Mindy Weisberger

@laminda

Science writer/editor, bylines at CNN, Live Science, SciAm. Previously at Scholastic and the American Museum of Natural History. WGAE member. She/her. Author of Rise of the Zombie Bugs

2012 Siguiendo33.672 Seguidores4720 Publicaciones

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Mindy Weisberger@laminda· 23d

Have I ever mentioned how much I love engineering projects that explore offbeat challenges? Like this wearable that measures brainwaves & activates multiple fans to cool down a hardworking brain, inspired by the Star Wars-branded EEG-reading toy Force Trainer? www.instructables.com/Brain-Turboc...

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 12

Yes, Duolingo—I WOULD like onion on my herring! @hensbreet.art and I get nieuwe haring in NYC at @russanddaughters.bsky.social & the Oyster Bar. Pix are from a R&D 2013 herring event & from Oyster Bar a couple weeks ago. And yes, you hold the raw, brined herring by the tail & eat them like a seal 🐟

Screenshot from the language app DuoLingo, with instructions to "Write this in English." A cartoon boy's speech bubble reads "Wilt u uitjes op uw haring?", translated as "Do you want little pieces of onion on your herring?"

A man in black and a woman in white stand against a white backdrop, holding up two raw herrings.

Two photos side-by-side showing a man and a woman at a restaurant, at a table covered with a red-checked cloth. They are both holding up raw herrings by the tail, in preparation for eating.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 11

Nabbed a pillbug and a sparkly shrimp

Two stickers on a wooden crate. The one on the left is a sparkly shrimp, and the one on the right is a curled-up pillbug.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 11

Excellent stickers by Megan Jannone at a market in Jersey City! More here www.etsy.com/shop/MeganJa...

Three stickers on a table, illustrated with wildlife and reading "all my homies hate data centers/warehouses/crypto farms"

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 11

Hard at work prepping for a Netherlands trip, can't wait to use this one (truly, it sounds like my happy place)

A screenshot from the language app Duolingo showing a cartoon man with a speech bubble reading "Deze kroeg is donker en ruikt naar schapen," translated as "This bar is dark and smells like sheep"

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 9

Thousands of years ago, nomadic warriors called the Scythians roamed the Eurasian Steppe. Scientists recently combined genetics and archaeology to piece together Scythian rules of status and succession, finding that power was all in the family www.cnn.com/2026/07/06/s...

A reconstruction of the "Golden Man," an elite Scythian youth who was excavated in 1969 at Kazakhstan's Issyk burial ground. Photo: Gulmira Mukhtarova

Gold ornaments were excavated from the Eleke Sazy burial site in eastern Kazakhstan. Photos: Zainolla Samashev

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 7

AI-hallucinated references in scientific papers is such a problem that the Association for Computational Linguistics issued a statement about rejecting such papers that were submitted to their conference. Based on this excerpt, the state of things is, uh, not great 2026.aclweb.org/acl_statement/

A screenshot excerpt from the ACL 2026 Statement on Desk Rejecting Papers with Hallucinated References reads "During the final consistency checks of the camera ready versions of papers accepted to ACL 2026, we identified over 100 papers that contained citations to non-existent literature. Since these papers were going to be published and are no longer subject to the anonymity requirements, an automated system was used to identify potential citation issues and then all flagged citations were reviewed by human experts (PCs and SACs) to confirm that references did not exist. Whether human-authored or LLM-..."

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jul 4

rules for my bluesky account number one

A while sign propped against a red window. Red text on the sign reads "YOU'RE ALOUD TO DO NOTHING TODAY"

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 30

show me a picture (of yourself) that captures your essence

A white woman with long hair, black glasses and binoculars around her neck stands near a road with one foot resting atop a rock that has been spray-painted with the word "ROCK." She is throwing metal and sticking her tongue out.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 28

Just finished Spread Me by @sarahgailey.bsky.social, it's both creepy and sexy as hell, the type of body horror that's unsettling in the best possible way 🦠

A hand holds up a hardcover book showing a geodesic dome with dozens of roots or hyphae or tentacles extruding from the bottom, title is "Spead Me" by Sarah Gailey.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 27

The NY Historical has an exhibit of Dutch art from around the 1600s, suggesting what life in New Amsterdam was like. Lots there to love, especially the gorgeous chaos in Jan Steen's painting of festival hijinks (& the detail of someone puking from an upstairs window while a friend holds their head)

A colorful painting by 17th century Dutch artist Jan Steen, "Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn" (circa 1676). It shows a daytime scene of people in various grouping carousing and having what appears to be a very, very good time.

Detail from the painting by 17th century Dutch artist Jan Steen, "Peasants Merrymaking Outside an Inn" (circa 1676). A person who made too much merry leans from an upstairs window of the inn and pukes toward the ground, while another person supports their head.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 27

I'm very impressed with the mixologists who are inventing Reflecting Pool cocktail recipes, but also, schav IS RIGHT THERE

A jar containing a murky greenish beverage with a label reading "Gold's SCHAV, Made With Farm Fresh Sorrel Leaves."

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 26

Dipping back into jewelry-making with a few beaded bracelets featuring epithets for unruly women

Three piles of beaded bracelets on a white table, beads are (L to R) pale green, pale blue and pale yellow. Letter beads spell out bitch, shrew, fury, harpy, virago, bruja, tart, hussy, vixen, jezebel, gorgon, slut.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 26

Apparently Rise of the Zombie Bugs won an IBPA award in the Nature & Environment category??? Lima is just as surprised as I am, thanks to @hopkinspress.bsky.social for sending this my way! 📚 #booksky

A certificate for the 38th Annual IBPA Book Award for "Rise of the Zombie Bugs" and some silver book stickers on a table. A calico cat lying on the rug behind the table looks up at the camera.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 25

OK, in the moment I got a bit carried away. The society/oath/ceremony isn't centuries-old—just ONE century, if you go back to its Canadian origins in 1926 (adapted by US engineers in 1970). I checked this book out of the library for background research, the cover design was certainly a choice

A book cover showing a metal ring spotlit by a beam of light. Tex above it reads "The Obligation: A History of the Order of the Engineer" by Kip A. Wedel.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 23

Tired: Spinning a web and waiting for prey to get stuck Wired: Using your webbing like a net and tossing it at prey Inspired: Building a spring-loaded silk death trap that yeets ants directly into your web faster than a Formula One race car 🧪🕷️ My latest for @cnn.com www.cnn.com/2026/06/23/s...

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 20

Flashback to a few weeks ago at the Coney Island Book Fair, with tablemates Eddie McNamara (Zodiactually) and @haroldgoldberg.bsky.social (The Skinny). Thanks to @theladyaye.bsky.social for inviting me, it was a fun talk and a great crowd! #booksky

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 19

Look, obviously it's not up to me what someone chooses to hang on their wall, but some of you shark-adjacent folk may want to know about this @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social charity auction for a poster of Fabio holding a copy of "Jaws"

A poster showing Fabio wearing a half-open shirt and holding a paperback copy of "Jaws," under text that says "READ"

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 18

If you're following (or covering) the Reflecting Pool cleanup and you have questions about nanobubble technology and how it's used for algae mitigation, NJIT researcher Wen Zhang has answers 🧪 news.njit.edu/nanobubbles-...

A man wearing glasses and a gray jacket stands behind a square contraption, hosing and a beaker on a table. Behind him are planters growing vines and seedlings.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

I love these fancy icons! I got to see a pair of them in Pittsburgh at the National Aviary, truly a breathtaking birb

A pair of Victoria crowned pigeons with bright red eyes and long feathers on their heads that really do look like crowns.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

HE HAD IT COMING HE HAD IT COMING HE ONLY HAD HIMSELF TO BLAME

Construction workers stand on scaffolding in front of the Kennedy Center.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

The C-SPAN reporter is back, describing a crowd of "several hundred people," they just counted down to midnight like it's New Year's Eve & the segued to chants of "take it down!"

A tv screen and iPad showing the exterior of the Kennedy Center, with a reporter on the iPad screen.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

Construction workers take a break while folks in the crowd yell "we love you guys!" and "take the D!"

Two construction workers on scaffolding outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

C-SPAN camera now panning around to get crowd shots, is there anyone on site in DC who can estimate how many people are standing by & watching IRL?

An iPad showing a group of people standing outside the Kennedy Center at night, as workers prepare to remove Trump's name from the building.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 13

Three streams, three angles! Workers are setting up planks closer to the top of the scaffolding, as the crowd cheers them on

Three screens in a living room showing construction workers preparing to remove Trump's name from the Kennedy Center.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 12

I'm starting to think about DMing again, it's been ages since my last campaign—schedules changed & we couldn't meet regularly anymore 😔. I miss the adventurers who once saved a bunch of lizards (& then an NPC "sketched" them, I think? I found this image in my D&D folder but details are lost to time)

A watercolor illustration of an open sketchbook. The top page reads "Lizard Liberators" in an ink-spattered sepia font. The bottom page shows a D&D adventuring party of five (one riding a giant goat) with a clockwork owl flying overhead. Character 🎨 by Roland Deaconu, @qrolanp on Insta

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 12

This is so true! I've gone panning for river fossils, and the absolute rush of seeing tiny shark teeth and belemnites (which are relatively common) emerge from river mud and gravel IN NEW JERSEY feels like time travel

A row of eight shark teeth laid out on the wooden armrest of a patio couch.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 12

The death of Jane Yolen is hitting hard today. We'd never met, but dozens of her books & stories helped shape the reader that I am today, & for years, her daily poems in my inbox made even grim days a little brighter. I hope her loved ones find comfort (even the odd kind) as they mourn her loss

Black text on a white background reads:

"December 12, 2023

So here am I,
leg broken, fears heightened,
being tended like some
dying empress
and all I can do about it
are small exercises, frequent naps,
and poems, like tears
leaking from my fingertips.
There is an odd kind of comfort
in that and my dreams.

©2023 Jane Yolen all rights reserved"

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 9

Jaime Hernandez is an absolute master at capturing the messy, chaotic energy of punk rock shows, interspersed over decades of Love and Rockets stories. You can hear the feedback and distortion and smell the spilled beer in every panel

Black-and-white comic panel by Jaime Hernandez showing a punk band onstage, seen from the side.

Black-and-white comic panel by Jaime Hernandez showing a punk band onstage, seen from the front.

Black-and-white comic panel by Jaime Hernandez showing a punk band onstage, seen from the mosh pit.

Mindy Weisberger@laminda· Jun 8

how your email finds me