge. LLMs are antithetical to "PhD level"
Obviously a lie, since the definition of PhD-level expertise, standard across universities worldwide, is that you can produce original knowledge.
OpenAI claims new GPT-5 model boosts ChatGPT to ‘PhD level’
GPT-5's release comes as tech firms continue to compete in an effort to claim the world's most advanced AI.
www.bbc.co.uk
August 8, 2025 at 10:24 AM
This really gets at what rubs me the wrong way with this description. Clearly Altman and others think "PhD level" just means "really smart" rather than what it actually means, dedicating time and effort to push the boundaries of our current body of knowledge. LLMs are antithetical to "PhD level"
Reposted by Fayth Tan
Students who are scared of judgement so they perform cynicism... I see this in some young organizers too.
This is precisely why I constantly say that sincerity is A VIRTUE. Let's bring back EARNESTNESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGs...
This is precisely why I constantly say that sincerity is A VIRTUE. Let's bring back EARNESTNESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGs...
Ocean Vuong on the unsettling way 'cringe culture' holds young people back | 7.30
YouTube video by ABC News In-depth
www.youtube.com
July 27, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Students who are scared of judgement so they perform cynicism... I see this in some young organizers too.
This is precisely why I constantly say that sincerity is A VIRTUE. Let's bring back EARNESTNESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGs...
This is precisely why I constantly say that sincerity is A VIRTUE. Let's bring back EARNESTNESS:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsGs...
Reposted by Fayth Tan
ICYMI: Did you know that Long COVID Justice and The Sick Times worked together to create a series of 30+ resource sheets about Long COVID and associated diseases (LCAC)?
@longcovidjustice.org x @thesicktimes.bsky.social
Check out our Long COVID Essential series: www.tiny.cc/LCE
@longcovidjustice.org x @thesicktimes.bsky.social
Check out our Long COVID Essential series: www.tiny.cc/LCE
July 23, 2025 at 6:40 PM
ICYMI: Did you know that Long COVID Justice and The Sick Times worked together to create a series of 30+ resource sheets about Long COVID and associated diseases (LCAC)?
@longcovidjustice.org x @thesicktimes.bsky.social
Check out our Long COVID Essential series: www.tiny.cc/LCE
@longcovidjustice.org x @thesicktimes.bsky.social
Check out our Long COVID Essential series: www.tiny.cc/LCE
Reposted by Fayth Tan
July 11, 2025 at 11:58 PM
Reposted by Fayth Tan
If we regularly help the rest of the public feel some of the feelings that we feel -- which means admitting that science makes us feel things -- then that helps them understand why science matters so much to us scientists and see that they are key partners in the work that we do.
June 21, 2025 at 3:05 PM
If we regularly help the rest of the public feel some of the feelings that we feel -- which means admitting that science makes us feel things -- then that helps them understand why science matters so much to us scientists and see that they are key partners in the work that we do.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
"De-extinction" is to the biodiversity crisis as geoengineering/carbon capture are to climate change.
The false promise of magical techno fixes undermines the actions needed to actually address these problems - and will be exploited by bad actors to do just that.
The false promise of magical techno fixes undermines the actions needed to actually address these problems - and will be exploited by bad actors to do just that.
in case you're wondering, "what's the harm in claiming an extinct species has been brought back from the dead" when it most certainly has not, our interior secretary is already using it to justify taking animals off the endangered species list
April 9, 2025 at 12:05 AM
"De-extinction" is to the biodiversity crisis as geoengineering/carbon capture are to climate change.
The false promise of magical techno fixes undermines the actions needed to actually address these problems - and will be exploited by bad actors to do just that.
The false promise of magical techno fixes undermines the actions needed to actually address these problems - and will be exploited by bad actors to do just that.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
hi, cis folks!
the comment period for the proposed rule to remove trans care from the ACA as an essential health benefit is open til april 11. it'd strip care from DACA recipients, too.
context & guidance in the thread. do it while you’re still fired up from/about protests.
only 4.5 days left!
the comment period for the proposed rule to remove trans care from the ACA as an essential health benefit is open til april 11. it'd strip care from DACA recipients, too.
context & guidance in the thread. do it while you’re still fired up from/about protests.
only 4.5 days left!
hi, cis folks!
if we *are* going to talk ACA, RFK's HHS proposed a rule to remove *all trans care* from ACA essential health benefit status.
~25mil people are insured by ACA & if 1% are trans, that's 250,000 people who'd lose access to care.
that's bad! take 2 minutes to stand with trans people.🧵
if we *are* going to talk ACA, RFK's HHS proposed a rule to remove *all trans care* from ACA essential health benefit status.
~25mil people are insured by ACA & if 1% are trans, that's 250,000 people who'd lose access to care.
that's bad! take 2 minutes to stand with trans people.🧵
April 6, 2025 at 8:23 PM
hi, cis folks!
the comment period for the proposed rule to remove trans care from the ACA as an essential health benefit is open til april 11. it'd strip care from DACA recipients, too.
context & guidance in the thread. do it while you’re still fired up from/about protests.
only 4.5 days left!
the comment period for the proposed rule to remove trans care from the ACA as an essential health benefit is open til april 11. it'd strip care from DACA recipients, too.
context & guidance in the thread. do it while you’re still fired up from/about protests.
only 4.5 days left!
Reposted by Fayth Tan
Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story.
Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.
Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.
Dire wolves were not close relatives of gray wolves. They last shared a common ancestor more than 5 million years ago. What Colossal has done is make something new and slapped a dire wolf sticker on it, as if an organism equals a hypothetical genome.
Dire Wolves Were Not Really Wolves, New Genetic Clues Reveal
The extinct giant canids were a remarkable example of convergent evolution
www.scientificamerican.com
April 7, 2025 at 3:40 PM
Colossal Bioscience did not revive dire wolves, despite a sensationalist Time Magazine cover story.
Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.
Making genetically modified animals that are cosplaying as extinct species is not de-extinction.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
A large research program into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, has been forced to shut down because of Trump administration cuts earlier this month to Columbia University’s funding.
ME/CFS research program shuts down at Columbia after Trump cuts
ME/CFS, which affects millions of Americans, has few dedicated research centers. Now the one at Columbia has been shut down over Trump funding cuts.
buff.ly
March 19, 2025 at 5:43 PM
A large research program into myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, or ME/CFS, has been forced to shut down because of Trump administration cuts earlier this month to Columbia University’s funding.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
I say this gently and with love: I hope my colleagues at Ivy League and elite private universities understand that public universities (who rely heavily on public funding and typically lack the endowments of our private siblings) deserve solidarity, too. Because it often feels like we're invisible.
March 14, 2025 at 2:37 PM
I say this gently and with love: I hope my colleagues at Ivy League and elite private universities understand that public universities (who rely heavily on public funding and typically lack the endowments of our private siblings) deserve solidarity, too. Because it often feels like we're invisible.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
If you think Colossal can turn an elephant into a mammoth, let alone whether they should, then you really need to read this ⬇️⬇️⬇️
March 5, 2025 at 5:00 PM
If you think Colossal can turn an elephant into a mammoth, let alone whether they should, then you really need to read this ⬇️⬇️⬇️
there's the woolly mice but also the assertion that going from woolly mice to genetically edited large mammals with one of the longest gestation times on earth will take like a year 😭
March 5, 2025 at 3:34 PM
there's the woolly mice but also the assertion that going from woolly mice to genetically edited large mammals with one of the longest gestation times on earth will take like a year 😭
Reposted by Fayth Tan
Indeed. I sent a couple of the news pieces to my macroevolution and science communication class by 9 am this morning. I hope they don't hurt their eyes.
This 🧵 is the BEST take-down of the Colossal PR stunt - woolly mammonth-izing of a mouse that was all over the web today. Love it. This is not nobel-worthy science, this is not even very original science and it certainly isn't de-extict-ifiying mammoth related science. Well worth a read!
How many genetic changes directly related to mammoth DNA do you think #512 & #517 -- poster mice for this "watershed moment in [Colossal's] de-extinction mission" -- have?
Answer: ZERO.
It's all the work of five well-known mouse knockouts already known to produce, well, woolly mice
17/n
Answer: ZERO.
It's all the work of five well-known mouse knockouts already known to produce, well, woolly mice
17/n
March 5, 2025 at 5:10 AM
Indeed. I sent a couple of the news pieces to my macroevolution and science communication class by 9 am this morning. I hope they don't hurt their eyes.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
“We are really trying very, very hard ... to move our world forward" through "foundational, sometimes groundbreaking research, and then you get flagged and blacklisted because there is a word like ‘female’ in your project.”
My latest, w/the brilliant Agnel Philip
www.propublica.org/article/ted-...
My latest, w/the brilliant Agnel Philip
www.propublica.org/article/ted-...
A Study of Mint Plants. A Device to Stop Bleeding. This Is the Scientific Research Ted Cruz Calls “Woke.”
The senator flagged thousands of National Science Foundation grants for using words like “female” and “diversify.” A ProPublica analysis found numerous examples of projects caught up in his crude meth...
www.propublica.org
February 28, 2025 at 3:42 PM
“We are really trying very, very hard ... to move our world forward" through "foundational, sometimes groundbreaking research, and then you get flagged and blacklisted because there is a word like ‘female’ in your project.”
My latest, w/the brilliant Agnel Philip
www.propublica.org/article/ted-...
My latest, w/the brilliant Agnel Philip
www.propublica.org/article/ted-...
NAS Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Scicomm are open now! Any work published in 2024 is eligible:
www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excel...
The application's straightforward and can be done in a day (ask me how I know 🫠...but actually feel free to ask me about applying!) 1/2
www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excel...
The application's straightforward and can be done in a day (ask me how I know 🫠...but actually feel free to ask me about applying!) 1/2
February 28, 2025 at 5:18 PM
NAS Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Scicomm are open now! Any work published in 2024 is eligible:
www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excel...
The application's straightforward and can be done in a day (ask me how I know 🫠...but actually feel free to ask me about applying!) 1/2
www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excel...
The application's straightforward and can be done in a day (ask me how I know 🫠...but actually feel free to ask me about applying!) 1/2
Reposted by Fayth Tan
The most achingly beautiful explanation of what science is, from @edyong209.bsky.social: “the idea that much of the world is hidden from us, that we don’t perceive it and don’t understand it, and that it is worth understanding and it is necessary to understand.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
‘The Interview’: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World
The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope.
www.nytimes.com
February 22, 2025 at 3:46 PM
The most achingly beautiful explanation of what science is, from @edyong209.bsky.social: “the idea that much of the world is hidden from us, that we don’t perceive it and don’t understand it, and that it is worth understanding and it is necessary to understand.”
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...
Reposted by Fayth Tan
When he died, I was a student at a visual and performing arts magnet in Los Angeles. Our teachers honored him by painting a mural based on his work, and as I get older and older I become more grateful that through their grief they gave us this gift of knowing his art.
Keith Haring died of AIDS aged 31 on 16 Feb 1990.
One of his last works, Unfinished Painting, was deliberately incomplete, reflecting the devastating, unquantifiable loss to the arts due to AIDS.
#LGBTplusHistoryMonth
One of his last works, Unfinished Painting, was deliberately incomplete, reflecting the devastating, unquantifiable loss to the arts due to AIDS.
#LGBTplusHistoryMonth
February 16, 2025 at 5:54 PM
When he died, I was a student at a visual and performing arts magnet in Los Angeles. Our teachers honored him by painting a mural based on his work, and as I get older and older I become more grateful that through their grief they gave us this gift of knowing his art.
Reposted by Fayth Tan
Being a science writer right now is like…
9am - Coffee and constitutional crisis!
10am - Read a neat study on 5000-year-old beads.
11am - US science funding is off/on/off/on!
Noon - Email a researcher about Iron Age skeletons.
Afternoon - More constitutional crises and screaming into the void!
9am - Coffee and constitutional crisis!
10am - Read a neat study on 5000-year-old beads.
11am - US science funding is off/on/off/on!
Noon - Email a researcher about Iron Age skeletons.
Afternoon - More constitutional crises and screaming into the void!
February 3, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Being a science writer right now is like…
9am - Coffee and constitutional crisis!
10am - Read a neat study on 5000-year-old beads.
11am - US science funding is off/on/off/on!
Noon - Email a researcher about Iron Age skeletons.
Afternoon - More constitutional crises and screaming into the void!
9am - Coffee and constitutional crisis!
10am - Read a neat study on 5000-year-old beads.
11am - US science funding is off/on/off/on!
Noon - Email a researcher about Iron Age skeletons.
Afternoon - More constitutional crises and screaming into the void!
Reposted by Fayth Tan
If you feel a sense of urgency to act in a moment of crisis, often the most effective thing you can do is make an unrestricted cash donation to an organization that has the expertise and infrastructure to use it
Important dynamic to think about in these times (and other moments of crisis):
Savior swarming.
medium.com/datasociety-...
Savior swarming.
medium.com/datasociety-...
When Kindness Kills
How Algorithms Accelerate Savior Swarms
medium.com
January 31, 2025 at 10:53 PM
If you feel a sense of urgency to act in a moment of crisis, often the most effective thing you can do is make an unrestricted cash donation to an organization that has the expertise and infrastructure to use it
Reposted by Fayth Tan
What the NSF is doing this week is damaging *generations* of scientific researchers and American investments in science. Billions of US tax payer dollars in investment, being thrown away, because of a fucking fishing expedition that is intended to terrorize and set the stage for a real witch hunt.
Exclusive: NSF this week began to search through billions of dollars of grants the agency has already awarded for anything touching on topics that President Donald Trump has criticized. And NSF has blocked grantees and trainees from accessing funds while the review is underway. scim.ag/3El0NZh
EXCLUSIVE: NSF starts vetting all grants to comply with Trump’s orders
Grantee accounts remain frozen, while union accuses NSF of ignoring rules governing peer review
scim.ag
January 31, 2025 at 12:14 AM
What the NSF is doing this week is damaging *generations* of scientific researchers and American investments in science. Billions of US tax payer dollars in investment, being thrown away, because of a fucking fishing expedition that is intended to terrorize and set the stage for a real witch hunt.
Do you ever receive an edit that's like the text version of turning a cubist painting into a totally literal depiction because "it conveys what it's about more efficiently" 🙃
January 30, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Do you ever receive an edit that's like the text version of turning a cubist painting into a totally literal depiction because "it conveys what it's about more efficiently" 🙃
I'm usually not a "we're so cooked" kind of person but the fact that a podcast about nonverbal autistic people being TELEPATHIC is #5 on spotify rn makes me feel 🤪😱🫠🙃
January 29, 2025 at 6:17 PM
I'm usually not a "we're so cooked" kind of person but the fact that a podcast about nonverbal autistic people being TELEPATHIC is #5 on spotify rn makes me feel 🤪😱🫠🙃