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Richard Van Noorden

@richvn

Features editor, Nature. E: r⟦dot⟧vannoorden⟦at⟧nature⟦dot⟧com or richardvannoorden⟦at⟧protonmail⟦dot⟧com. Signal: richvn.01 . (Currently on parental leave, to April 2026).

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Reporter, Nature News Job Title: Reporter, Nature Location: Washington DC or New York (Hybrid Working Model) Application Deadline: March 27, 2026 About Springer Nature Springer Nature is one of the leading publishers of research in the world. We publish the largest number of journals and books and are a pioneer in open research. Through our leading brands, trusted for more than 180 years, we provide technology-enabled products, platforms and services that help researchers to uncover new ideas and share their discoveries, health professionals to stay at the forefront of medical science, and educators to advance learning. We are proud to be part of progress, working together with the communities we serve to share knowledge and bring greater understanding to the world. For more information, please visit https://go.https://go.https://go.nature.com/4lh1cNV/4lh1cNV/4leI0jL and follow @SpringerNature About the Brand Nature Portfolio’s high-quality journals and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences help move science and society forward. Nature Portfolio is home to the leading, international weekly journal of science, Nature – founded in 1869. It is also home to the Nature research and Nature Reviews journals, the leading open access multidisciplinary journal Nature Communications, and open access journals including Scientific Reports. Together, these journals publish some of the world's most significant scientific discoveries. Online, nature.com provides over nine million unique visitors per month with content, including news and comment from the Nature journal, and the leading scientific jobs board, Nature Careers. As part of Springer Nature, Nature Portfolio also offers a range of researcher services, including online and in-person training. For more information, please visit nature.com and follow @NaturePortfolio About the Role As a Nature News Reporter, you will pitch and write news articles about science and the research community each week for publication in print and online. You will also regularly pitch and write news features, contribute to multimedia, and advise the wider magazine on coverage of your beat. This role will be based in the United States and will have a focus on reporting on the United States and the Americas, with an emphasis on physical sciences, energy and the environment, and technology, including AI. The successful candidate will be comfortable writing stories from any region and interviewing scientists anywhere, and will be an all-rounder with the enthusiasm and curiosity to report across the sciences. Responsibilities Pitch, report, and write a stream of original news and features articles that appeal to Nature’s global audience of working scientists Write clear, accurate, and compelling prose; deliver copy to tight deadlines Regularly find exclusive, original story ideas that appeal to Nature’s audience and drive traffic and engagement Use insights gleaned from audience analytics to guide pitches and framing of stories Keep on top of the global news agenda and suggest angles that will appeal to Nature’s audience of working researchers Build a network of trusted sources leading to exclusive stories Work collaboratively with a team of reporters and editors spread around the world Experience, Skills & Qualifications Essential Experience reporting and writing on scientific developments, science policy or the research community Ability to grasp scientific concepts quickly and write about them clearly Understanding of journalistic values and best practices Bachelor's degree required in journalism or science related fields Desirable Experience writing about physical sciences, energy and the environment, and technology, including AI Knowledge of the US science landscape and/or more broadly that of the Americas Experience working to fast daily deadlines Experience using audience analytics to understand audience interests and drive pitches Understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing working scientists Knowledge in an array of science topics and fields Experience reporting stories in multimedia formats, such as podcast and video To apply please submit: Your updated resume A cover letter explaining your interest in the post, and why you are qualified 3-5 clips that showcase your writing and reporting skills (please submit PDFs - not just links.) Application Deadline: March 27, 2026 Springer Nature Skills associated with this Job Profile include: SN-Publishing Workflows & Systems, SN-Storytelling, SN-Writing Skills, SN-Adaptability, SN-Communicates Effectively, SN-Interpersonal Awareness, SN-Cultivates Innovation, SN-Global Perspective, SN-Governance, Risk and Compliance Management, SN-Social Media Savvy, SN-Journalistic Skills Springer Nature US provides a comprehensive and competitive benefits package which includes the benefit offerings listed below: Medical, Dental and Vision 401(k) with company match and contribution Hybrid office working policy, Summer Hours, and paid time off Flexible Spending and Commuter programs Multiple Life insurance options Disability coverage Tuition Assistance Voluntary benefits: Identity Theft Protection, Pet Insurance, and Legal Assistance Insurance Employee Assistance Program Family friendly benefits and a variety of employee discounts An array of Employee Social Networks US Annualized Base Salary Range: $85,000 - $100,000. The salary offer may vary based on work experience, education, skill level, and equity. The US salary range does not align with the salary ranges in other countries when converted to the currency of that country. Springer Nature is an Equal Opportunity Employer that complies with the laws and regulations set forth in the following https://go.nature.com/4lgJhXp poster. At Springer Nature, our mission is to be part of progress – and that begins with inclusion: of people, perspectives, and ideas. We believe that diverse perspectives drive progress, and we are committed to creating an environment where people and ideas can flourish. If you have any access needs related to disability, neurodivergence or a chronic condition, please contact us so we can make all necessary accommodation. Find out more about our DEI work here: https://go.nature.com/4lmCkUY For more information about career opportunities in Springer Nature please visit https://go.nature.com/4rV8Z6f #LI-EG1 Job Posting End Date: 28-03-2026 We are an ambitious and dynamic organisation, and home to some of the best-known names in research, educational and professional publishing. Working at the heart of a changing industry, we are always looking for great people who care about delivering quality to our customers and the communities we work alongside. In return, you will find that we open the doors to discovery for all our employees – offering opportunities to learn from some of the best in the business, with a culture that encourages curiosity and empowers people to find solutions and act on their instincts. Whether you are at the beginning of your career or are an experienced professional, we invite you to find out more about the roles we offer and explore our current vacancies. We are a global and progressive business, founded on a heritage of trusted and respected brands – including Springer, founded in 1842, Macmillan, founded in 1843 and Nature, first published in 1869. Nearly two centuries of progress and advancement in science and education have helped shape the business we are today. Research and learning continues to be the cornerstone of progress, and we will continue to open doors to discovery through trusted brands and innovative products and services. Springer Nature Group was created in May 2015 through the combination of Nature Publishing Group, Macmillan Education and Springer Science+Business Media.

We're hiring at Nature! Our US News team is looking for a reporter based in New York or Washington DC. You'll need reporting and writing experience, along with knowledge of the US science landscape. Apply by March 27 via the link below

go.nature.com/3N8UkFA

06.03.2026 18:20 👍 14 🔁 15 💬 0 📌 0

Recorded somewhere? would like to see it!

06.03.2026 13:21 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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The Most Chilling Detail in the U.S. Attack on an Iranian Naval Ship The Iranian warship was taking part in an international exercise with many other countries—including the United States.

This is a chilling crime. A shame on our country. The Iranian ship was unarmed. The US knew this. The sailors were murdered by our navy, and the survivors were left to die at sea.
newrepublic.com/post/207429/...

06.03.2026 12:29 👍 9726 🔁 4652 💬 555 📌 627
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Scientific datasets are riddled with copy-paste errors Initial results from scanning through Excel files belonging to 600 published scientific papers.

If you want to take your mind off awful politics and look at awful science stuff instead, this is a good read: www.sciencedetective.org/scientific-d...

06.03.2026 10:17 👍 75 🔁 33 💬 0 📌 4

An analysis of 600 open research datasets finds about 3% with serious errors (often copy-paste mess-ups).

now I’m wondering: does this merit the headline the sleuth chose: datasets ‘riddled‘ with errors? Is 3% ‘riddled’-worthy?

06.03.2026 12:56 👍 8 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
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Five ways to spot when a paper is a fraud Science sleuths share their common-sense tips for sniffing out fishy articles.

"We know the fraudsters are going to fraud. We’re gonna make it a little bit harder for them”. @sjmelchor.bsky.social talks to @elisabethbik.bsky.social @abalkina.bsky.social & other science sleuths to learn their tips for spotting dodgy papers. New @nature.com 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

03.03.2026 01:31 👍 22 🔁 9 💬 2 📌 2
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Just wanted you guys to see “Riding in a golf cart fatly”

02.03.2026 22:54 👍 4373 🔁 676 💬 90 📌 101
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White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

27.02.2026 16:06 👍 1054 🔁 711 💬 21 📌 75

Superb

27.02.2026 11:37 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Twat dooming Reform? (4,7)

26.02.2026 10:12 👍 346 🔁 102 💬 21 📌 11

Hey @quantamagazine.bsky.social can you do proper journal references in your articles rather than hyperlinks to a Scribd page that appears to be mostly in Russian?

26.02.2026 13:11 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

What would it look like for CCS to *not* be a tool of climate delay?

And what would it take for Google, OpenAI to *not* be incentivised to design sycophantic and oversized chip-melting software systems? For them to decide to not deploy software that looks like that?

26.02.2026 11:05 👍 39 🔁 4 💬 3 📌 0

This recent RCT of an "AI stethoscope" claims the technology "shows promise" for diagnosing cardiovascular conditions.

It does not.

It is a textbook example of the risks of conducting unprincipled 'per protocol analyses'. Once again, peer review at a major medical journal has failed.

🧵 1/

25.02.2026 16:44 👍 419 🔁 184 💬 8 📌 31
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"The men implicated in the Epstein files reinforces that I spend half my life explaining to men that their simplified, optimistic view of other men doesn’t line up with the experience of women and girls trying to dodge sexual harassment, assault and abuse attempts." - Leslie Morgan Steiner

24.02.2026 17:32 👍 4817 🔁 1709 💬 56 📌 71

Isn’t that always the way!

26.02.2026 10:20 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

My own ‘it would be better if …’ is that the world would be better if all LLM-generated text one encounters was transparently marked as such. Sadly, it ain’t happening.

26.02.2026 10:12 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Another point is that when one is writing ‘it would be better if…’ one is often wishing for a fantasy world that won’t happen because so many incentives are pointing the other way. That’s the case here!

26.02.2026 10:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
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Why I have changed my mind about AI and you should too Both boosters and sceptics have strongly held opinions on AI tools like ChatGPT, but after an experiment in vibe coding, I have realised that both camps are wrong, says Jacob Aron

I have written a piece articulating what I believe is a reasonably new position on AI, or at least one extremely underrepresented in the discourse, and I hope people will read it. The full piece is behind the New Scientist paywall, but I will share some snippets www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

26.02.2026 09:40 👍 50 🔁 15 💬 5 📌 14

feels like a fairly common-sense view to me — I don’t find it novel exactly but thanks for articulating it; definitely under-represented. Have always been mystified by the idea that the only contrary view to the tech-bro hypesters is ‘it’s all fake’ (a wording that seems nonsensical to me).

26.02.2026 09:49 👍 4 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Congrats!!

25.02.2026 23:23 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

The peer reviewed and updated version of this work is now online (although not quite the fully formatted version). We had an existential crisis about kinesin-1 regulation while developing this work, but we are super proud of everything we put into this project. www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

04.02.2026 10:14 👍 37 🔁 13 💬 2 📌 0
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Scientists face fallout for past associations with Epstein Jack Horner, who was a consultant for the Jurassic Park films, is among the researchers whose work or careers have been affected because of revelations from newly released documents.

Several scientists who are linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in files released last month are now facing consequences.

go.nature.com/4qXFkYS

25.02.2026 23:01 👍 121 🔁 32 💬 2 📌 6
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Scientists face fallout for past associations with Epstein Jack Horner, who was a consultant for the Jurassic Park films, is among the researchers whose work or careers have been affected because of revelations from newly released documents.

Several scientists linked to Jeffrey Epstein are now facing consequences, reports @byng.bsky.social | @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

25.02.2026 23:21 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

A great opportunity here to join Nature's news team on a paid internship >>

25.02.2026 11:47 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Do you:
Have a strong interest in science?
A passion for journalism and writing? 

Our paid 3-month internship might be for you!

We are looking for talented candidates from all backgrounds, especially those traditionally underrepresented in publishing.

Applications close 9 March 2026.

Do you: Have a strong interest in science? A passion for journalism and writing? Our paid 3-month internship might be for you! We are looking for talented candidates from all backgrounds, especially those traditionally underrepresented in publishing. Applications close 9 March 2026.

Calling all budding science writers!

Applications for our paid London-based internship, starting in June, are now open.

Deadline: 9 March 2026

Full info here: springernature.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Spring...

#PaidInternship #Internship #Journalism

25.02.2026 11:12 👍 63 🔁 65 💬 0 📌 2
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Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to Trump An NPR investigation finds the public database of Epstein files is missing dozens of pages related to sexual abuse accusations against President Trump.

The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.

www.npr.org/2026/02/24/n...

24.02.2026 12:22 👍 4382 🔁 1856 💬 173 📌 121
The political effects of X's feed algorithm
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2
Received: 16 December 2024
Accepted: 4 January 2026
Published online: 18 February 2026
Open access
• Check for updates
Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m
Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects.
Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

19.02.2026 18:57 👍 6412 🔁 3197 💬 159 📌 400
Imagine you have two machines. One you can open up and examine all of its workings, and if you give it every picture of a cat on the whole internet, it can reliably distinguish cats trom non-cats. The other is a black box and it can also reliably distinguish cats from non-cats if you give it half a dozen pictures of cats, some apple sauce, and a hug. These machines sort of do the same thing, but even without knowing how the second one works 1 am extremely confident in saying it doesn't work the same way as the first one.

Imagine you have two machines. One you can open up and examine all of its workings, and if you give it every picture of a cat on the whole internet, it can reliably distinguish cats trom non-cats. The other is a black box and it can also reliably distinguish cats from non-cats if you give it half a dozen pictures of cats, some apple sauce, and a hug. These machines sort of do the same thing, but even without knowing how the second one works 1 am extremely confident in saying it doesn't work the same way as the first one.

A.I Isn’t People www.todayintabs.com/p/a-i-isn-t-...

23.02.2026 22:42 👍 375 🔁 106 💬 10 📌 31
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How AI slop is causing a crisis in computer science Preprint repositories and conference organizers are having to counter a tide of ‘AI slop’ submissions.

Another story where you realise that absolutely no one has any idea how to deal with all the AI papers being cranked out.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

14.02.2026 07:34 👍 493 🔁 136 💬 4 📌 8

Also, if you borrow an author's book from a library in the UK, that author gets more than 12 pence per loan in Public Lending Rights. Any author can earn up to £6,600 per year this way.

17.02.2026 08:08 👍 429 🔁 118 💬 18 📌 4