Steve Cranford

Editor-in-chief, Matter family, Cell Press. Dipping my toe back into X. Is it safe? Opinions my own. 🇨🇦

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

VROOOOOM! Issue #2 of Matter & Light online now!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

This 👇

Science is hard...

[Ihtesham Ali @ihtesham2005]

Jennifer Doudna won the Nobel Prize for gene editing and went on Bloomberg to say the chatbots everyone is betting on cannot innovate at all. Every promise Silicon Valley is making about AI curing disease just hit the one person qualified to check it.

She has spent her whole career inside the actual frontier of curing disease.

So when she talks about what AI can and cannot do in biology, she is not guessing. She is reporting from inside the lab.

Her words were blunt. She is not seeing chatbots innovate. They summarize data. They write reports. They do not come up with a brand new idea nobody has ever had.

Then the interviewer pushed. So you're saying AI can't innovate?

Doudna did not flinch. She does not know if it can't. She just does not see it doing it right now.

This lands harder when you remember who is making the opposite case. Sam Altman says AI will eliminate disease within five years. Larry Ellison says AI will cure cancer in a 48 hour window.

An OpenAI executive even floated that the company should get a cut of sales on any drug discovered through ChatGPT. Doudna answered that in two words. Good luck.

Even the cancer specialists Altman is selling to keep warning that cancer is not one disease but hundreds, each needing its own cure, and that compute does not skip the years of lab work.

Her reason is simpler. Biology is hard. You cannot simulate your way to an understanding of the human body.

The people promising cures are the ones selling the tool.

The person who actually won a Nobel building them is telling you it has not happened yet.

Source: Bloomberg Originals

Watch the full video on their official channel.

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Scientists Developed an Ultra-Black Car Paint That Absorbs 99.9% of Light and Looks Like a Hole in Reality https://t.co/7scrXcvTb1

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

@UOHaleyLab @StawskiWojtek @cenmag

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Scientists Made a Car Paint So Black It Looks Like a Hole in Reality https://t.co/MkgR3iG4Zb via @Gizmodo

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Pretty accurate...

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

I asked #AI to look into the future and send me a picture of my trip to Singapore next week for the AI4X – Accelerate Conference 2026

Looking forward to the speakers, the editorial panel, and of course, some Singapore Slings!

See you next week in Singapore!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Any color the customer wants, as long as it’s the blackest black https://t.co/6hd3x83Y0T via @cenmag

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Matter, June 2026... online now!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

@namankatyal14 Totally agree on your "what is missing" point... but I think we'll see that soon!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

@namankatyal14 Claude was the only one that gave me problems too... but it works if you do it a chunk at a time! 👍

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Do you use #LLMs to read and summarize the most recent science literature?

What if you HAD to use an LLM to read the article?

New issue, new editorial:

48656C6C6F20576F726C64: An editorial for your favorite LLM

Had a fun time writing (and converting) this one!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

A great way to move beyond the traditional "folder of unread PDFs" 👇👇👇

[Bruno. @KDkeepdoing]

Wrote something about managing information overload as a researcher — Python, LLMs, and some habits that have worked for me.
Out in @Matter_CP today.

Hope it's useful to you. 🙂 （1/4)

https://t.co/X5YcqinstP

[Bruno. @KDkeepdoing]

@Matter_CP @EKL_Batteries Oh! same issue has a hidden gem. @cranfordMATTER wrote editorial
entirely in hexadecimal. "Hello World: An editorial for your favorite LLM" Paste it into Claude/ChatGPT to read it.
One of the most creative things I've seen from a journal editor. （3/4)
https://t.co/TgxfkdjSgA

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

@KDkeepdoing @Matter_CP @EKL_Batteries Your submission partially inspired my editorial! Thanks for the contribution!

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Link to full text:

https://t.co/XMa5jqka8S

[Yury Gogotsi @YGogotsi]

Delighted to see that our Matter paper "Layer-by-layer mechanism of the MAX phase to #MXene transformation", co-authored by 4 former @drexelnano students and post-docs, is among the 2025 Top 10 editorial picks. Work from our team makes an impact!
https://t.co/y8uwlypoVw

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Just watched The Long Walk... its 100% an allegory for academic publishing...

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

Spicy editorial take...

[Steve Cranford @CranfordMATTER]

ILLUMINATING!

[Cell Press @CellPressNews]

Scientists crafted glow-in-the-dark #succulents that recharge in sunlight. Injected with light-emitting phosphor, the plants can shine as bright as a small night light. https://t.co/GXVTp1bqnY

#SCAU Shuting Liu & colleagues
@Matter_CP