Latif Nasser Profile picture
nerdy writer type. mostly harmless. co-host, wnyc's @radiolab. host, #theotherlatif and #connectednetflix
Harry Henshaw Profile picture Anson Kennedy Profile picture Mela Eckenfels Profile picture Jeremy Wagstaff Profile picture John Ingham Profile picture 21 subscribed
Jan 26 34 tweets 13 min read
Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that - after a year of obsessive reporting - led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A 🧵. The moon with a rocket landed in its eye. The most iconic shot of 1902 sci-fi film Le Voyage Dans La Lune. So about a year ago, I was putting my little guy to bed in his crib and I noticed a strange detail on the solar system poster up on his wall … A solar system poster. The Sun in the middle as an orange ball.  All the planets orbiting with their respective moons. At the bottom the planets arranged in order of distance from the sun. And the title of the poster THE SOLAR SYSTEM in all caps.
Apr 15, 2023 24 tweets 13 min read
Last year, a coworker randomly asked me to hand-deliver an antique violin across the country. I said yes, because why not. I had no idea what I was getting into, and now I need your help. A 🧵 Last May, I went to a work retreat in upstate NY and a sound designer on our show @Jeremy_s_Bloom pulled me aside and asked me to do him a favor. Bearded, red-hatted sound d...Latif and Jeremy standing, ...
Jan 11, 2022 37 tweets 12 min read
2022 is off to a rocky start. Will it be worse than 2021? And was that one worse than 2020? If you, like me, are sick of comparing and complaining about the last few years, here’s a fun exercise: name the worst year ever. As in, THE worst year to be a human on earth. A 🧵. Some obvious contenders: 1347 (Black Death). 1918 (Spanish Flu). 1929 (Great Depression). But the one that convinced me was a year I had NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE.
Jan 11, 2022 5 tweets 2 min read
Today is 20 years since the first prisoners landed at Guantanamo Bay. The US government chose the site bc they thought neither American nor international law applied. They built it quickly and in a rudimentary way because it was meant to be temporary. /1 On the flight to Guantanamo from Kandahar Airport, the prisoners wore shackles, blindfolds, ear muffs, many were even tranquilized, because military folks were afraid they would get loose and "chew through a hydraulics cable" and take the plane down. /2
May 4, 2021 6 tweets 3 min read
A tiny story about how tragedy ripples thru culture and history. /1 #OTD: May 4, 1970. Ohio National Guard fires on unarmed Kent State student protestors, killing four.  Among the crowd: art student Jerry Casale. He knew two of the students who got killed. /2
Apr 9, 2021 4 tweets 3 min read
A thread of three terrific podcasts that are peepholes into how American students and school administrators are responding to COVID in real time. (I’m sure I’m missing more, so add to the thread.) PRIMARY/MIDDLE SCHOOL - My good friend @Christophere heads up Turquoise Trail Charter Schools in NM. Last year, he started sending me voice memos about stuff he was most nervous about. Then he turned those voice memos into a podcast. Listen here: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
Feb 18, 2021 4 tweets 4 min read
Proud to say that starting today and for the next six weeks our @Radiolab miniseries #TheOtherLatif will be broadcast in full on approx 500 public radio stations. wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio… It’s the perfect timing as the Biden admin is now deciding what to do with Guantánamo and the 40 men still held there. nytimes.com/2021/02/12/us/…
Nov 2, 2020 39 tweets 16 min read
The US election is tomorrow.  If you, like me, are tired of horse-race-style reporting, and need to zoom out, I wanna tell you a story. It’s about an ancient force influencing the election. And, as a bonus, it’ll give you an Easter egg to watch for as the returns come in. THREAD Image Before I tell the story, I should say I first heard it eight years ago from @rkrulwich. And I never forgot it.  Parts of this story might be obvious to some of you, but as a new US citizen, I knew very little of it …
Sep 26, 2020 9 tweets 4 min read
This year has been unrelentingly bleak, so I want to tell you a real-life Cinderella story that started almost exactly ten years ago today. (A THREAD) In the summer of 2010, I was a lowly graduate student studying the history of science. I loved it, but I knew I didn't have a future as an academic. Not least because every paper I submitted to scholarly journals got rejected.
Aug 2, 2020 7 tweets 2 min read
My Netflix show just went live! If I had to sum it up, it’s basically if Bill Nye and Anthony Bourdain had an awkward Muslim baby. But it’s also more than that ... It’s about space lasers and dating apps and Saharan fish and extragalactic potatoes and climate change and nuclear weapons and the breath you just took. But it’s about more than all that too ...
Apr 17, 2020 5 tweets 3 min read
Such an honor to talk to these brilliant folks. In their honor, here's a quick thread of a few of my favorite @greatbigstory mini-docs to help pass the quaran-time: The Mad Genius Behind Sea Monkeys - @lennypane's doc somehow finds the exactly right length and style, given its tiny odd subject
Mar 13, 2020 13 tweets 9 min read
Hey folks. Last ep of #TheOtherLatif due out early next week. (@Radiolab team is working remotely bc of Covid19, so needed extra time.) It's a solid ep, tho. Worth the wait. (Here's a snapshot to look forward to.) And meantime, to keep you sated in quarantine, some Gitmo recs: Image Have to start with @carolrosenberg, “the dean of Gitmo reporters.” She hasn’t written a book about Guantanamo (yet!) but check out the last big story she did here: nytimes.com/2020/02/26/us/…
Mar 6, 2020 6 tweets 4 min read
New ep of #TheOtherLatif is now up! This time, we go to Gitmo. In lieu of a proper thread, I’m just gonna post a bunch of pics of stuff from the Gitmo gift shop, because why not.
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio… ImageImageImage
Feb 25, 2020 7 tweets 5 min read
New ep! A ton packed in this one about #TheOtherLatif’s time in Afghanistan, including intvws with a former detainee who gave intel on Abdul Latif, & a CIA officer who hunted bin Laden post 9/11. But the juiciest interview of all I didn’t even do.
wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio… Image The journalist @jonleeanderson was in Jalalabad, Afghanistan during the battle of Tora Bora, where Abdul Latif allegedly fought. Shortly after, around Christmas 2001, he got a chance no other journalist had: to interview two Al Qaeda guys in an Afghan prison. Image
Feb 18, 2020 10 tweets 7 min read
Just released ep3 about my gitmo namesake, #TheOtherLatif! It covers the first time he allegedly met Osama Bin Laden. (Acc to a US govt informant, he later became a top OBL advisor.) Instead of spoiling the ep, I'm just gonna tweet random facts about OBL: wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio… OBL was obsessed with sunflowers. He experimented to try to grow the biggest and best 🌻 in the world. And he thought the ones he did grow deserved to be in the Guinness Book of World Records. (source: @lawrence_wright and @cathyscottclark)
Feb 11, 2020 15 tweets 11 min read
Three yrs ago, I heard about a guy with my name locked up at Gitmo. Now I’m making a podcast series about him. Ep 2 of #TheOtherLatif drops tonight, and it includes one of the most jarring moments of my life. A thread. Image When I started reporting on this guy, there was virtually nothing about him online. I needed to know more. But how do you get to know a guy you can’t talk to, esp one locked in arguably the most secure prison on earth? Image
Feb 4, 2020 9 tweets 9 min read
Ooof. I’ve been waiting to acknowledge something out loud for 3+ years. And today’s the day I finally can. It’s a story I’ve been working on called #TheOtherLatif. The story starts with a tweet and ends with a tweet. A thread. Image 3 years ago, I was here on Twitter procrastinating and saw a tweet about me from a non-profit law firm that I didn’t even remember following. Turns out, it wasn’t about me. It was about another guy who has my name. A guy who happens to be … Detainee 244 at Guantanamo Bay! (gulp) Image
Jul 4, 2018 6 tweets 5 min read
Seen on the streets of Casablanca ... ImageImageImage A few more ... ImageImageImage