Her newsletter pairs biology with being human, and its first post answered thousands of comments on a crocodile that reproduced without a male
Dr. Raven Baxter launched The Science of Life, her newsletter on Substack, on Sept. 2, 2026. The first post, free to all readers, answered the roughly 8,800 comments on her Aug. 1 Instagram video about Coquita, a crocodile in Costa Rica.
"I posted one crocodile and 8,800 of you lost your entire minds in my comments. I read all of them. I have notes," Baxter wrote in the opening lines.
The newsletter's first post, published Sept. 2, 2026. Image: The Science of Life on Substack
Coquita, an American crocodile at Parque Reptilandia, had lived alone for 16 years when she laid 14 eggs in January 2018. One held a fully formed, stillborn fetus. In June 2023, researchers reported in Biology Letters that its genes matched its mother's at more than 99.9% of the sites tested, with no sign of a father. "This was the first virgin birth ever documented in a crocodile," Baxter wrote.
The launch came as confidence in scientists stayed split along party lines. A Pew Research Center survey released in January 2026 found that 90% of Democrats trusted scientists a great deal or a fair amount to act in the public's best interests. Among Republicans, the share was 65%.
Baxter sorted the comments into three camps. The first said Coquita "cloned herself." Baxter explained that the egg doubled half of the mother's genes back on itself, making an inbred remix rather than a copy. "It looks like a copy machine. It is not a copy machine," she wrote. "This baby got half the deck, shuffled, dealt twice. That causes its own problems." She credited commenters who raised bananas and the risk that one germ could wipe out a species of clones.
Baxter tells the story of Coquita's eggs in the Aug. 1 video. Image: Dr. Raven Baxter video
The second camp decided Coquita "didn't need a man." Baxter explained why people cannot follow her lead. "We cannot do this, and no mammal can, and it is the placenta's fault," she wrote. Some genes that build a placenta switch on only when they come from a father. Scientists have made mice with two mothers, she noted, but only by flipping those switches by hand.
The third camp read the birth in religious terms. Baxter answered with respect, calling "miracle" "one of the oldest words we've got." She then listed other species that have reproduced without males, including Komodo dragons, sharks, a California condor and all-female whiptail lizards.
The post closed with a question to readers. "Whose weird little reproductive secret should I dig into next? Drop it below. Half my best ideas start as one of your comments."
The newsletter's tagline reads "The science of life, and the science of living it." By early October, its page listed more than 5,000 subscribers. A second post followed on Sept. 17. The name is shared with her interview podcast, which premiered in April 2024. Three days after the launch, her Instagram passed 250,000 followers.
Substack, the platform that hosts it, launched in 2017. It raised $100 million at a $1.1 billion valuation in July 2025, after paid subscriptions across the platform passed 5 million.
Online, Baxter goes by Dr. Raven the Science Maven. She trained as a molecular biologist, and her University at Buffalo dissertation examined how science is communicated through hip-hop.
The first post and The Science of Life are on Substack.
Dr. Raven Baxter reports from the launch of the Planetary Health Check 2026 at Climate Week NYC, where she interviewed climate scientist Johan Rockström and former Unilever chief executive Paul Polman.
Dr. Raven Baxter reports from the 81st UN General Assembly in New York, from the SDG Media Zone at UN Headquarters and the Unstoppable Africa business forum.
Scientific American quoted Dr. Raven Baxter in an August 8, 2026 story on where artificial intelligence belongs in science communication, after fans pushed back on Hank Green's use of ChatGPT.
