Ryan F. Mandelbaum

Former Gizmodo physics writer and founder of Birdmodo, now a science communicator specializing in quantum computing and birds
  • John James Audubon Was Never Good

    John James Audubon Was Never Good

    The most famous name in American ornithology is that of a slave owner, grave robber, and fraud who invented birds and falsified scientific results. Birders and ornithologists are grappling with John James Audubon’s legacy today, but problematic behaviour doesn’t stop at a single 19th-century naturalist. Some in the field are considering a complete rethinking of…


  • How Do We Know The Nukes Still Work?

    How Do We Know The Nukes Still Work?

    Scientists at U.S. National Laboratories are still testing nuclear weapons among the mountains, desert, and chaparral of the American West. High-tech machinery and warehouses stocked with supercomputer processors take data on warheads and explosions”yes, there are still explosions, which crack like rifle fire on schedule in the distance.


  • This Philosopher Is Challenging All Of Evolutionary Psychology

    This Philosopher Is Challenging All Of Evolutionary Psychology

    It’s not often that a paper that attempts to take down an entire field. Yet, this past January, that’s precisely what University of New Hampshire assistant philosophy professor Subrena Smith’s paper tried to do. “Is Evolutionary Psychology Possible?” describes a core problem with evolutionary psychology, called the matching problem.