Welcome to Ramin’s Space, the newsletter from journalist and writer Ramin Skibba, which you can read about here. If you like it, please consider subscribing and sharing this post. Just wanted to say thank you to my new subscribers, too.
The computer will see you now: Is your therapy session about to be automated?
During the pandemic, there’s been a rise in telemedicine and digital tools for our interactions with doctors and therapists, but that’s just the beginning. Psychiatrists predict that artificial intelligence — including facial recognition software, text analyzers, and other algorithms — will soon make their way into the field. But it’s not yet clear how reliable these tools are, and there are ethical questions too. I get into all these issues in my debut story for The Guardian.
Perseverance and the ongoing search for life on Mars
NASA’s Perseverance rover and its helicopter sidekick survived their trip to the Red Planet, and they’re now exploring Jezero Crater, which bear marks of the world’s past. Could the rover help discover signs of ancient life on the surface? Could it be the first sign of life beyond Earth? Read all about it in my feature story in Carnegie magazine.
In other writing...
The body’s most embarrassing organ is an evolutionary marvel
Turns out that the anus has a long evolutionary backstory. What a fascinating and slightly disgusting story by Katherine Wu in The Atlantic. It involves sea cucumbers, comb jellies, scorpions, as well as humans’ standard-issue buttholes.
The tiny scientific screwup that helped COVID kill
Moving on. Remember when public health experts couldn’t agree on COVID guidelines involving distancing, masks, and surfaces? It stems partly from a key number, 5 microns, which separates aerosols, which linger in the air, and larger droplets, which quickly fall. It didn’t help that it’s engineers and physicists who primarily study aerosols, while pathogens are a concern of physicians. By Megan Molteni in Wired.
Finding meaning in the climate fight
In this Harper’s magazine essay, Greg Jackson likens our struggles with climate change to war a waged on a several-decade delay, but we’re not acting as though we’re at war. It’s an interesting read, whether or not you approve of his metaphor.
The pandemic taught us how not to deal with climate change
The battle with COVID should teach us some lessons for climate change, too. The shutdown of the economy and everyone staying at home just made a blip in our carbon emissions, dropping them from around 43 gigatons to…40 gigatons. As James Temple argues in MIT Technology Review, we’ll have to transform our economy and do it fast. But the pandemic shows us something else too: People might not be motivated to act quickly enough. We have the technical and economic capacity, but people need to spur a huge shift in political will, too.
Are we doing enough to protect Earth from asteroids?
Scientists are finally taking the threat from killer asteroids seriously. It’s not just the stuff of blockbuster movies. While NASA’s tracking most of the biggest near-Earth asteroids, it’s possible for one to catch us by surprise, with insufficient time to deflect its trajectory. We’ve lost the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, which helped monitor incoming space rocks, but others will be picking up the slack. Excellent story by Sarah Scoles in Scientific American.
Is Mars Ours?
I love this New Yorker essay by Adam Mann examining immensely important questions about what our space exploration should look like and how we should treat Mars and other worlds. I share his perspective.
Media workers unite!
Speaking of the New Yorker, workers there are trying to organize and form a union. I hope they’re successful! As their signs say, “You can’t eat prestige.” Journalists at The Atlantic recently unionized, as did others at Business Insider and tech workers at the New York Times. I’d love to see more solidarity with freelance writers and journalists too. About the plight of freelancers, I recommend this piece by Maya Binyam, and if you haven’t read it, check out my newsletter post in April about the PRO Act.
More newsletters
Lastly, I’d like to plug some of my own favorite newsletters. I recommend subscribing to Heated, a climate change policy-focused newsletter by Emily Atkin, Is My Kid the Asshole?, about the science behind myriad parenting questions, by Melinda Wenner Moyer, and The Nature of Things, a newsletter about space and writing, by Shannon Stirone.
What I’m reading: dark // thing, a new book of poetry by Ashley M. Jones. In this collection of passionate and personal poems, Jones experiments with form and structure while showing the challenges of growing up as a Black girl in America.
Looking back: Three years ago this month, I wrote in Politico magazine about the dangers of the Space Force, proposed by the Trump administration. I’m hoping the new military branch isn’t a step toward militarizing space.
More about me: I’m an astrophysicist turned science writer and freelance journalist based in San Diego. You can find me at my website, raminskibba.net and on Twitter @raminskibba. I’m also former president of the San Diego Science Writers Association (SANDSWA) and on the board of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), though the opinions I express are mine alone. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you’re welcome to subscribe too.