Today we introduce you to Shara Yurkiewicz (Blog: This May Hurt a Bit, Twitter)

Shara Yurkiewicz is currently training to become a doctor at Harvard medical school. In spite of her busy schedule, she also pens wonderful prose on her blog, This May Hurt a Bit, part of the PLoS blog network. Her writings offer a window into the life of a medical student and also show us the rarely-seen “human face” of medicine. Before beginning medical school, Shara worked at the Los Angeles Times as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow and at Discover.

I recently met Shara at the ScienceOnline 2012 conference earlier this year and found her to be a very amiable person indeed. I am really pleased that she agreed to answer some questions about her budding writing career here at The SA Incubator.

Hello and welcome to The SA Incubator. How and when did you get started writing about science?

It’s an honor to be interviewed.  I began writing in high school, and I began doing science research in high school, but I it didn’t dawn on me to combine the two until college.  I joined the Yale Scientific Magazine–a quarterly publication that reported on research at the university–on a whim during my freshman year.  The Features section appealed to me immediately, because that offered the most creative freedom in both subject matter and writing style.  My first piece investigated some of the most egregious inaccuracies and stereotypes that the Yale Scientific Magazine propagated during the early 20th century.  I began pitching ideas that I thought would resonate with the magazine’s readership, and when I became editor of the Features section my ideas got rejected a lot less often!  I never dropped my involvement with creative writing or science as separate spheres.  I found that becoming stronger in both was gratifying in its own right but also enhanced my ability to intertwine the two.

In your blog, you tend to write about your personal experiences as a medical student. And many times, you grapple with some heavy issues. How challenging is that?

I think the biggest challenge of writing as a medical student is the balance between confidentiality and honesty.  Using the first person perspective opens up comments not only on your writing but on who you are as a person and the decisions you make.  There are a lot of audiences you have to answer to when you write about patients: your colleagues, your institution, your profession, your current patients, your future patients, and the public in general.  Patients may be curious to know what surgeons talk about during a procedure, for example, but sharing that would be a massive breach of professional etiquette.  During the first few days of medical school, I asked the higher-ups at Harvard for advice about boundaries in writing.  Admitting it was a gray area that made heavy use of common sense, one of my advisers told me, “People aren’t going to trust you enough to talk to you if they think you’ll have no restraint in writing what they say.  The classroom would no longer be a safe place.”

Similarly, sometimes you meet a patient with an extraordinary story that you wish you could share, but it is simply too challenging to anonymize the details without losing the message.  I personally adhere to the strictest form of confidentiality: the patient should not be able to recognize himself.  To do this, sometimes I change identifying details (gender, age, location, when the event took place, or particular disease) or use a conglomeration of patients instead of just one.  However, this brings up another issue: even though you have a disclaimer mentioning your changes, your story is now partly fictional and the reader doesn’t know which part.  It becomes a representation of your perception rather than reality.  You sacrifice honesty for confidentiality.

In addition, there is a sense of overarching honesty, the kind that transcends a single story.  If I only write when I’m feeling pleased with myself, that doesn’t accurately reflect the range of emotions that comes with this journey.  I try to write when something strikes me, usually soon after the event.  The downside of this approach is that at the time of writing I lack significant hindsight.  However, I’m hoping that recording things as they are in the moment will help me find common threads later and explore specific themes in-depth and with greater retrospection.

You were in science journalism before opting to go to medical school. What was your experience as a science journalist?

I knew since college that I wanted to be a doctor, so I went into science journalism with that in mind.  My main goal was to learn the process by which the public gets its science information, so that I could better relate to and communicate with future patients.

There were definitely the glamorous, “I can’t believe I’m doing this” moments–riding in a NASA airplane up and down the California coast at 1000 feet to record air and water measurements comes to mind, for example.  But what really amazed me when I worked at the Los Angeles Times was the ease with which I gained access to some of the most brilliant thinkers in their fields.  I could speak with scientists for hours and ask whatever questions I wanted about their work.  What other field lets you get consistent one-on-one discussion with people so personally invested in making sure you understand what they do?

The fast pace of working at a daily newspaper was intimidating because it was hard for me to “let go” of my pieces in time for deadline.  I was used to research writing, which takes months to gather and source.  Condensing that into hours left me terrified that I was going to have gaping accuracy holes and misinform the entire Greater Los Angeles Area.  But I think working on a timeline like that was beneficial and more realistically reflected what I will eventually have to get used to in medicine.

Has your current training as a doctor helped you in your writing?

Content, content, content.  The fortunate thing about writing about medicine is that the public seems to have an inherent interest in reading about it.  Everyone deals with doctors, everyone has at least a bit of knowledge about doctors, and everyone has an opinion about doctors.  Doctors are disproportionately portrayed in films, television, and novels, which is particularly impressive considering most of the writers aren’t in the field.

However, there’s a caveat to this.  Writing is a combination of content and form.  Patients’ stories alone can more than adequately suffice for content, and it can be tempting to use them as a crutch in lieu of developing your own thoughts and prose.  My favorite physician writers use patients to enhance but not carry their stories.  They use patients to segue into bigger ideas about research, clinical practice, policy, or personal growth.  And they still write beautifully.

More science writers and communicators are embracing social media to promulgate science to the public. And slowly, the health sector is also joining: live-tweeting surgeries, posting surgery photos on Pinterest. What are your views about the health sector trying to connect more directly with the public?

I think the health sector trying to connect more directly with the public is a good thing.  However, I cringe at the examples you give.  I’m going to define “social media” as social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Tumblr.  Outside of major public figures who write, I think these sites are overhyped as ways to connect with the public.  They are fairly self-selective, and as a result there is a significant echo chamber effect.  I’ve found networking quite useful for finding support within my professional community (medicine and writing) but not outside it.

In addition, social media represents an extraordinary tool for making narcissism public.  (Believe me, I’m by no means immune to this.)  I would ask a person who is live-tweeting a surgery who exactly he or she is trying to reach and why.  I’ve only had two weeks of third year gynecological surgery under my belt, admittedly.  But I don’t even understand the logistics behind something like live-tweeting.  Everyone in the operating room is focused on the patient on the table.  Surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and techs anticipate each other’s moves, some people are sterile and the rest are at least gloved, and there is often a lot of non-verbal communication.  It’s a huge detriment to patient care to disattach yourself from that process–physically and emotionally–for something as trivial as tweeting or taking photos.  In that moment, your obligation is to the patient alone, not the public.

I think a fruitful way of connecting with the public, at least for now, is through more traditional avenues, like articles in the mainstream media or blog posts on a reliable site or from a reliable author.  These are more thoughtful, have a point, and are read by people outside of the providers’ circles.

Going back to your blog, your writings remind me of Atul Gawande’s writings which also show readers the “human face” of medicine. So, I’m wondering who your role models are and whether Gawande is one of them.

When I was applying to medical school, almost every interviewer asked me if I wanted to be the next Atul Gawande (talk about a loaded question!).  And yes, I do obsessively reread his works and try to dissect what makes his writing so powerful.  He currently works at the Harvard School of Public Health, and he was kind enough to make the time to meet with me and share some advice about medical writing.  I recently found out it’s so cliched to want to be like him that there’s even a term for it: Atul Gawannabe.

One of my favorite books is Pauline Chen’s Final Exam, which made me cry more times than I’d like to admit.  I feel like Richard Selzer is so pivotal to the field of medical humanities that it’s almost hubris to say he’s my role model as well.  I’ve heard him speak in person, and his casual speech is so beautiful it sounds edited!  Oliver Sacks is a big part of the reason why I’m considering neurology as a specialty.  Michelle Au makes me simultaneously think and laugh, and I love her accessible style.  And then there are the usual suspects like Abraham Verghese, Jerome Groopman, and Perri Klass.  Michael Crichton is a bit different from the rest since he writes science fiction.  I enjoy most of his works, but A Case of Need is the medical novel that really stands out in my mind.

Which story of yours do you like best?

I’m going to cheat and pick two: an article on anatomy for the Los Angeles Times and a post on the intimacy of medical school that’s going to be in The Best Science Writing Online 2012.  I’m incredibly thankful for these opportunities.

What are your plans for the future? Do you intend to continue writing about science?

Well, the major plan is to figure out what type of medicine I want to practice for the rest of my life.  Third and fourth year rotations in various specialties will help determine that.  I absolutely intend to continue writing, though in what form is anyone’s guess.  Can I dream big?  Books, articles, and columns.  I don’t feel complete without that outlet and connection to other people.  More than anything, I want readers to feel something they haven’t felt before, or become engaged with an idea that they haven’t considered before.  I think I subscribe to a Walt Disney quotation a bit more than the stereotypical science writer: “I’d rather entertain and hope that people learn, than teach and hope that people are entertained.”

Thank you!

No–thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines
Audrey Quinn
Douglas Main
Smitha Mundasad
Mary Beth Griggs

I am a baby chicken. Not literally of course, but figuratively speaking I am a little chick of a science writer. Fledgling, if you will. Continuing with this analogy, I recent left my incubator in the journalism school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and am now out in the world looking for work as a journalist. It is tough out here for a baby chicken, and any clips and exposure you can get have tremendous value. This is why I think it is downright wonderful that Scientific American has a blog in their network dedicated to new and young science writers.

Borrowing from the blog’s about description, the SA Incubator is, “a place where we explore and highlight the work of new and young science writers and journalists, especially those who are current or recent students in specialized science, health, and environmental reporting programs in schools of journalism.

On the SA Incubator you can find profiles of new and young science writers, links to interesting work from these science writers (and others) chosen by the blog’s editors, profiles of student run science publications, and other assorted posts on topics of interest to writers who are just getting started.

I think you would be hard pressed to find a science writer who doesn’t aspire to see their name in Scientific American. Speaking from personal experience, having a profile dedicated to you and your work on a Scientific American blog is a thrill. It was an experience that I enjoyed so much that I wanted to learn more about why a publication like Scientific American would set aside such a great space on their network for someone like me. What is in it for them?

To answer that question, I turned to the Blogfather himself, Bora Zivkovic. The SA Incubator is written by Zivkovic, who is the Blogs Editor at Scientific American, and Khalil Cassimally, community manager of Nature Education’s Scitable blog network.

How Big Can It Be?

According to Zivkovic, there are a lot of reasons why the Scientific American network includes a blog about new and young science writers. One reason is the network’s size. When it launched in the summer of 2011, I remember being struck by the sheer volume of awesome that is included in Scientific American’s blog network. While it is a large network, there are still limits on how many blogs can be included. The cost, time and effort it takes to manage the network are obvious reasons why there would be a limit, but Zivkovic also pointed out that some of the value of having a network in the first place comes from it being of a limited size.

One of the coolest things about the Scientific American network is the diversity of writers and topics. If the network got any bigger, it would be difficult for the average person to read all of the posts. If the number of posts becomes daunting, the reader’s habits will change from browsing to more targeted reading. “Instead of at least occasionally checking out all of the bloggers they only focus on their favorites (some readers always will, but at least some don’t) – thus the ‘network effect’ for bloggers is diminished,” said Zivkovic.

What does that mean for the SA Incubator? There simply isn’t space for everyone to have their own blog on the network. Therefore, creating a blog that includes a lot of work by a lot of people is a way to increase the number of voices in the network without it becoming completely overwhelming. It also gives Scientific American a chance to bring new members into the family of bloggers without diluting the existing community too much. According to Zivkovic, this helps maintain a balance between keeping the network fresh and diverse while still keeping it coherent and friendly. For the new and young science writers it is difficult to compete with more seasoned bloggers for a space in the regular network. The SA Incubator gives new and young writers a space where they can participate and be seen and heard without taxing the network.

For new and young science writers, the SA Incubator is also a way to have a presence in the network without having to take on the full responsibility of having your own blog. Zivkovic explained the juggling act new and young writers perform: “Many of the youngest writers are still in school, too busy with class assignments, or are in internships, or are too busy breaking into freelancing to be able to blog with regular frequency.” The SA Incubator gives these writers the opportunity to get noticed without adding to the stress and demands of finding your way as a journalist.

Getting Over The Wall, and Getting A Job

Another reason to include a blog for new and young science writers is because the job we do is so important, but so competitive and difficult to break into. There is a big difference between a general reporter and a science writer; the more skilled science writers we have out there, the better. When I think of science writers I admire and the good work that they do; good to me meaning factual, nuanced, interesting and true; I’m inspired and intimidated.

Inspired because I really believe science writers can make a huge difference in helping people understand and appreciate science, and intimidated because the bar has been set very high. The more people we have out there combating the bad science coverage by debunking, clarifying, and explaining, the better.

When journalists talk about this we tend to refer to it as the Push vs. Pull strategy. Essentially, it is the idea that if the general public isn’t drawn to science stories on their own (pull) perhaps we can bring the science stories to them wherever they are (push). To be able to be able to pull people into places where they can access science content and also push out science content everywhere we can, we need a large well trained work force. Increasing the profile of new and young science writers and helping them get the opportunity to do this job is the value of the SA Incubator.

According to Zivkovic, helping get new and young science writers hired is part of the joy of running a blog like the SA Incubator. If you are looking to hire a science writer, you can find them at Scientific American on the blogs homepage, in the weekly linkfests, in the ScienceOnline interviews, on the Guest Blog and on the SA Incubator. As Zivkovic said, “Hire away! Let the good young writers infiltrate the media giants and transform them from within.”

For Zivkovic, giving new and young science writers a hand really is about community. To understand why, he recommended reading and watching Robert Krulwich’s commencement speech to the Berkeley Journalism School’s Class of 2011, which I too recommend. Krulwich talks about how to get over the wall that new writers face. The wall is what separates you from the journalists who actually get to do what you want to do.

Zivkovic isn’t a trained writer, but he started blogging about science back in 2004 anyway. He was invited to a blogging network in 2006. His job as Blogs Editor at Scientific American? Yeah, safe to say his blogging had something to do with that. This success story is something he attributes to the science blogging community. Blogging is what got Zivkovic over the wall, and now he is running the SA Incubator to help people like me figure out a way to pull themselves up over that same wall.

“These people became my community, my second family. It is that community that helped me every step of the way. They cheered me on. They hit my PayPal button when I was jobless. They pushed for me to get hired. They keep coming to ScienceOnline, they hug me at tweetups, they submit posts to Open Laboratory, they say Yes when I invite them to join the SciAm blog network, they were there for me all along and helped me climb over the wall. It’s payback time. It is now my turn to help others climb that wall, too.

That is why he gets to be the Blogfather.

We’re In This Together

As if that isn’t enough, Zivkovic mentioned one other reason why he thinks the SA Incubator has value for the Scientific American blogs network, the concept of horizontal loyalty. Horizontal loyalty is a phrase borrowed from the Krulwich talk I mentioned earlier (seriously, go read it…after you finish this.) It is making something of yourself alongside people who are also trying to make something of themselves.

Do it together. Make something. Be something. For Zivkovic, this is very much a part of why the SA Incubator exists.

“It is not so much about helping new writers get jobs in old media companies (though that helps pay bills for a little while). It is about helping them find each other, build relationships, build friendships, build start-ups, build a whole new science writing ecosystem that will automatically do both ‘push’ and ‘pull’ and reach everyone and displace bad science reporting from the most visible areas of the media, while providing them with a living,” says Zivkovic. “This requires a lot of them, but they need to know each other and work together toward that goal.”

So there you have it. The SA Incubator: Helping Hatch Science Writers Since July 2011. Creating a community for those of us who so badly want to be out there working alongside the more established writers to tell what I think are some of the most important stories there are. I was truly humbled to be counted among so many great science writers and be given a space on the SA Incubator. I wrote this post because I’m grateful for the chance to be included, but also because I really believe having a space for new and young science writers to connect and promote themselves is important. Baby chickens (and baby science writers too) all have to start somewhere.

Now, if you are a fellow fledgling science writer I know what you are thinking. You are thinking how can I get in on this?

You can start by following, subscribing, etc. on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+. You can start commenting on the blogs in the Scientific American network (Zivkovic reads all the comments.) You can also go the direct route and just introduce yourself. Send an email, pitch to the Guest Blog, or send Zivkovic a link to some of your work. A direct message on Twitter would work too; you can find him @BoraZ.

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Image: SAGOV-USDA-ARS via Wikimedia Commons.

More information from Development’s online editor, Eva Amsen follows.

All the best!

–

The essay competition “developments in development” is the perfect opportunity for aspiring science writers with a recent background in developmental biology. This is your chance to show off your writing skills and take advantage of your experience in the lab!

Over the past decades, developmental biology has changed a lot. There are different tools, different types of experiments, collaborations with different disciplines, and differences in funding and publication of research. But which changes are still to come? What will the future bring?

If you’d like to share your thoughts about the future of the field, please see the full contest details on the Node.

This competition is hosted by the journal Development and by the Node—the community site for and by developmental biologists. That means that the audience will be (other) researchers—keep that in mind while writing! Submission is open to anyone who is involved in developmental biology research or related fields (such as stem cell science or genetics), or has been within the past three years. That includes lab heads, postdocs, and PhD students, but also new science writers who recently left the lab.

Initial submissions will be judged by Olivier Pourquié, who is the Editor-in-Chief of Development, and by Claire Ainsworth, a freelance science writer (formerly at New Scientist and Nature) with a developmental biology background. They will be looking for well-written essays that convey an interesting take on what the future holds for developmental biologists. Your essay can focus on the future of a particular subfield of developmental biology, emerging techniques or model organisms, changes in science policy that affect the field, or anything else that you see as affecting the future of the discipline.

A shortlist of the best few essays will then be posted on the Node, and readers of the Node—who are mostly developmental biologists themselves—will have the final vote to decide the winner.

Nominees all receive a £50 Amazon gift certificate (or equivalent value in another currency; it’s worth about $80 at the moment), and the winner will have their essay published in Development later this year.

If you have any questions about the competition, feel free to contact me at the Node via thenode [at] biologists.com.

Good luck!

Eva Amsen

Online Editor for Development and Community Manager for the Node

Adam Smith, at City University, UK, looks at British politics and argues that parliamentary members are more detached than ever from science. In Adam’s first article in a series which is appearing in the Guardian, he tackles an issue that is of primordial importance. He’s also asking for your input on the matter so don’t hesitate to get in touch with him.

Science and politics: chalk and cheese?

Science may be vital, but the people with scientific knowledge seem less connected than ever to the people with power.

What do you want from science? A cure for cancer? Clean energy? A jetpack to get you to work? If you’re a politician, you might rely on science to help create jobs or direct policy, or support a decision you’ve already made. If you’re a scientist, you might just want to know stuff. You might even sneer at the idea of a politician grappling with the nuanced ideas you have dedicated decades of your life to.

Rachel Nuwer, freelance science journalist, has a good piece in ScienceNOW. She reports on a study which links more time outdoor and in nature with a lesser chance to develop allergies.

The Great Outdoors Is Good for Allergies

Now there’s another reason to get back to nature. A new study reveals that people who grow up in more rural environments are less likely to develop allergies. The reason may be that environments rich with species harbor more friendly microbes, which colonize our bodies and protect against inflammatory disorders.

Victoria Charlton, at Imperial College London, UK, asks a thoughtful question in her latest blog post at I, Science: how do we know which companies are green and which are only pretending to be? An important question since there does not currently appear to be much transparency in a company being branded “green”. I also encourage you to read Victoria’s very interesting blog, Science Means Business, which investigates the business (or greedy) side of science. Real journalism.

Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Eco-conscious consumers are increasingly trying to make decisions based on a company’s green credentials. But beneath all the marketing rhetoric, how can we really tell the environmental heroes from the villains?

I’m not very good at recycling. Quite frankly, I struggle to see the point of rinsing out baked bean tins (aren’t we meant to be saving water?) when a single transatlantic flight emits several hundred tonnes of CO2 – and I used to fly a lot! However, I would consider myself to be “environmentally concerned”, and I’d be keen to find ways to really make a difference through my day-to-day behaviour. While I may not be willing to spend my days wearing hemp shoes and flushing the loo with rainwater, I would like to be able to choose the least bad option when booking a flight or filling my car with petrol.

Erin Loury, at UC Santa Cruz, reports in ScienceNOW that “social jetlag”, sleep timing and our unstable sleep patterns is not very good for health as seen by its association with obesity.

Is Your Alarm Clock Making You Fat?

As if you needed another reason to despise your alarm clock. A new study suggests that, by disrupting your body’s normal rhythms, your buzzing, blaring friend could be making you overweight.

The study concerns a phenomenon called “social jetlag.” That’s the extent to which our natural sleep patterns are out of synch with our school or work schedules. Take the weekends: many of us wake up hours later than we do during the week, only to resume our early schedules come Monday morning. It’s enough to make your body feel like it’s spending the weekend in one time zone and the week in another.

Rose Eveleth, a freelance writer, brings to our attention in her SmartPlanet blog an essay published in PLoS Biology by Gerald F. Joyce which argues that to detect alien life forms, researchers must look at what they may be made of rather than what they may look like. Rose also has a very short piece about how ungraceful swimmers sperm cells are. Actually, she informs us that sperm cells do not really swim per se.

Aliens among us

When you think about aliens, you probably imagine a benevolent, ET style friend, or a gruesome, abdomen ripping monster. Or maybe you just imagine a small green man, or a blob of a space tyrant like Jabba the Hutt. But according to a new essay and podcast in PLoS Biology, we should care less about what these potential aliens look like, and more about what they’re made of.

Sperm swimmers could use lessons

Sperm aren’t the graceful swimmers you think they are, according to new research. Instead of gracefully waving their flagella and swimming through the vaginal tract, most sperm actually bump along the walls and crash into each other on the way.

Whitney Campbell, who blogs at Scitable’s Green Screen, has an investigative piece about CCD, or Colony Collapse Disorder and its link with pesticides.

Buzz Kill? Bee Populations and Pesticides

A swarm of studies have recently been released concerning Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), and considering the serious implications of their findings, it’s all of our beeswax. These experiments, including two published in Science and one forthcoming from the Bulletin of Insectology, demonstrate the threat to hive survival stemming from a class of insecticides called neonicotinoids. Individually, I think each study is convincing, but when taken together, the consensus provides overwhelming support as to the harms of neonicotinoids and their possible role in the rash of mysterious bee deaths that gave rise to the term CCD in late 2006.

Paige Brown, at Louisiana State University, blogs about how humans are increasingly looking to Mother Nature to develop new technologies (think biomimicry) in her blog at Nature Network. She got the idea for this post while studying for her finals!

The Nature of Learning, or the Learning of Nature?

In 1994, psychologist Albert Bandura gave the world of mass media effects social learning theory, hypothesizing that people don’t learn by trial and error or by reinforcement and reward as much as by observing the behaviors of others. Social learning theory acknowledged (thank goodness) that “human beings are capable of cognition or thinking and … can benefit from observation and experience.” In social learning theory, learning “takes place through watching other people [or nature?] model various behaviors.”

As usual, if you read some other great stuff, share some links in a comment below. Enjoy your weekend!

Today we introduce you to Mary Beth Griggs (blog, Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I’m originally from Charlotte, North Carolina. No, I do not normally have a southern accent. But if y’all want, I can surely put one on.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

I’ve been vaguely interested in science for my whole life, but in school I loved reading and history much more. Stories were just so much more fun! Then, my freshman year of college I took a geology course, and I was hooked. I majored in geology, and added a second major in archaeology my senior year.

I joke to a lot of people that I just really like old rocks. And I do. They’re great. But the reason I like them is that they contain one of the most amazing histories ever recorded. The only difference is, the story they’re translating isn’t inscribed on paper. Instead, it is etched on every single piece of rock and soil in the world. And forget those puny thousand-year timescales that we have for written human history. Geologists study a history stretching back billions of years, through cataclysmic events, and gradual serene changes, and the entire evolution of life. You can’t get cooler than that.

I eventually realized though, that I was singularly unsuited for life as a geologist. I liked ALL the stories, and didn’t want to pick just one to research. That, and staring down microscopes at thin sections induced seasickness. Around the same time that I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I realized two important things: 1. My family and friends had no idea what I was saying when I was trying to tell them what I learned in geology class. And 2. I really liked writing.  The obvious answer to my “what to do” dilemma was simple: Write about Science!

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I went to a program directly after finishing up my undergraduate degree. Starting a blog and hoping to break into the business didn’t make sense to me because I knew nothing about the business in the first place, and didn’t have a job I could fall back on and survive on while trying to make it in the business. To be honest, I didn’t really think about just going to a standard journalism program or writing program. I knew that I wanted to focus on science journalism, and the specialized programs seemed the way to go.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I attended NYU’s Science, Health, and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP). I chose it because it had interesting classes, and it’s placement in New York City (where a lot of science journalism publications are based) meant increased access to internships.

I had some fantastic experiences at SHERP. We pitched stories at the New York Times, saw a specialized planetarium show at the American Museum of Natural History, visited Brookhaven National Labs, and got to meet a veritable parade of experienced journalists, authors and experts that came into class to talk with us.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

I had internships at the American Museum of Natural History, Popular Mechanics, and Discover Magazine. I’m currently a freelance writer and fact-checker, as well as working part-time as the Associate Producer of a NOVA scienceNOW episode. (Tune in this fall!)

Do you write a personal or science blog (URLs)? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I’ve been busy doing this whole real-world work thing, which meant that my blog The Rocks Know has not been updated as much as it should have been. But it’s finally back after a five month sabbatical! I use Twitter more than the other sites (@MaryBethGriggs). I have a website that is currently being updated.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

I do some basic photography and video editing, but my main focus is on writing and fact checking. Because there is nothing worse than an un-checked fact.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

I think that like most other media, the various forms of science journalism will become more interconnected as time goes on. We see it now, with animations, slideshows, videos and podcasts accenting stories, or even telling them independently. What I don’t think will change is the storytelling. I think that young science communicators will continue to do the same things that our more experienced colleagues are doing, working to find the best possible way to get the story across.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines
Audrey Quinn
Douglas Main
Smitha Mundasad

Periodically, we’ll cover some of those student-run science publications here on The SA Incubator. Today, we look at I, Science from Imperial College London, UK. I, Science is more than a print publication—it also has a fully-fledged online component with regularly-updated blogs. Below, Douglas Heaven, Nicola Guttridge, and Peter Larkin, part of the editorial team of I, Science tell us how I, Science fits into the “culture” of Imperial College London. They also highlight some articles published in the latest issue and the website.

I, Science is the student-run science magazine of Imperial College London. Shortlisted three times for magazine of the year in the Guardian Student Media Awards and with past editors and contributors going on to work for the likes of New Scientist or the BBC, the magazine has been a successful springboard for new science writers since its launch seven years ago. A print edition comes out once a term—we’ve just produced Issue 20, with Issue 21 due in June—and our recently revamped website is updated by regular bloggers and feature contributors several times a week. The website also holds past issues of the magazine going back to the start. Want to see what today’s professional journalists wrote when they were students? Check out our archive!

We commission the main features of each issue around a theme, but also seek pitches from any student who wants to write. The theme for the latest issue, for example, was “Man-Made”—a celebration of humanity’s creative genius in the spirit of the words Feynman left on his blackboard when he died: “What I cannot create, I do not understand”—but the magazine also includes several pages of science news, reviews, and interviews. One of the highlights was an interview with Colonel David Scott, the 7th human to walk—and first to drive—on the moon.

Imperial College is an institution that specialises in science and technology, so all of our contributors have science backgrounds of one form or another, and the magazine also benefits from the input of many trainee science communicators on Imperial’s MSc Science Communication and MSc Science Media Production courses. We try to take a critical approach to mainstream science coverage and encourage responsible and accurate science reporting from an expert student base. We’ve introduced a recurring feature called ‘Science Behind the Headlines’ that unpicks some of the news stories leading up to each edition of the magazine.

But in magazine production writing is just the start—we have a team that helps with essential tasks such as picture editing, proof reading, layout and, of course, tweeting. We’ve also enjoyed supporting student photography and art projects, and many of the team were involved with the recent student-organised TEDxImperialCollege event that married cutting-edge science with art and design.

We aim for a dynamic integration of website and print, with website picks showcased in the magazine and magazine features migrated online. Our regular bloggers cover everything from the latest on epigenetics and epidemiology (Curious & Curiouser) to the delicate partnership between science and business (Science Means Business), taking in the highlights of the London exhibition scene on the way (5pm Girl). By promoting our content through Twitter, our bloggers have won enthusiastic retweets from high-profile followers. The website also features a growing number of podcasts and videos, and this year we’ve acquired a taste for stop-motion animation. Last December we celebrated the build-up to the non-announcement of the Higgs with Edible Cern, which explained the basics of the Large Hadron Collider using sweets!

Douglas Heaven, Nicola Guttridge, and Peter Larkin (i.science@imperial.ac.uk)

Editorial team of I, Science

Today we introduce you to Smitha Mundasad (Website, Twitter)

Smitha Mundasad initially trained and worked as a doctor before joining the Masters in science journalism course at City University, UK. Since then, she has received a number of awards, including the Society for Neuroscience Student Journalism Student Award in 2010. She has been published in New Scientist and Independent on Sunday amongst others. She currently works in radio at BBC Radio 4 and World Service Science Unit where she does research and reporting for various science programmes.

In spite of her busy schedule, Smitha readily agreed to answer some questions about her budding career in science journalism.

Hello and welcome to The SA Incubator. How and when did you get started writing about science?

I don’t actually remember sitting down and thinking I’d like to write about science today but writing has always been  one of my favourite activities. I’ve always been fascinated by words and how they can suddenly collide to create even more beautiful things.

Science to me is all about being a little kid again, staring with open-mouthed- awe at the world, and letting all those spontaneous Ws—why? whoa!.  etc. I’ve always enjoyed wandering about how the world works, so bringing these things together seemed like a good idea!

If you want the short answer though (!) the first time I actually recall writing something specifically science based was while I was as at school, trying to combine science and arts A Levels. For one English assignment I remember attempting to write poetically about carbon..  Luckily that poem has not survived!

You actually qualified as a doctor before jumping into science journalism. What motivated you to make the jump?

I think for anyone who knows me, it was never really a jump. I’ve always wanted to be a journalist as well as loving medicine—so I had to find some way of making both happen.   I  get very excited to find out about how the body works and all those questions that are still unanswered about what it is to be human, what this intangible thing we call health actually is.  I’ve subjected enough friends to overly enthusiastic explanations about different offerings of the gastrointestinal tract  and various tropical infections! I imagine they are quite glad I can finally put my tendency to to share this information to possibly  better use!

How does your training as a doctor affect your work as a science communicator?

My training as a doctor, I think, has helped me to absorb new information quickly and to always question the evidence for what I’m doing, reading, writing or saying.

I don’t think you can be a particularly  good doctor if your patient goes home not really understanding what’s gone on and why they are feeling the pain etc.  My experiences on the wards have definitely highlighted how important it is to communicate with accuracy and integrity and to make sure the person does not leave until their questions are answered to the best of your ability.   Those moments are  definitely at the back of my mind when I’m writing about the latest health news—what does that person waiting in that crowded emergency department actually want to know?

Being on the other side now, having to ring up scientists and ask for further explanations about their papers etc,  I can completely understand how bizarre scientific terms may seem if you don’t work in that particular field.

Working at the BBC I’ve been lucky to see how some of the best journalists communicate and I’ve most definitely learnt a lot in the last year or so!

Doctors save lives, which obviously is important. Science writers, on the other hand, communicate science. How important do you think that is?

I think that is a really difficult question. I think the world would be a very strange place indeed if there was some sort of hierarchy of importance of different jobs. Clearly they are all important in some respect – science communication, I think, for several different reasons.

The sharing of new discoveries that are being unearthed in labs across the world is really important—everyone, I believe, has a right to know about the work scientists are doing. The work of science is one of the key things that makes each century different to the last and hopefully also makes lives easier for some people – new technology, new medication etc. I think encouraging people to see science in the popular press keeps people aware of this, can help to fund science further and I hope enthuse people to try it out for themselves.

You are currently working in radio with the BBC. From your experience, how different is it to communicate science on the air rather than by way of words? What are the distinct benefits of communicating science on the radio?

The way you craft a piece is quite different when working with the written word. You can link to further sources of explanation, or other recent developments and add in illustrations to help ensure clarity. Radio is a really powerful tool for science communication too—I love the way you can give a sense of the place the research is coming from by including the buzz of the machines in the background or the clinking of cups in the busy cafe that that particular piece of research was first thought about.  I like the fact that lots of different voices can be heard in one piece—and you can often hear about research straight from the mouth of the person who conceived it and can really capture their enthusiasm and motivation.  What I like about the radio stations I’m currently working with is that you can devote a fair amount of time to each story, allowing there to be a depth in the discussion that is sometimes not possible in print.

Which story of yours (regardless of whether it was for radio, print or web) is your favourite and why?

At the moment the piece of work I’m most excited about is a science documentary series for 5-8 year olds, Curious Cat, that goes out on BBC 2.  A few of my friends, Hannah King and Ed Cave and I were eating pizza trying to think of new children’s science TV when we came up with the idea of starting with something familiar such as a woolly scarf for example, and taking two intrepid young investigators right back to the sheep it was made from. It was a really fun series to work on – it was great to capture the natural inquisitiveness of our young investigators and a real challenge to distill the glass making process, for example, into a format that is entertaining and informative for little viewers.

How do you go about finding potential stories to report? Burst of inspiration? Casual web surfing? Active research?

Increasingly, as I talk to researchers about their most recent publications, they tell me more about other experiments they are working on or other areas of science that are concerning them.. I quite like wandering around research labs too – you stumble across the most exciting things! Sometimes I hear questions on the bus or in a hospital waiting room and realise that there could be a gem of a story waiting to be uncovered.

What are your plans for the future?

Finally a short answer for you! I’d like to carry on reporting health and science news. Fingers crossed!

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines
Audrey Quinn
Douglas Main

Today we introduce you to Doug Main (Green blog, Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I’m from Champaign, Illinois–home to the University of Illinois. A great Midwest college town; an ideal place to grow up.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

Man, I’ve always loved the natural world, living things, and science of all kinds. Writing has also been a lifelong passion, and reading. In first grade I wrote a short story called “Trapped in Paradise” about insurance dealer brothers Ken and Scott who crash land on a tropical island. I spent much of my youth outside and was an Eagle Scout. I spent several years on my high school’s awesome newspaper (The Gargoyle). At Washington University in St. Louis, I was a reporter and news editor for the newspaper, Student Life.  I also double-majored in environmental biology and English literature.

Every science writer I’ve talked to seems to have had an “aha” moment. Here’s mine: during sophomore year I was working in the lab of an ethnobotanist named Walter Lewis and his wife Memory Elvin-Lewis. I told Memory that I liked science but didn’t really like doing research that much. Instead of being alarmed or annoyed, since I was being paid to, you know, do research, she mentioned that she’d been interviewed by a science writer named Tony Fitzpatrick, who wrote a story about a study of hers. So I met with Tony, and he became a mentor and lifelong friend (and made me realize you could write about science for a living). Tony helped me get my first paid writing gigs with Wash U’s alumni paper and the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes’ The Bulletin.

After graduating I took a job as a science writer at Purdue University, for 2.5 years. Then I took a brief break from writing and worked as a researcher at a biofuels company. But I knew that was a detour, and soon got back into writing, specifically journalism. I wanted to write for readers, as opposed to please the people I was writing about (as was the case as a public information officer).

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

Image: Lena Groeger

I went to the Science, Health & Environmental Reporting Program at NYU because I thought that’d be the best way to go from being a “science writer” to a “science journalist,” and was easier than trying to break into the biz without many contacts.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

SHERP at NYU. I knew I wanted to move to NYC and it came down to Columbia and NYU. Although I’m not exclusively interested in science (for example I love sports–especially the St. Louis Cardinals–and follow politics with perverse fascination), it matters greatly to me, and given my background I thought it made more sense to go to SHERP than to a place that had maybe one class in science writing. Plus my advisor Dan Fagin was very encouraging (and will be a lifelong friend/mentor). I definitely made the right choice.

The best part is all the amazing people I’ve met, especially my classmates and teachers.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

My first internship was at Popular Mechanics. My favorite pieces were about making antivenom, underwater volcanoes and vampire bats. I was also the web intern at Discover Magazine (see my stuff here and here). Now I freelance for the New York Times Green Blog, Popular Mechanics, OurAmazingPlanet.com and elsewhere. My favorite piece for the Green Blog is the story of a grad student who was a Peace Corps volunteer, only to see her West African village devoured by locusts. She then devoted her life to studying the voracious insects. My second favorite story seeks to answer the following question, which I’m sure keeps you up at night: can the cowman and the panther coexist?

Do you write a personal or science blog (URLs)? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I use Twitter a lot @Douglas_Main. I don’t really have a blog, which is silly. I plan to start one any day, though. Can I update this when I do? I’ve been planning on doing it for the last two years.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

I did a couple videos in SHERP, which were fun to make with my excellent partners Rose Eveleth and Rachel Nuwer. I took a class in coding and infographics that taught me a lot. But my main focus is on being the best writer I can possibly be. If, however, any future employers are reading this, I’m really good at all of these things.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

It’s certainly concerning that there’s been such a decline in staff jobs at newspapers and other traditional outlets for science journalists. But I’m an optimist, and certainly excited & encouraged by science writing on the web now.

I hope the role of new science writers/communicators like myself will be to bravely, earnestly and skeptically tackle the important and fascinating issues of the day, as opposed to the “mainstream”  stories that one feels “have to be written about,” or done as a matter of course. Do it well and be original, or don’t bother.

Thank you!

No sir—thank you.

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines
Audrey Quinn

Today we introduce you to Audrey Quinn (blog, Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I grew up in San Jose, California and Portland, Oregon.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science journalist?

I always enjoyed writing and wrote for my college paper. But growing up, “scientist!” was my go-to answer to the what-do-you-want-to-be question. I was curious to know how and why things worked, and I completely glamorized the idea of standing alongside beakers in a white lab coat. I studied neurobiology in college because I love the notion that our thoughts and behaviors come from biological mechanisms. People are so fascinating and mysterious, and the fact that scientists can track down the physiological manifestations of our psyches thrills me.

But, it turns out, I wasn’t meant to be one of those scientists. As much as I liked the ideas addressed by science research, lab work and me just didn’t gel. Realizing I was more excited by talking about science rather than conducting it myself, I found my way into science reporting for Seattle’s community radio station KBCS.

Producing science radio stories immediately felt more fulfilling than any other pursuit I’d known. I loved everything about it – going out and recording interesting scientists, obsessing over my scripts, voicing my stories, and sitting at the computer so transfixed by editing I’d barely break for trips to the bathroom. From there I found my way into other radio and video opportunities, and then most recently I’ve started working on science stories for print as well.

Why did you decide to try breaking into the science writing business without attending a specialized science/health/environmental writing program?

I feel like I kind of sneaked into the field by starting out in community radio. My first experiences with science reporting were so hands-on and so gratifying, I never questioned whether I was qualified to start working for bigger outlets. I think it helped that radio has a sharp learning curve. Once I’d battled through my first few stories I felt hooked on figuring things out for myself.

That said, I’m not sure if any sane person would have stuck with the route I took. I talked recently with a researcher who told me the teen brain is wired to survive adolescence by having a heightened sensitivity to reward, and I immediately recognized that as the way I got through my first couple of years of freelance science journalism. My career pattern felt like one step forward, two steps back, interspersed with a few leaps. Basically I had to find ways to see let-downs as motivating (“Hey, my fourth pitch to this outlet actually got a me a personalized rejection email!”)

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? What is your current job?

I interned at Seattle’s NPR affiliate KUOW, producing stories in their news room and helping with the production of their news magazine show. Since going freelance my radio highlights include producing for other NPR affiliate stations, PRI’s The World, Deutsche Welle’s Living Planet, NHPR’s Word of Mouth, Radiolab, the Chemical Heritage Foundation podcast. I  had a stint as a production consultant for a video start-up, which was a whirlwind tour of New York’s tech scene.

Right now I’m balancing an exciting new podcast with The Mind Science Foundation, a contributing editor position on the healthcare beat for CBS’s SmartPlanet, assignments from Dr. Oz’s website, around one story a month for radio, and the always-present need to keep pitching to other shows and publications.

Do you write a personal or science blog ? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I have my blog for SmartPlanet, and then I sporadically blog about my work at audreyquinnaudio.com. I also tweet to learn about what friends and colleagues are doing, promote work I like, and promote my own work @audreyqq.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

It’s actually writing that’s the more other aspect of science communication to me at this point. But besides my work in radio and video, I do website programming for podcasts and am plotting a foray into comics journalism.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Clearly I’m biased in coming from a multimedia background, but I think the increasing ability (or even necessity) for journalists to cross mediums is redefining the science media landscape.

Besides that, I’m seeing a big push for more interactive science content, which I find both exciting and a little concerning in some ways. Interactive science media, usually presented through apps on handheld devices, allows for unprecedented creativity in the way we share science. But my concern is that it puts even more focus on an audience that already has better access to science – people who can afford those handheld devices.

If we can use that progressive energy to also bring science to people typically excluded from the science media conversation then I think we’ll really have achieved something as a generation. Whether that means using science media more creatively, or just sharing a voice not usually heard in science journalism, will completely depend on the individual.

Thank you!

And thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover
Jordan Gaines

“Three aspiring science journalists pitch their ideas to the Dragons. Could it be you?”

This is the call for pitches issued by the 2nd UK Conference of Science Journalists, to be held later this year. The “Dragons” are three editors from the prestigious Nature, Guardian and Research Fortnight. The “aspiring science journalists” could well be you—three of you actually—if you are an early-career writer (student, a recent graduate, a freelancer, or even a scientist with a great story).

The conference, organised by the Association of British Science Writers, will be held in London on 25 June of this year and will host a session called “Pitch to the Editors.” The writers of the three best submitted pitches, as determined by the editors, will be invited to attend the conference free of charge and will have to pitch their story to a live audience at the conference. Once that’s done and over with, any of those three publications may commission your pitched story, giving you free reign to include “published at [insert appropriate prestigious publication here]” in your byline.

Interested? Here are the details:

• Write a short pitch, no more than 300 words, for a news story that is suitable for one of the three publications (no need to specify which one). The story can be about any aspect of science.
• Send links or clips of your previous work: articles, blog posts, etc. By the way this isn’t essential but, truthfully, I think it is.
• To apply, fill the form by Friday 25 May.

More info:

• UK Conference of Science Journalists website.
• Dragons’ Den Application webpage.
• “So you want to be a science writer?” guide by the Association of British Science Writers.

This looks like a good, if not great, opportunity for early-career science writers. If your pitch is selected as one of the top three, you will not only stand a chance to be published by Nature, Guardian or Research Fortnight but you’ll also get to attend the conference and interact with leading figures in science journalism. And of course, winning a writing competition bows well in a CV.

Good luck and have fun!

Natalie Wolchover – Why Can’t All Animals Be Domesticated?:

About 11,000 years ago, humans realized there was a better place for some animals than the other end of a spear. We started coaxing them into our settlements, gradually molding their natures to better suit our needs for food, labor and companionship. Over the millennia, we dabbled with the domestication of many species. But only a few — most notably, the cow, goat, sheep, chicken, horse, pig, dog and cat — have proved themselves so useful that they have piggybacked their way across the globe, flourishing almost everywhere humans do.

Rose Eveleth – What is your dog thinking?:

In movies, talking dogs are one of our favorite tropes. From Homeward Bound to the army of evil dogs in Up, we seem to think we’ve got a pretty good handle on what’s going on in fido’s brain. It probably involves toys, and chasing squirrels, and wanting belly rubs.

But, what are dogs really thinking? Are they secretly judging us and our poor wardrobe choices? Are they plotting to overthrow humanity? Or are they not thinking anything at all? Where Hollywood fails, science has the answer! Well, sort of.

Sabrina Richards – It’s Raining Mice: A new brown tree snake control strategy takes to the skies as scientists scatter toxic rodents over Guam’s forest canopy:

Guam has brown tree snake problems. Alien, secretive, and extremely hungry, the reptiles snuck onto Guam as unintentional cargo on docking ships decades ago, possibly as early as the 1940s. And now snakes bite sleeping babies, cripple electrical grids by slithering into conductors, and wreak ecological havoc.

Taylor Kubota – 90 calories or less: One twenty-something’s rant about snack packs:

Food companies are always figuring out better ways to market their products into our mouths and down our throats. These days there is one popular method in particular that I find almost sinister: the snack pack. It’s a seemingly harmless convenience that leaves wastefulness and sloth in its wake.

Xue Di – A woman’s quest for romance conflicts with scientific pursuits:

A woman’s thoughts of romance can lead her to distance herself from science, technology, engineering, and math, according to a study by researchers from the University at Buffalo. The researchers studied 350 participants and conducted four experimental lab studies. The first three studies either had participants look at images or overhear conversations. After that, participants reported in a questionnaire how interested they were in either romantic activities or academic activities.

Tanya Lewis – Starry Starry Night: A visit to Lick Observatory:

San Jose is a bustling city of just under a million inhabitants. Yet only 25 miles to its east, on the tranquil summit of Mount Hamilton, astronomers cast their view skyward at the Lick Observatory. I visited the observatory, which is operated by the University of California, last week…

Danny Copley – Super worms, clean-up crew of the future:

It may sound unbelievable, but a new breed of earthworms is helping to create a cleaner tomorrow. Professor Mark Hodson from the University of Reading works to understand the ‘biogeochemistry’ of soils and contaminated environments. His research into a disused lead mine led to a remarkable study. The research team found earthworms where no earthworms should live.

Rachel Nuwer – Heartland Pulls Billboard on Global Warming:

Drivers moving along Chicago’s inbound Eisenhower Expressway on Friday may have been surprised to see Ted Kaczynski, the so-called Unabomber, staring at them from a massive billboard. “I still believe in global warming. Do you?” the billboard read in large maroon letters. Just below was the Web address www.heartland.org.

Nadia Drake – Ancient scribes may have banked on blinking binary:

The blinking of a distant star may be chronicled in an ancient Egyptian calendar created more than 3,000 years ago to distinguish lucky days from unlucky ones.

Known today as the Demon Star, the three-star system Algol sparkles in the constellation Perseus, near the eye of Medusa’s severed head. Observers on Earth can see Algol twinkling when the two closest members of the system eclipse one another: Every 2.867 days, as the dimmer star crosses between Earth and the brighter star, the Demon Star’s light appears snuffed…

Hannah Krakauer – Bringing Up Baboon:

Acting nonchalant in front of a baboon is not an art many scientists have to contemplate while going about their jobs. Robert Sapolsky, neuroscientist cum primatologist and long-time professor at Stanford, is faced with that very challenge on most days that he spends in the field with his tribe of baboons in Kenya. Sapolsky took over twelve years to assemble and write the stories that makes up A Primate’s Memoir, and what results is a riveting account of the decidedly unusual setting in which Sapolsky’s science takes place.

Jonathan Chang and Allison T. McCann – Your mission (should you choose to accept it): A different type of science fair:

Science Olympiad is just like it sounds like. Schools all across the country compete in a wide range of events, from basic biology and chemistry tests to more elaborate competitions that involve bridges, trebuchets, and homemade helicopters. One event that stands out is Mission Possible. It’s equal parts mad scientist and budding engineer as each team submits a Rube Goldberg machine to the judge and goes for the gold. Scienceline reporters got the inside scoop after visiting Candlewood Middle School on Long Island, New York, on March 17, 2012.

Harriet Bailey – Getting under the skin: Inside Out Animals:

Combining two of my favourite things – dissection and enigmatic German accents – the Natural History Museum’s latest exhibition exposes the nuts, bolts, strings and threads that hold us together.

Douglas Main – Reef Sharks and Humans Don’t Mix:

Sharks may have more reason to fear people than ever. In reefs surrounding Pacific islands inhabited by people, there are 90 to 97 percent fewer sharks than in similar areas without people, according to a study in the journal Conservation Biology.

Helen Shen – Drink at your own perceived risk:

How dangerous is unpasteurized milk? Many health-conscious consumers want to know. The answer depends on how you look at the numbers.

In March, CDC scientists published a study in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases that tried to quantify this risk by analyzing milk-related disease outbreaks from 1993 to 2006….

Kate Prengaman – Journalist Ethics in the Age of Denial:

Are journalists under siege in a castle? During a panel discussion at the Science Writing in the Age of Denial here in Madison the past few days, I attended a workshop that discusses the role of ethics in journalism’s new media environment. I feel so fortunate that I was able to participate in this conference, and my brain is still spinning from all of the fascinating presentations and conversations. I wrote up a summary of this workshop session for the conference’s blog.

Kate Yandell – Solving the genomic jigsaw puzzle: The price of DNA sequencing has fallen precipitously. But at what cost?:

A few years ago, Erich Jarvis decided it was time to sequence the genome of his parrots. Jarvis is a neuroscientist at Duke University who studies why songbirds and humans can learn vocal patterns, while most animals cannot. Jarvis hoped to compare the genetic code of vocal learners and non-learners to understand whether the genes and gene expression patterns that allow us to talk are the same as the ones that allow Polly to ask for a cracker.

Daisy Yuhas – A Rose Is a Rose, Until It Isn’t: 5 Reasons Plant DNA Is Totally Crazy:

You may not give your houseplants enough credit. What looks like an innocent philodendron gathering dust may actually be a riddle wrapped in a mystery shrouded in potting soil…at least genetically.

Turns out plants have some interesting genetic quirks that keep geneticists guessing. As challenges in finding gene-sequencing shortcuts, called barcodes, have made clear, deciphering plant genetics can be very tricky. Here’s a roundup of five reasons plant DNA is totally confusing and totally fascinating to those who study it…

Erin Podolak – Science For Six-Year-Olds: Groundwater in Africa:

Hello First Graders! I heard that you are participating in a fundraiser for P&G Children’s Safe Drinking Water campaign. This is a great project, because having access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing is necessary to stay healthy. This campaign supplies water purification packets to communities that don’t have a way to access clean water. In addition to drinking and cleaning access to water is also important to take care of crops because it helps provide food and money for people to live off of and support their families…

Harriet Bailey – New GM wheat goes on trial amid tight security:

A genetically modified (GM) wheat that wards off pests with natural chemicals has moved into field trials in Hertfordshire this week. The crop will be the third GM field trial in the UK and has prompted enhanced security of the site.

Jessica Gross – Meet the Mind: The Man Who Discovered Flow:

You toe the outline of the court with your left foot, racket in one hand, ball in the other. Toss up. Swing back, up, over; shift weight back, then front—pop. Contact. Racket meets ball, ball flies over net, opponent misses, you score.

It’s you, court, racket, ball, opponent; nothing else exists. Or maybe it’s you and the pages of a book; you and a set of knitting needles; you and a freshly planted garden; you and the screen you’re filling with computer code. The feeling—a state of fluid focus, total absorption, fulfillment, unawareness of time—can happen with almost any activity. It’s what some call being “in the zone.” It’s what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who has been studying it for decades, calls “flow.”

Rachel Nuwer – Lights Out for Research Satellites?:

Earth-observing systems operated by the United States have entered a steep decline, imperiling the nation’s monitoring of weather, natural disasters and climate change, a report from the National Research Council warned on Wednesday.

Beth Marie Mole – What zombie snails and teenage mutant frogs tell us about ecosystems:

The first mutant frog the kids found probably seemed like a sad fluke. The poor Northern Leopard Frog had one normal hind leg and one frail, fleshless one. But, then the class, which was out on a nature walk in 1995, found another misshapen frog—this one with only one leg—then limped another, and another. Half of the frogs in the southern Minnesota pond were mutants….

Hannah Waters – From Squeaks to Song:

Dustin Penn eats, sleeps, and breathes sexual attraction. An evolutionary biologist at Vienna’s University of Veterinary Medicine, he studies the intricacies of courtship, focusing on those biochemical signals that help animals choose their mates. He’s studied them in songbirds, zebrafish, and humans—but his species of choice is the house mouse, Mus musculus.

Surrounded by cages in his lab, Penn has spent years hearing mice unmelodically squeak and chirp in the background as he worked to understand how they use smell to identify their mates. So when he first learned that male mice vocalize in the presence of females—singing, out of the range of human hearing, true songs that transcend the randomness of squeaks—he nearly flipped his lid.

Susan E. Matthews – An exploration of multicolored yawns: Do we vomit less as we age?:

So, I was going to write something about HBO’s Girls, and how disappointed every parent whose children are in their 20s have just realized they ought to be with our self-absorbed generation. But instead, in the spirit of Girls, I’d simply like to talk about myself.

This week, I came down with a terrible stomach bug….

Emily Eggleston – Acid Rain 101:

As raindrops hit my face on this morning’s bike ride, the refreshing effect outweighed the annoyance of being slightly damp when I dismounted. Rain symbolizes renewal for me, the cleanse and growth of springtime.

Today, my American environmental history reminded me that polluted rain can bring destruction rather than renewal. In 1979, precipitation fell on Wheeling, West Virginia that was more acidic than lemon juice or even gastric acid. Those terrifying drops had a pH of 1.5, the lowest ever recorded in the U.S…

Lena Groeger – Four Medical Implants That Escaped FDA Scrutiny:

Medical devices sustain and improve the quality of life for millions of Americans. But as the over $100 billion-a-year industry pushes thousands of devices to market every year, reports of faulty devices, repeat surgeries, and recalls have increased. The FDA and the industry maintain that a speedy approval process gives patients faster access to life-saving devices. But critics say that unlike drugs, a substantial number of risky devices are cleared without clinical testing, and receive almost no oversight once on the market.

Jordan Gaines – Science: why I do it AND write it:

A random sample of Americans was polled a few years ago. The purpose of this poll was to gauge our population’s knowledge and beliefs on human life and evolution. Religious beliefs aside, this statement particularly stood out to me:

“There’s no such thing as a genetic defect. All genetic changes result from the decisions of a God or Intelligent Force.”

A quarter of Americans believed that this is true. This absolutely floors me.

Rose Eveleth – Genes Link Touch and Hearing:

Sound and touch may seem completely separate, except possibly when playing the game Operation. But it turns out that the two senses are actually quite entwined: a new study finds that people with hearing issues often also have problems with touch…

Nadia Drake – A result of zero doesn’t always mean zero results :

Forlorn graduate students sometimes turn to a publication called The Journal of Negative Results.* In graduate student mythology, it’s the repository for toiled-over experiments that produced nothing — no effects, no detections, no differences, nothing.

(*This actually does exist for specific disciplines. But it’s not really the salvation most grad students wish for.)

But: a) that’s how science works, and b) negative results can still pack a punch.

Last week, two astrophysical negative results appeared in high-profile journals.In Nature, the IceCube collaboration (including then-graduate student Nathan Whitehorn) describes missing neutrinos — a paucity of particles that’s problematic for theorists suggesting that gamma-ray bursts generate ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

Today we introduce you to Jordan Gaines (blog, Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

Hi everyone—thanks! I grew up in central Maryland and attended St. Mary’s College of Maryland before moving up to Hershey, Pennsylvania for graduate school.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

I’ve been writing since…well, since before I could actually write. I have a huge box back home full of pictures books I’d illustrated, from sickening love stories (90% of them) to warped renditions of Disney movies. I grew up (and continue) submitting all sorts of writing to competitions or anthologies: short stories, essays, poetry, anything. I credit my inspiration and motivation to my love of reading.

As for science: every kid, at one point or another, is a scientist, discovering their world by making up their own little experiments when a parent isn’t around to answer the “whys” and “hows.” A 4th grade school assignment I recently uncovered depicts my adult self in a white lab coat with a bubbling green test tube, exclaiming, “I have discovered a substance!” The creativity of experimental design coupled with the fact that there are SO MANY things we still don’t know has always been a very attractive challenge to me.

It was only about a year ago when I realized that science writing is…well, it’s actually a thing—as in those reporting the weekend’s baseball scores aren’t necessarily the same people detailing the latest Alzheimer’s breakthrough. The bridge between the Ivory Tower and the Average Joe is strengthening, but still rather flimsy. I see no greater use of my scientific resources and writing skills than to do my best to close this gap for my readers.

How are you hoping to break into the science writing business?

I began my blog, “Gaines, on Brains,” last August, where I write about recent discoveries, debates, or FAQs within the neuroscience field. It’s garnered quite a following and has targeted precisely the audience for whom I set out to write: laypeople. I also have blogs with my local news source, PennLive (“Gaines Explains Brains”), as well as LabSpaces (“neuroBLOGical”), a great social networking site for scientists and science enthusiasts.

Neuroscience is a wonderfully fascinating intersection of chemistry, medicine, physics, psychology, development, engineering—everyone wants to know what déjà vu is, why yawning is contagious, or how coffee wakes them up. I’ve received great feedback from my readers, and especially love when they suggest topics for me to investigate!

Which graduate program are you attending? Why go for a science degree and not a journalism degree?

I just completed my first year of the Neuroscience Ph.D. program at Penn State College of Medicine in Hershey, PA (yes, I’ve eaten my weight in chocolate since being here!).

I identify as both a scientist and writer. And with this type of writing, I am also a translator. Just as one must integrate oneself amongst native speakers to truly pick up a new language, I feel obliged to work directly with scientists, exposing myself to the newest literature and delving into own original research. What better way to get writing material? The knowledge and experience I’ve picked up in this program have been invaluable in my science writing—in an indirect way.

How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I’m all about social media! It’s a great way to connect with my readers and promote not just my writing, but share or tweet other interesting stories. I’ve discovered so many great science blogs and, frankly, get most of my science news from various social media outlets. I’m on Facebook, Twitter (@GainesOnBrains), Google+, and LinkedIn, and I’ve made many new professional and personal connections because of it!

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Big question! I write by the notion that most people these days can’t concentrate on anything for a long period of time. I don’t know if that’s true for the general population, but it’s certainly true for me. We’re all busy multitaskers constantly inundated with to-dos and flashy electronic things. That’s why I believe the 140-character limit of Twitter, Facebook sharing, and simple infographics are the future of information dissemination.

I’m always on the hunt for how people are getting their information. Then I plop my contribution there, in as few words as possible. It may get lost in the shuffle, but that’s the nature of communication these days.

We live in a world where “OMG” and “LOL” have been added to the Oxford Dictionary, 175 million people log in to Facebook each day, and every form of print, old and new, is becoming digitized. Whether this evolution is for better or worse, it’s important to keep up with it, nurture it, and develop science media into the best it can be for everyone.

Thank you!

Thanks for having me!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride
Natalie Wolchover

Periodically, we’ll cover some of those student-run science publications here on The SA Incubator. Today, we look at BlueSci from Cambridge University, UK. BlueSci’s latest issue, their 24th, is packed with great science and also includes a Focus article on the upcoming Olympics and Paralympics. BlueSci publishes contributions from students of undergraduate all the way up to postgraduate level. Some are regulars, others are new enthusiasts. What all contributors have in common however, is their willingness to spread their enthusiasm for science as BlueSci’s editor, Ian Le Guillou, describes.

BlueSci (pronounced blue-sy, blue-sky or blue-ski—I’m still not sure) is the science magazine produced by members of Cambridge University. While we have yet to hear from any professors wanting to write articles, we do have a wide range of people getting involved; from the first year undergraduate keen to share his new-found knowledge through to the PhD student avoiding writing her thesis. BlueSci magazine was formed in 2004 and eight years later it has diversified into news, film, and radio, while magazine Issue 24 has just come off the printing presses. As editor, I’ve seen first-hand that BlueSci relies on dozens of people volunteering their time to write, edit and produce the magazine. Despite this, we are never short of help; there is clearly a strong demand for a science communication platform.

Typically a dozen feature articles are submitted for each issue and five are selected to be published in the magazine. This is often where budding science writers test the water, covering a topic that they know well, either because their research relates to it or they have learnt about it on their course. This is where I found myself just over a year ago, submitting a piece about magnetoreception in birds. In Issue 24 we have feature articles about the development of CPR techniques, the roles of symmetry in science and even computer simulations of relationships! Some writers are happy to have an article published and do no more, while others catch the writing bug and keep coming back to us issue after issue. For them, we have our regulars section where we look at other aspects science, not just novel research but also the people behind it, its role in policy-making and even where science meets the arts. Our latest regulars cover a great range of topics, from the history of contraception to science at the South Pole.

With the 2012 London Olympics and Paralympics only a few months away, this seemed like the ideal topic for this issue’s Focus article. Written by a team of four authors, each issue’s Focus has a central theme viewed from different perspectives. In looking at how science pushes the limits of human athletic ability, we covered diet, psychology, equipment and even analysed the Fosbury flop to understand what makes it such a successful technique.

Just as we finish celebrating the launch of our latest issue, we start looking forwards the next issue, our 25th. As tradition dictates, this will be celebrated in a suitable fashion. With articles and interviews from BlueSci alumni, alongside our usual cohort of keen amateurs, it promises to be a bumper issue that will be hard to beat.

Ian Le Guillou

BlueSci Issue Editor

Today we introduce you to Natalie Wolchover, Staff reporter at Life’s Little Mysteries (Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

Hello. I was born in London, England, and moved to a cattle ranch outside of Blanco, Texas, during elementary school. So, I am from two places that could not be more different!

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

I am very sciencey by nature, while everyone else in my family is very literary by nature, and so I think inside and outside forces opposed and eventually balanced out, shaping me as a person. Growing up, I was encouraged to do a lot of reading and creative writing, but I always planned to be a scientist.

For many years, I would have told you that there was a 100 percent chance I would be a tiger zoologist when I grew up, but then, in early high school, Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time” abruptly shifted my focus to physics. I studied physics at Tufts University, where I was heavily involved in nonlinear optics research, and then, after a brief stint as an organic farmer, I started the physics Ph.D. program at Berkeley.

I guess I had swung too far in one direction, though, because early in my graduate school career, I suddenly felt myself being yanked back. I realized that academia wasn’t right for me. I loved science, but absolutely had to combine it with my love for constructing interesting sentences, for putting the significance of a new finding into words, and for explaining sciencey things to literary people, like my family.

Did you attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program, a generalized journalism or writing program, or just start a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I just started writing and hoped for the best, and it worked. When I dropped out of physics grad school to work toward becoming a writer, I started a blog, called Facto Diem, to which I posted one article each day about a surprising and little known science fact. I tutored students of undergraduate physics on the side, and that earned me just enough to get by as I focused on blogging. Links to my articles from The Daily Dish, Cosmic Variance and elsewhere helped me get exposure, but the best part of blogging was producing hundreds of ready-made writing samples that I used when applying for internships and freelance jobs.

It seems to me that even many tech-savvy people have traces of the false impression that you must possess some sort of authority to have a blog — that it is a semi-official publication, and you must be qualified to write for it. If the blog is good, and people are sharing and commenting on your posts, that obviously adds to the impression tremendously, and it makes blogging a powerful point of entry into professional writing.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

Early on in my career, I freelanced for Make magazine and SEED. Next, I did an internship with Science Illustrated magazine, which was essentially a joint internship with Popular Science, which is owned by the same company. I also freelanced for PopSci.com, and wrote for them what may be the most heavyweight article I’ve written thus far in my career.

After the internship, I got a job at TechMediaNetwork, as a staff writer for the science website Life’s Little Mysteries. I have several beats, from debunking false paranormal claims and fake YouTube videos, to answering common science questions people have, to covering cool or weird new research findings. My articles are syndicated at Yahoo News and MSNBC, and sometimes other websites, such as SciAm.

Do you write a personal or science blog ? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

The aforementioned Facto Diem still exists, and all the posts were evergreens (i.e. always relevant rather than newsy), so interested parties should feel free to check them out. However, alas, I no longer update it. I use Twitter to promote my articles and good reads from around the Web, as well as to stay up to the minute on science news. (I keep my follow count low so that news on my feed is, in fact, still measurable in minutes rather than seconds.)

I regularly engage with readers on the Life’s Little Mysteries Facebook page, where I post stories, ask and answer questions, and ask for story suggestions, and this helps a lot in figuring out what people are actually interested in reading about. However, I don’t use Google Plus, Tumblr or any of the other networks; I don’t think I can handle as many of them as your average 25-year-old New Yorker. Ultimately I use social networks to keep up with the times and share my articles, but for me it’s very important to concentrate on writing for long stretches of time and not be distracted by all the short strings of words vying for my attention.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

I have helped create several short videos for Life’s Little Mysteries, and I love to spice up stories with ridiculous photoshop jobs. I also frequently create image albums. As for other forms of media, I’ve done a few radio and TV interviews. Though I love to draw, I’ve yet to integrate the skill into my work. I plan to do so someday, with inspiration from ViHart, among others.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Despite the notorious thinning and/or disappearance of newspaper science sections, I think the science media ecosystem is the liveliest its ever been. There’s bountiful coverage aimed at every level of expertise: technical posts on the latest dark matter paper at Cosmic Variance (with a vigorous debate among physicists going on in the comments section), LiveScience articles aimed at lay readers with a genuine science interest, right on down to articles in the Daily Mail’s science section aimed to entertain and rile, and fringe blogs cherry-picking facts in an effort to convert everyone to some conspiracy theory or other.

However, with all that content out there, the challenge is figuring out how to help readers know the difference. Distrust of scientists and fear of global cataclysm are both on the rise, and that’s partly attributable to how much scary and conflicting information there is on the Internet. In my opinion, the best way to earn readers’ trust is to slow down a bit: to spend more time learning the science we’re explaining in our articles and write more in-depth (but still accessible) pieces.

We must do enough background research on the subject at hand to grasp the context of a new finding, and, if it’s controversial, learn enough to form an educated opinion about which side of the argument carries more weight, and deserves to be given the bulk of the article’s focus. Failing to do so (and, as a result, giving undue weight to minority ideas) often leaves readers not knowing what to believe. They also get the impression that science is chaos, and thus, useless to them.

In short, writing more thoughtful and researched articles (even if that means writing fewer articles) will better serve the public, and I hope we and more of the media outlets we write for will move in that direction. There is some evidence that quality wins over quantity in generating Web traffic, too, so there may not be any tradeoff with slowing down a little. For example, in February, Salon.com reported that a 33 percent decrease in article count in the preceding few months correlated with a 40 percent increase in traffic on the site. People don’t want to read 10 light articles about the same thing; they want to read an article that gives the full picture, teaches them what has led scientists to think what they think and why it matters.

Thanks!

Thank you, too!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross
Abby McBride

Periodically, we’ll cover some of those student-run science publications here on The SA Incubator. Today, we look at Au Science Magazine from the University of Aberdeen, UK. Au Science Magazine was started last year and three issues have been published since, with the latest hot off the press (read it below). Au Science Magazine’s editor, Heather Doran, tells us why she wanted to start a science magazine, gives us a snapshot into how the magazine is run and previews the new issue.

Au Science Magazine is a science magazine produced by a mix of postgraduate and undergraduate students from different disciplines at the University of Aberdeen.

The magazine was started because, essentially, we thought it would be a good idea. There is no science journalism course at the University of Aberdeen, but there are a lot of scientists and a lot of good science, and we wanted to shout about it.

Personally I felt that, although the university does practice excellent science and runs some really great public engagement activities, there was something missing. The students at the University of Aberdeen were somewhat neglected, and didn’t know about many of the science events and great science happening in Aberdeen.

We decided soon after that it would be good to distribute hard copies of the magazine around the city too, as we were confident that we would have an interested audience. Aberdeen is the self-titled ‘Oil Capital’ of Europe and is full of engineers, geologists, chemists and many other STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) disciplines working in the oil industry. We knew that all the science events organised in the city are pretty well attended by this audience.

The Au Science Magazine team. From left to right: Daisy Brickhill, Chris Sutherland, Heather Doran, Sam Miah, Gina Maffey and Sean McMahon

We needed to gauge interest from students to get the magazine started. To do so, I set up a science journalism society and covered some short science stories in the student newspaper, The Gaudie. It was clear that there was a real interest from students in science, and plenty of them were interested in writing about science. So, a group of six of us (Gina Maffey, Sean McMahon, Daisy Brickhill, Chris Sutherland, Sonja Klein and myself) got together and set up Au Science Magazine in February 2011. Since then we have published three issues of Au, expanded our team and run a series of training events and, most importantly, have had a lot of fun.

Articles are all written by students, from any discipline, and then edited by a core ‘editor’ group. Students can chose what they write about based on their own interests, although we do offer some suggestions of topics that we think might be interesting.

We work on a ‘ more brains the better’ principal. Using our own judgment we decided what we think will be interesting to a reader. Each issue has a loose ‘theme’ for articles, but that isn’t restrictive. Our main aims are to write about science that was carried out at the University of Aberdeen and put a personality to science—we want to talk more about the people who have done the work, along with the findings, rather than the commonly found: “faceless ‘scientists’ have discovered xyz”.

Our latest issue asks the question, “Who are scientists?”. We found out what Aberdeen students think about science and scientists, interviewed the first European Union Chief Scientific Advisor, Aberdeen’s very own Professor Anne Glover and celebrated ‘Women in White Coats’. A lot of time and effort is spent on the design and different ways of displaying information, in this issue Gina Maffey experimented with infographics to display the male to female ratio in different disciplines in Aberdeen and I took a look under the microscope at cosmetics.

With each issue we are learning, developing and trying out new ideas. We are all students; none of us have any real expertise in writing, editing or the media. One member of the team, Sean McMahon, does have experience with graphic design, publication software and was involved with the Oxford University science magazine, Bang!. His expertise has allowed us to create a magazine that looks really special and professional.

At the start, we asked for some help from the public engagement office at the University of Aberdeen and they gave us a small grant to start up and have been an invaluable source of support. Since then we have raised money through advertising and most recently through sponsorship from the University of Aberdeen Development Trust and Oceaneering.

The money we have raised has allowed us to buy some equipment and  run events, like screening the PhD Movie, organising a science-writing workshop and a science writing careers session.

We know that the magazine has been picked up all over the globe online and I know that some teachers have used the magazine in schools. We really would like to expand on that aspect of the magazine and reach out, not necessarily to children but to 16-21 year olds to promote critical thinking and an interest in science.

The magazine is published three times a year. We publish issues of the magazine to coincide with science linked events that are taking place in Aberdeen, like Techfest (www.techfestsetpoint.org.uk/) and National Science and Engineering Week (www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/nsew/). We also have a blog and will soon be publishing some podcasts, find us online at www.ausm.org.uk

Heather Doran (@hapsci)

Editor of Au Science Magazine

More: Check out Issue 2 of Au Science Magazine, as previously featured here on The SA Incubator.

Image credit: Gina Maffey

Today we introduce you to Abby McBride (homepage, sketch blog, SCOPE articles)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I grew up in Taunton, Massachusetts—also known as the Silver City, in reference to the old silver factory just down the street from where I lived.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

I was always interested in plants and animals. At Williams College I majored in biology and researched a thesis in forest ecology. Having finished six months of field work, I found that I had little to no enthusiasm for using statistical analysis programs (I compensated by crafting the world’s most extensive introduction). After college I searched for ways to be involved in ecology while avoiding data analysis entirely.

Before it occurred to me to try writing, I tried everything else. I was a nature camp counselor in Massachusetts, a farmhand in Spain, a wildlife illustrator in New York City, a lobster boat helmsman in Bar Harbor, a tour guide in Acadia National Park, an itinerant birder in the western United States, a biologist on an uninhabited island in the Galapagos, a naturalist in Ecuador, and an invasive species ecologist back in Massachusetts. At various points I was also a swim instructor, piano teacher, and pastry chef. I had a part-time career as a freelance artist throughout.

About two years ago I was reading an online science article—something about moose behavior, if I remember correctly—when it occurred to me that someone must write these things for a living. From there I quickly realized that science writing would be a great way to fuse my scientific and creative tendencies.

My hope is to write about ecology-related things that I can experience in person: I’d like to travel, make my own observations, and participate in field research. I also plan to integrate illustrations into my writing whenever possible, whether they’re on-the-spot field sketches or finished paintings.

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I thought about trying to break into science writing under my own power, but I decided that a graduate program would set me on the right track much more quickly. I didn’t actually consider any straight-up writing programs, maybe because the “science” part of “science writing” felt like my lifeline in an otherwise unfamiliar field.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I’m a student in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, class of 2012. I was attracted to the breadth of forms that this program covers, from news stories to features to essays to radio and video documentary. The most fulfilling and difficult project has been my 10,000-word thesis: I’m writing a story about evolution and taxonomy, inspired by the unusual culture of gull-watching. Needless to say, it’ll come with illustrations.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

So far I’ve been published through MIT and PloS Blogs. After finishing my coursework this spring, I’ll be heading to Ithaca, NY, to intern as a science writer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, a nonprofit dedicated to conservation through a focus on birds. I’ve been published as a science artist since 2007, when I began illustrating NYC Audubon’s bimonthly publication Urban Audubon. I’ve also created logos and illustrations for the Acadia Birding Festival and other environment-related organizations, in the US and abroad.

Do you write a personal or science blog (URLs)? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

My social media presence has been minimal in the past, largely because I have a phobia of getting sucked into spending too much time on the computer. But in the past year I’ve been learning a lot about how to navigate that world, and I’m figuring out how to strike a balance between internet time and real life (no Twitter yet). I’m just getting a new website off the ground, which includes a sketch blog of my daily encounters with animals, plants, and landscapes. I have kept personal and trip blogs in the past.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

As mentioned, illustration is a big part of my envisioned career as a science writer. I have recently been getting familiar with video and audio documentary through my graduate program at MIT. And I’ve done a little bit of web design.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Of particular interest to me is the rising importance of images (and audio and video) in today’s web-dominated world. There’s great scope for thinking in multiple dimensions as a science writer, and I’m excited to be able to take advantage of that. It’s hard to predict how things will look in another decade or two, so I think the key is to stay flexible and creative.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt
Jessica Gross

Today we introduce you to Jessica Gross (website, Twitter).

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

Thanks! I grew up in a suburb of New York City.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

The earliest image that comes to mind is of me and my brother, peeling up layers of just-lain sod in our backyard to find the worms slithering underneath. Or, a slightly later image: a shoebox filled with cicada shells we’d plucked off of trees. (I saved that box for years.) An interest in science always starts like that, I think—with the realization that there is so much cool stuff you want to lay your hands on, dig into, deconstruct and understand.

In my sophomore year of high school, I joined a science research program; under the supervision of a wacky teacher, ten of us did a project a year. I looked at underwater frogs’ mating calls and tested the effects of Echinacea on gene expression. (Young me was significantly more impressive than current me.) But I was as interested in literature as I was in science. Science and fiction (and, occasionally, science fiction) offered different methods of approaching the same goal: analyzing not-me, whether that meant animals or, through nuanced characters, other people. On my college applications, I wrote that I wanted to major in physics and English.

As it happened, I majored in anthropology, which seemed a good marriage of science (albeit a qualitative method of parsing a culture from the inside out) and literature. While writing my thesis, I realized that the part I loved wasn’t applying anthropological theory, but weaving a narrative that attempted to explain what I’d seen—in other words, journalism.

Five years later, I’m still navigating the balance between science and the humanities. It turns out that they’re more easily interwoven than I’d thought: both start with a nagging need to analyze and understand. Much of the science writing I do is focused on psychology—like anthropology, an integrative discipline that offers a way of seeing the world.

Why did you decide to attend a writing program instead of just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I’m constantly impressed by people who plunge right into journalism—or any profession—and create a model from the ground up of how to do the work. I’m a structure-oriented person, and I learn best when I have a framework of knowledge to fit new tidbits into; I’m not as good at creating that framework for myself. So on a conceptual level, graduate school was really helpful for me.

Besides that, in the jobs I had leading up to graduate school, I didn’t get much intense, critical feedback on my writing. Hearing “it’s good!” on a piece I knew was mediocre and was desperate to improve was really frustrating. I hoped my graduate school professors would call me out on hazy lines of thinking and lazy writing, and oh, did they ever. It was incredible.

Which program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

Unlike most of your Incubators, I didn’t attend a science journalism program—the humanities-oriented part of me triumphed. NYU’s Cultural Reporting and Criticism Program was nominally focused on arts criticism, but at root, I learned how to critically analyze whatever I was writing about. Pretty language is lovely, but unless you can use it to present a crystal-clear line of thinking, it’s not worth much. So the skills I learned in graduate school are applicable to all of the writing I do—not just, say, book reviews.

One of the most liberating graduate school experiences was writing an intense personal essay for the first time. I decided to write about neurosis, interweaving personal experience (I am a New York Jew, after all) with Freudian theory in an attempt to deconstruct what, exactly, neurosis is. It was the most un-self-conscious writing I’ve ever done, and led me to take a course in Freudian theory the following semester. Now, psychoanalysis is a marriage of science and the humanities if there ever was one. (Freud is one hell of a writer, if you weren’t aware. This is not sarcastic.) At base, again, was this question of why the world—“the world,” in this case, being the people who inhabit it—works the way it does.

Also, the 15 other students in my program are brilliant, and they continue to inspire and intimidate me.

What professional experience you have had so far—publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

Right after I graduated from college, I worked as an editor at a startup, an online college guide. My coeditors—all of whom were in their early to mid-twenties at the time, which meant happy hours aplenty—are still some of the most talented and funny people I know, and that was a really wonderful way to get started in journalism. I worked part-time at The Huffington Post for a while after that, and then interned at The Moth, which was my first foray into audio storytelling. I loved it, and while in graduate school, I learned some more radio and interned at Radiolab—some science in the midst of all that art. Since I graduated in December, I’ve been freelancing. I’ve contributed to publications including The New York Times Magazine, The Morning News, The Rumpus, and YouBeauty—and have a forthcoming piece in Scientific American Mind. And always looking for more work, print or radio!

Do you write a personal or science blog? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I don’t blog. (Let the flogging commence.) I would say I’m a moderate social media user. I tweet from time to time, but I’m most active on Facebook, largely because my former classmates post incredible work on there (their writing and others’). Most of the best writing and radio I find is through Twitter or Facebook posts.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

Radio! I’m working on a project for a public radio show this minute. It’s pretty exciting, but I’ll have to tell you about it later.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

For years, now—as we’ve heard incessantly—the media outlets that generate original content have suffered at the hands of aggregators. (Thieves!) It’s upsetting, but it’s capitalism—which should be reassuring: this can’t last. If newspapers go under, sites that exist solely parasitically will go under, and there will be a huge space for young upstarts to fill. Brilliant people are already doing this, using the web to facilitate original content instead of mooch off it. The Rumpus, Byliner, The Daily—all of these use the internet not as an excuse to be lazy, but as a creative springboard.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep
Maggie Pingolt

Rachel Nuwer, freelance science journalist, covers a recent in-depth study which estimates that 6.8 million birds are killed annually due to tower collisions, in the US and Canada alone at The New York Times’ Green blog:

A Lethal Beacon for Migrating Birds

On the morning of Sept. 11, 1948, “a good number of dead, dying and exhausted birds” were found at the base of the WBAL radio tower in Baltimore, in what was then viewed as a new and unusual phenomenon. Ever since communication towers began popping up in the United States in the 1940s and 50s, bird bodies have littered the fields below them, especially during migration season.

Jennifer Cable, a medical writer and blogger at nature.com’s New York Blog, wonders how games can be used to get people enthusiastic about science:

All Work and no Play…

On Tuesday night, Scott Lachut presented the findings from PSFK’s study, “The Future of Gaming” at the New York Academy of Sciences. Lachut focused on how games are used in education and teaching, but it got me wondering – how can games be used to get people excited about science? There has been a lot of news about the recent successes of Fold-it, a protein folding video game that crowd-sources the efforts of thousands of players to solve protein structures that have eluded experimental and computational efforts. What I love about Fold-it is that it’s not just educational, but it actually allows anybody to be an active contributor to research. Science is now a two-way street between scientists and the public.

Natalie Wolchover, staff writer at TechMediaNetwork, dwells into the science of our ability or inability to draw at Life’s Little Mysteries. Fascinating stuff:

Why Are Some People Better at Drawing than Others?

Since the dawn of human art-making, the divide has been clear: There are people who can effortlessly sketch an object’s likeness, and people who struggle for hours just to get the angles and proportions right (by which point the picture is scarred by eraser marks, anyway). What separates the drawers from the drawer-nots? Ongoing research is revealing the answer to this longstanding question. It seems that realistic drawing ability hinges on three factors: how a person perceives reality, how well he or she remembers visual information from one moment to the next, and which elements of an object he or she selects to actually draw.

Eric Sawyer, science blogger at Scitable’s Bio 2.0, does a masterful job explaining the what, how and why of synthetic nucleic acids which researchers recently made possible in the lab:

Synthetic Nucleic Acids: Beyond DNA and RNA

Synthetic biology is such a wide-ranging and multi-disciplinary field that it seems like every new paper sends me into a new area of science that I hadn’t considered before. The latest issue of Science features a paper on synthetic nucleic acids, completely new molecules capable of information storage just like DNA and RNA, dubbed xeno-nucleic acids, or XNAs.

Sally Till, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh, takes a peak into mobile phone microscopes, including lens-free microscopy (which is very exciting), for EUSci:

Magnifying the Potential of Mobile Phone Microscopes

If you’re not up on your geeky gadgets, you might have missed the recent spate of mini-microscopes that have surfaced over the past few years. Thanks to widely available consumer electronics, several nifty mobile phone hacks can now allow you to see the world up close. While recent advances put affordable and impressive magnifying power in your pocket, these smaller, cooler microscopes aren’t just gimmicks; they may be the key to revolutionising global medicine and sparking the public’s interest in science.

Susan E. Matthews, at NYU, has two good stories this week both at Scienceline. In the first story, Susan explains how alcohol works its way throughout your body using numerous party metaphors. The second story is not science related per se but it’s a very nice reflection about life of a newbie in New York City. I thought I’d share this since many people today relocate because of jobs and young science writers are certainly no different:

Ever Wondered? How alcohol permeates your system

You wake up after a night of drinking, and immediately groan. Your head is aching. It feels like alcohol is still seeping through your pores. The heavy feeling of your sweaty skin rivals the sticky surface of the bar that you eventually abandoned last night — the question facing you and the establishments’ owners is the same: how does alcohol manage to permeate every available surface?

Manhattan: The next Atlantis?

When I first moved to Brooklyn, I went running almost every day, along a park that snakes in a thin strip from the pier by my apartment, along the Upper Bay, to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I needed to battle my New York-induced claustrophobia by inhaling the freshest air available into my 22-year-old lungs, lungs that had spent their first 21 years breathing country air.

Young and early career science writers, do spread the word about your good writings from this week in the comments. Readers, if you came across some gems from such science writers this week, please share links in the comments too. The more the merrier!

Klout is a service that intends to measure your online influence on a scale from 1 to 100. To do so, Klout dives into your social media data, especially from Twitter, but also from Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare. It analyses update frequency, number of followers, likes, retweets, etcetera, and attempts to indicate how influential you are with a Klout score. Basically, the idea is that the greater your Klout score, the more you are being “heard” on social media.

Such a measure of influence (or importance on the Internet, perhaps) has its value. In this age of information, anyone can produce content (data) and publish it on the Internet. But the content can just as easily be submerged by the gazillions other content being published. Writers, and especially young and new ones (because they are relatively unknowns in the field), should keep this in mind and strive to push their content to their audience. The Klout score, to a certain extent, shows how effectively you are doing this.

And this is probably why more and more employers are now looking at Klout scores before recruiting. In the writing world, where there is a constant battle to push one’s content to readers, Klout may, at the very least, give employers an indication as to who will attract the most readers.

Now, you may say that since you are not on Klout, you do not have a Klout score and are thus safe from inquisitive potential employers. Wrong! Because if you have a public Twitter account, your Twitter data is available to Klout (and everyone else). And Klout generates a Klout score for you which is visible to any Klout user. While you may never even have heard of Klout, your, shall we say more tech-savvy and nosy friends may well know what your Klout score is. As may potential employers.

By signing up to Klout, your Klout score will no longer be a secret to you. More importantly perhaps, you can also then try to boost it. Once you are signed up, you can connect your Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts to Klout which can bump your score if Klout deems you as influential on those social networks. But you can also actively work on boosting your Klout score. In a feature article in Wired, Chris Makarsky, Klout’s product director, gives four suggestions as to how you may attempt to do so:

1. Increase your tweet frequency.
2. Try to concentrate on one particular topic.
3. Develop relationships with high-Klout people as they may propagate and thus increase the reach of your tweets, for instance.
4. Keep things “upbeat” because the more enthusiastic and energetic you appear the better the reception from your social media audience.

While your Klout score does offer an indication of how much you are being “heard” online, do take it with a pinch of salt. After all, as that Wired article happily points out, Justin Bieber has a perfect score of 100 while President Obama’s score is 91. Furthermore, people with high Klout scores may well be more influential because they are feeding followers with, for lack of a better word, “popular” content: front page articles of the New York Times, op-ed pieces in The Guardian, latest tech gossips from The Verge… you get the idea. On the other hand, some people with lower Klout scores may possibly be pushing more “unique” content that the mainstream media has missed, cast aside or censored, perhaps. In other words, a low Klout score may well mean that you are more interesting to many followers.

All in all then, there are upsides and downsides to focusing on Klout scores. If you’re unsure what to make of your score, consider the below quote from Lou Woodley of nature.com (taken from this Storify) and move on from there:

“Don’t forget to ask yourself why you are using social media and what these scores actually mean to you or your organisation. Are the tools giving you helpful feedback on how well you’re engaging with others? How much time are you spending on them? Who else may be interested in your score? Is it something you should be concerned about as an individual when applying for jobs?”

More information:

What Your Klout Score Really Means, feature article by Seth Stevenson in Wired: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_klout/all/1

Got Twitter? You’re Being Scored, article by Stephanie Rosenbloom in The New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/sunday-review/26rosenbloom.html

The Half-Life of a Tweet, infographic by Klout that shows number of retweets are higher for users with higher Klout scores: http://corp.klout.com/blog/2011/11/the-life-of-a-tweet/

Storify of Lou Woodley and Adrian J. Ebsary’s session about the attention economy and influence metrics, including Klout scores, at ScienceOnline 2012: http://blogs.nature.com/ofschemesandmemes/2012/01/26/attentioneconomy-influence-metrics-session-scio12

The Attention Economy: A Primer and a Peeve, blog post by Adrian J. Ebsary: http://www.attentioneconomist.com/2012/02/attention-economy-primer-and-peeve.html

Image credit: Steve Halls (from flickr).

Today we introduce you to Maggie Pingolt (homepage/blog, Physics blog, Twitter)

Where are you originally from?

It’s funny you ask this because I need to work on perfecting this answer. I’ve moved 21 times and can never decide on where I want to say I’m from.

…I was born in St. Paul, MN and am from The Midwest.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

I got into science, and basically fell in love with science, my junior year of high school when I was a competitive Irish Dancer. In an effort to be a better competitor, I did my best to learn as much as I could about maximizing muscle tone and growth, and along the way became fascinated with Biology. After a year of college level science I realized that a hard-science degree might be a bit too…studious for me and my personality. So I picked up a pen, wrote an essay, got into J-school and decided to tailor my education to include both science and writing.

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I decided to tailor my time at Journalism school in health and science writing because it just made sense. I am not gifted at standardized tests and cannot stay awake long enough to be a doctor. So I’ll write about those things instead. Plus, the opportunities for intellectually challenging positions are endless in science writing and each position ensures that you will be learning something new every day. It’s like being a life-long learner without the Ph.D loans.

…I say that now.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I chose to go to school at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication because not only is the school good, but ASU’s scientific research is impeccable and would also be flanked by my involvement in the honors college.

One of my favorite experiences was an honors contract I did for an online media/design-heavy journalism class. I focused this extra project (that would render me honors credit) on the embryonic development of food allergies and was able to create an interactive PDF of this original article for the class and for extra credits with the Honors College. Being able to mold an experience like that made for a great story and a killer learning experience.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan
Francie Diep

Today we introduce you to Francie Diep (Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I grew up in Bothell, Washington, which is about 45 minutes north of Seattle. I lived in Los Angeles for seven years before coming to New York City and becoming a science journalist.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

In junior high, I used to write short stories imagining my and my best friend’s fabulous future lives–you know, assuming we’d stopped being zitty and timid and awkward. In my stories, we were married to our crushes and still living in Bothell. How dreams change, right? I would email the stories to my friend, so we could discuss them over our (landline) phones. No, I don’t have any copies of those stories anymore. There was no Gmail back then; you had to delete all your old email every once in a while.

I got into science because of Mrs. Talle and Ms. Black, my high school biology teachers.

In college, I majored in English and took a lot of science classes. After I graduated, while I was looking for a job, my former science professors asked if I would TA for their classes. I gave lectures, ran office hours, graded quizzes and showed people how to dissect fruit fly larvae for three years, before I discovered science journalism existed as a separate, specialized field. It just seemed like a good fit.

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I chose a specialized science journalism program because I was really certain that was the kind of journalism I wanted to do. Actually, after going through the program, I’m now more open to other kinds of journalism, but I think my program (NYU SHERP) was excellent preparation for any kind of journalism, with an emphasis on science. Does that make sense? I’m really glad for everything SHERP taught me.

I chose to go to school because I thought it would be faster than trying to break in alone, and I thought it would help me get quality, educational internships. I think that’s true, as I interned at Scientific American (Thank you!) starting my second semester in SHERP.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I went to New York University’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, which I chose after comparing the syllabuses of SHERP and the other programs I was considering. I thought the stories SHERP assigned were like the kinds of stories I saw getting published and read. I also admired the quality of the writing I saw in SHERP’s webzine, Scienceline, and I liked that it’s based in New York, the center of U.S. publishing.

I don’t want to advertise for my school on your blog here, but if wants to learn more about NYU, they can email me or do a web search on it.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

I now report on tech trends and futuristic ideas at InnovationNewsDaily. Don’t be fooled by the generic “staff” byline; that’s either me or the one other staff writer we have, scrambling to post enough stories every day to keep our content fresh.

As a journalism student, I interned at Scientific American and at NPR’s Science Friday, where I got to produce a show on music therapy at the end of my internship.

It can be hard to find a way to break in before you get that first great internship. I wrote for The Myeloma Beacon and took a journalism class through UCLA Extension, using the hefty discount I got as UCLA staff (Remember the part about my teaching undergrads to eviscerate fruit flies?).

Do you write a personal or science blog (URLs)? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

I don’t blog now, but in college, I actually kept a blog about writing, science and my love life (Boom chicka wow wow). I turned some of those blog posts into stories for my college’s literary magazine. Once in a while, people would recognize me at parties because of the blog. I know this will sound like a challenge, but I am not going to link my college blog, sorry. My old blog taught me that I not only loved writing, but I loved interacting with readers.

I now use Twitter to link to great reading and multimedia projects, including my friends’ and my own. I really like Twitter for getting a sense of what people are talking and thinking about. I like checking Vimeo sometimes for cool projects researchers have posted.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

In my job now, I usually only write. I took some video and photos while reporting from South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, but then sent the clips to the video team for editing. I’m grateful to work for a place that has dedicated video and infographics people, but it does mean that I don’t get to do as much myself.

As a student, I learned to make videos, infographics and websites, all of which I really enjoyed, so I try to find projects in my free time that further those skills. I’m working on visualizing a dataset about Brooklyn now.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

Ohmygoodness, Bora, this is a big question! I don’t know what the science media ecosystem was like in the past. One thing that might be pretty new is the sense of peer review, where blogs like the Knight Science Journalism Tracker,  Health News Review and individuals like Ed Yong critique science journalism on the Web today. That’s something I feel proud of, in this field. I’m glad science journalists watch each other’s work, hold each other accountable.

I think in the future, more journalists will have to deal with big datasets. Data are becoming more and more available, from all kinds of agencies, and they hold important stories. To make science media the best it can be, we’ll want more journalists who will learn, early in their careers, the programming skills to organize these data.

Thank you!

====================

Photo of Francie (top) by Kat Cheng Photography

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar
Jack Scanlan

Today we introduce you to Jack Scanlan (homepage, Twitter).

Jack Scanlan is an Australian science student and a science blogger at well-known, Homologous Legs. There, Jack primarily blogs about some distinct political and philosophical aspects of science which he has at heart: setting the record straight about creationists, intelligent design proponents and anyone else who misrepresents evolutionary biology or science in general. Jack also hosts a weekly science podcast to promulgate science and skepticism to young people. While he is not doing any of the above, he is secretly mulling over writing a book about the intersection between modern evolutionary biology and the intelligent design movement.

I recently asked Jack to elaborate on his budding writing life and he was kind enough to oblige.

Hello and welcome to The SA Incubator. For how long have you been writing about science?

My personal blog, Homologous Legs, was started in April of 2008, which makes it four years old this year. Before I had a blog I didn’t write about science at all, so, yep, four years! I’ve been writing about science for four years. Wow. That’s one fifth of my life.

However, before I started my blog I did make YouTube videos about evolutionary biology and creationism (most of which have now been deleted, since they were pretty terrible and not generally accessible) – which I guess sort of primed me for writing about science in a vague way. They’re both ways of getting scientific ideas and arguments across to people that might not share the same viewpoint or knowledge base as you – the only difference is the precise format: talking words vs. writing words.

Your niche is slightly different from most science writers’ in that you mostly cover some political and philosophical aspects of science, if you will–intelligent design proponents and skepticism in particular. What motivates you to cover those aspects?

My coverage of intelligent design (ID) was motivated by a shift away from my previous coverage of traditional creationism (eg. young-Earth creationism and other explicitly religious ideas), due my realising that the ID movement is clearly more dangerous than creationism, in terms of its ability to affect the teaching of evolutionary biology and its appeal to otherwise scientifically-reasonable religious people. They have some seductive arguments that appeal to, for example, many moderate Christians who are put off by the strong evangelical streak to most forms of traditional creationism. I decided to focus on writing about ID, mainly because I thought I might be able to reach some people who were in two minds about it, but also because it’s a way for me to collect my thoughts on the topic, which may come in handy in later life as (hopefully) an active research scientist and science communicator.

As for my political/philosophical writing niche in general, I guess that came about due to the fact that very, very few young people actually think about and discuss these areas of science. How do non-scientists react to scientific discoveries? What impact do their religious and philosophical beliefs have on their acceptance of scientific ideas? In what ways are areas of science being challenged from outside of academia, and how are scientists faring in responding to these challenges? They are all questions I’m interested in, outside of my passion for the meat of science itself, and I try to investigate them in my writing.

You also write about evolutionary biology. How important do you think it is to communicate science research to the public?

Yes, evolutionary biology is my specific scientific topic of interest – hence the obsession with those who deny aspects of it. And in the case of evolution, science communication is vital, considering that a very large chunk of the population in the US (and to a lesser extent, in Australia too) severely misunderstands what it is and how it relates to other areas of biology. But I think most biologists understand this, and there are a number of good science communicators out there who try to educate people about evolution. The real trick is to find more and more effective ways of getting information out there. Both scientists and professional communicators need to come together on this one – not that I have any special insight, I’m just a tiny, little undergraduate student in Australia. But hopefully I can inspire some people through what I write – I think we all can.

Can you briefly give insight on your writing process? Once you get a topic you’d want to write about, how do you proceed from there?

My writing process is embarrassingly unprofessional. I usually start with a vague idea of something I want to get across – a scientific paper, a thought I’ve had about something, a post I want to respond to – and then just start writing. Minimal pre-writing research, maximal on-the-fly information gathering. It usually comes out all in one go, and then I go back and edit bits to actually make it somewhat readable. My time-management skills are pathetic, so if I ever decide to, say, write half of a post one day and the other half the next day, I might never get around to writing the other half. Hence, my WordPress drafts folder is shameful.

I don’t recommend other people follow in my footsteps. Plan things, everyone.

Which article of yours is your favorite and why?

Ooh, tough. I tend not to put my own writing up on a pedestal too much, because that’s a disturbing path to go down. However, I do like a recent post I did for Darwin Day back in February of this year entitled “I think” mostly because it captures my intense feelings about how we should treat Charles Darwin’s contribution to biology: not as a dogmatic truth but a priceless intellectual stepping stone. It got some nice feedback too, which is always reassuring.

You host a podcast every week as well. Do you think it’s important for science writers to mingle with other forms of science communication tools today?

If they’re able to use it effectively, sure! The thing with podcasting is that it can often be quite time-consuming: I’m lucky in that I have five other people to help spread the workload with on The Pseudo Scientists, but most science writers, I think, work alone, and there are only so many hours in the day. But younger people, which is our target audience, are quite enamored with podcasts, so it’s a good fit for the sort of stuff we do.

Videos are a great science communication tool too, because they’re easy to digest, but again they require a lot of time to perfect and to make it all worth it.

Different people have a different view of what a science geek is. How would you define a science geek and do you consider yourself as one?

Well, I define a “geek” as anyone who has an intense passion for any topic that can be studied and have knowledge accumulated about it. A science geek, then, is fairly self-explanatory, and of course I consider myself one! Much of my waking life is consumed with reading books about science and scientific papers. I see science in pretty much everything – from leaves on trees, to music, to stationery, to glasses of water.

One of the things I’ve come to learn over the past few years is that it’s impossible to be truly bored once you know a basic amount of science: any object or process suddenly becomes fascinating. Your outlook on the world changes. It’s actually very, very awesome.

What are your plans for the future?

I’m currently in my third year of a Bachelor of Science degree, and when that’s done I’ll be heading into a Masters of Genetics and then hopefully a PhD in genetics/biochemistry/evolutionary biology. But whilst that’s all happening, I’ll be blogging away about evolution, intelligent design, skepticism and the philosophy of biology, and hopefully productively contributing to the field of science communication. Writing a book is always a pipe dream, but if I can get organised enough, that’d be a wonderful thing to do: it’d probably be a collection of my thoughts on modern evolutionary biology and the intelligent design movement, laid out in simple ways for non-scientists to grasp.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake
Kelly Izlar

Today we introduce you to Kelly Izlar (Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

I grew up in the fields and woods of Bahama, North Carolina – that’s Ba- HEY- ma –which is just north of Durham. When I got tired of picking off ticks all summer, I went up to study stars and hike in the North Carolina mountains.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

After a wonderful, circuitous college career, I got a degree in physics and astronomy from Appalachian State University. As much as I loved conducting science, I was more interested in the story of the results –what they mean, who they affect, what bearing they might have on our future. Also…umm…I’m not very good at math. So there’s that. Don’t tell my dear teachers.

Once I even tried to get a masters degree in engineering, but the computational physics class made me cry one too many times (I wish I were joking). However, I always loved writing. I worked for the University Writing Center while pursuing the aforementioned fated engineering degree, and that was the brightest spot in those few months. I enjoyed working with words and developing stories. It was especially inspiring when students would come in with science papers, and together we would build scientific narratives. Blending technical information into the flow, arc and art of a good story was a craft I wanted to learn. I recognized the need for more science storytellers in society, and found an answering desire within myself. So I started looking for ways to access the science writing community.

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

I remember when I first heard about science writing graduate programs. It was the summer of 2006, and I was in some small, hot town in Florida doing a service project. One of my teammates and I were demolishing an old house with mallets and talking about our futures. I was an undergraduate at the time, bemoaning my math classes and trying to write poetry.

She said, “You know, you can probably do both math and poetry at the same time.”

Mallet smash.

“What?”

“Yeah, they have science writing programs,” she said. “Since you’re all into that stuff.”

Mallet smash. Long pause.

“Well sh**,” I said. “That’s it. That’s what I want to do.”

That conversation has stuck in my head ever since, and for me, the idea of a science writing graduate program was wrapped up with the career direction in general. Since I didn’t have much formal writing training, I figured a degree program would provide me with a good background before I launched into a professional community. Also, I like school.

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I am three weeks shy of marching across the stage to get my masters diploma in medical and science journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The best word to describe this program is “generous.” They have been so good to me—the community encourages students to collaborate rather than compete, the faculty and staff are always looking out for their students and I lucked out with a nice fellowship package. Besides receiving a solid set of story development tools, UNC-Chapel Hill introduced me to multimedia. Before starting the program, I had no multimedia experience and no interest in acquiring any.  Now, at the end, I’m excited about developing and incorporating video and graphics into as many science communication pieces as possible.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

As I mentioned earlier, I am still technically a student. I’m working as a teaching assistant while finishing up my thesis, which focuses on how visuals advance scientific understanding. I spent last summer working with the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center developing a Multimedia Bootcamp for Science Communicators, which will launch in 2013 if the world doesn’t end before then.

This summer, I am working as a fellow for Powering a Nation, an intensive, 10-week journalism project at UNC-Chapel Hill where my team and I will be investigating the conflicts, tension and issues surrounding an energy source.

Over the past two years I’ve worked with university publications such as Endeavors Magazine and Reese Digital Newsroom.

I’ve got my eye on a few internships for the coming year, but post-graduation looms ominously.

Do you write a personal or science blog ? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

No blog yet. But it’s in the works. I’ve been navigating through the WordPress learning curve, and it’s coming along pretty well. I’ve just cracked into the Twitter world (@KellyIzlar) and still haven’t quite caught the bug. But I’m vulnerable, folks. Facebook and Google Plus are still the jam.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

I hinted at this in an earlier answer, but while I’m still a multimedia novice, I’ve been enjoying learning how to use the various platforms. I’ve done bits and pieces of all the above, but I love motion graphics. I’ve been teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects and Maya. My thesis was devoted to the importance of incorporating visual elements into every aspect of the scientific process, from research and cross-disciplinary collaboration to public communication.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

To have an impact these days, a science communicator needs to be narrower in her focus and broader in her technical expertise. We need to talk about one issue in detail using every available tool to reach out to as many different people as possible.

For instance, Johnny, Katie and Joaquim don’t know much about slugs. Johnny thinks they’re gross, Katie picks them off her mother’s plants and Joaquim only knows you can kill them with salt.

To teach these three people about the diversity and life-cycle of gastropods, a media-savvy science communicator would try different approaches. Johnny might want to read a long-form narrative piece about scientists who study slugs. Katie might like an interactive graphic or visualization about what different species of slugs eat. Joaquim might click on a video of slug sex or mucus production.

Placing all of these elements on the same web-platform would provide more access points for the public, propelling the science further into the community.

A science communicator who has proficiency in all of these media areas would be a force to be reckoned with.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth
Nadia Drake

City of the dead: Tens of millions of people have died in New York City. Here’s where some of them have gone. by Kate Yandell:

There’s a place where the L train emerges from underground and out into the easternmost stretch of Bushwick. Fingers of sunlight reach into the tunnel, and the embankment slides down as the train rises. You look out the left windows to see graves spread below you as far as your eyes can reach.

This conglomeration of over a dozen cemeteries is larger than Central Park. The lines of graves have been here and growing since the 1840s, when the Rural Cemetery Act made it easier to establish commercial cemeteries outside the city, responding to fear of cholera-infected bodies and growing real estate pressure in Manhattan. Rome has catacombs beneath the city. We bury our dead in Brooklyn and Queens….

Origami: when math and art meet by Marissa Fessenden:

When I learned to fold a paper crane out of a piece of paper, I thought I had mastered one of the coolest tricks ever. The crane was the most difficult pattern in my little origami book. But origami is more than paper birds, cups and frogs. It is an art form and a way to gain insights in engineering and math….

The state of Tennessee versus the theory of evolution: One former student’s experience with science education in the Volunteer State by Miriam Kramer:

I should probably go ahead and state my numerous biases right now. I am a product of the public school system in Knoxville, Tenn., my father is a biological anthropologist, and I am firmly opposed to the pro-creationism bill that was just passed back home.

The law, for those of you not following state politics in Tennessee, protects public school science teachers that want to bring creationism into their classrooms by “teaching the controversy” when explaining evolution. The various reasons the law is a terrible idea have been enumerated all over the web, and I could go into it here, but I’ll spare you.

Because this is not an apology for the idiocy of an overly conservative and scientifically illiterate state legislature. No, this is a love letter to my home….

Plastic Number Crunching by Amy West:

With recent news of washing machines spilling microplastics into waterways, a greenwashing lawsuit involving plastic water bottle companies, and bans on plastic bags, plastics are everywhere. Literally.

They are crammed under our cupboards, spilling from trashcans, and discarded along the road. Most families are engulfed in plastic consumables, and those with good intentions, toss them into the blue recycling bin. It feels good to divert most of our consumables and packaging into the blue bin, and helps justify purchasing food such as cottage cheese, which invariably comes packaged in plastic. Out of sight, out of mind, after all….

Life’s building blocks grow close to home: Chemical reactions in the early solar system create complex organic molecules by Nadia Drake is a great article in itself, but what I really, really like about it are the first two comments! Pwnd

…Though life is a complicated brew, some of its ingredients can be plucked from Earth’s backyard instead of being imported from more distant interstellar fields. In a new study, scientists suggest that complex organic molecules — such as the amino acids that build proteins and the ringed bases that form nucleic acids — grow on the icy dust grains that lived in the infant solar system. All it takes are high-energy ultraviolet photons to provoke the rearrangement of chemical elements in the grains’ frozen sheaths….

Three good new posts by NYU alumni on the NYTimes Green Blog:

An Enemy in Your Sand Castle by Joanna Foster:

The Environmental Protection Agency has had guidelines in place for water quality along beaches for more than a quarter-century. In 2010 alone, the Natural Resource Defense Council estimates, 24,091 beaches were closed or were subject to advisories because of unsafe levels of fecal matter in the water….

Blight Threatens California’s Citrus Trees by Douglas Main:

In a worrisome development for citrus growers in California, or anybody there who has a beloved lemon or orange tree in the yard, the citrus disease huanglongbing, or citrus greening, has been found in southeastern Los Angeles County, the California Department of Food and Agriculture reports.

Young Whoopers Take Flight by Rachel Nuwer:

A group of young whooping cranes that made headlines last winter have flown back into the spotlight.

Last fall, 10 of the birds, an endangered species, set out on a migration route from Wisconsin to Florida by following an ultralight plane piloted by men in bird suits. The thinking was that the birds, which were raised in captivity without parents, could learn the route by trailing the plane and then fly unescorted for the rest of their lives. But after they reached northern Alabama, the F.A.A. grounded the flights, which were organized by the group Operation Migration, after receiving a complaint about the nature of the pilots’ certificates….

Finally, Kate Prengaman is having fun with data visualization – see
Can you see the data through the smoke? and Popular Parks and Family Economics in Lesotho: A Tableau Data Challenge for recent examples.

Today we introduce you to Nadia Drake (blog, Twitter)

Hello, welcome to The SA Incubator. Let’s start from the beginning: where are you originally from?

Born in Ithaca, New York, grew up in Santa Cruz, California: Two hippie towns, a continent apart, one by the beach and the other by a lake.

How did you get into science and how did you get into writing? And how did these two trajectories fuse into becoming a science writer?

As a curious kid, I spent many afternoons doing backyard science. This involved things like jumping out of trees wearing feathers and trying to fly, or seeing how big a mud puddle my sister and I could make with the garden hose. John Mather told me once that kids are natural scientists, and I agree. Keeping them curious and interested in answering their own questions is the challenge, not generating that inquisitive spirit. Anyway, seeking formal training and legitimate empirical work seemed like an obvious career path, and one that eventually led me to graduate school at Cornell University.

Along the way, I wrote. A lot. As an undergrad, I thought term papers were fun. As a grad student, writing manuscripts and making figures were the best parts of the job. Turns out, I had more fun crafting words into sentences than I did crafting protein blots. When I noticed that I was tolerating being a scientist – rather than really enjoying it – science journalism jumped out as a plausible next direction. Toward the end of graduate school, I began focusing on preparing myself for that next step by looking at science journalism programs and doing some actual reporting.

I also spent most of my life dancing, having trained for a career in ballet. At one point, I found myself tugged in three different directions, though I’d say reporting, science, and the performing arts are similar in many ways (more on that later).

Why did you decide to attend a specialized science/health/environmental writing program instead of a generalized journalism or writing program, or just starting a blog and hoping to break into the science writing business?

After graduating from 21^st grade, it seemed logical to enroll in a focused program that would quickly get me on my way.

Some people definitely become successful science journalists without attending any sort of program. I needed the formal instruction and guidance, though, having come from a science-heavy, jargon-soaked background with comparatively little reporting experience. I needed to learn how to navigate this world of publications and editors, each with their own priorities, audiences, and preferences, and that’s something Rob Irion (director of the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program; more below on that) started helping us with as soon as the gun went off.

I’m glad I decided against bushwhacking through this landscape on my own. The first assignment I completed for class was awful. Really, really fantastically bad – all 198, stinking words. My draft came back wearing enough ink to keep a tattoo artist stocked for a week. I even ventured into Rob’s office to ask if he was going to boot me from the program…

Which science writing program did you attend? Why did you choose that one? What are your best experiences there?

I graduated from the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program – one intense year, focused on producing stories, and with a seriously strong internship program. I knew going in that I would throw everything I had at those nine, short months, because when would I ever have an opportunity like that again? It was the only program I applied to because it seemed like such a good fit.

I was right about that — my year among the redwoods in science writing bootcamp is one of the best I’ve had. Numerous sleepy mornings and crises of confidence, combined with world-class instruction, high-profile internships, and more support than I ever could have hoped for helped me emerge with a foundation in something – science journalism – that I not only tolerated but couldn’t get enough of.

As for the high points? Hard to pick! Instructors, classmates, internships…goodness. Instructors because they really are The Best – generous with their time and feedback, even while holding full-time jobs, and incredibly accomplished in the areas they teach. Classmates because of our varied backgrounds and similar, burning motivations. From interviewing crab fishermen on the docks, to nervously applying for internships, covering our first conference, going spelunking for class, learning the secret to writing features on deadline — we went through quite a bit together. It’s exciting to see what they’re up to now, and I’m enjoying getting to know the current class as well.

Internships might be tops on the list, though. We plunged right in, and dammit, I was going to extract every last bit of on-the-job training that I could. On my first day reporting for the Santa Cruz Sentinel (before classes had even started), my editor sent me out to cover an intimidating, coastal cliff-climbing accident. Everyone ended up ok, and I quickly found out that I could handle those sorts of assignments.

I left the program with many connections, some really good friends, and somewhere around 70 published stories.

Oh I just thought of another one. Reporting my feature for Rob’s class took me into the field on a day-long chase with biologists hoping to catch and collar a mountain lion. There’s no substitute for the textures that kind of reporting adds to a story. Admittedly, I was lucky – we did get the cat, in the end.

What professional experience you have had so far – publications, internships, jobs? Feel free to include a bunch of links here! What is your current job?

I’m on staff covering astronomy (and a bit of physics) for Science News, based in Washington, D.C. My internship there began a few weeks after UCSC ended – and involved a quick, cross-country drive with my two pups. Soon, I was hired out of my internship to write about that enormous chunk of stuff that isn’t part of our home planet.

During the school year, I interned with the Santa Cruz Sentinel (ten weeks, prolonged by freelancing during the winter break); the San Jose Mercury News (also 10 weeks, prolonged by working through spring break); and Nature, writing news for print and the website (unprolongable because I had to get to D.C.!). I also published pieces with New Scientist, ScienceNOW, Santa Cruz Magazine, Nature Medicine, covered planetary sciences for the American Geophysical Union’s blog during the winter 2010 meeting, and wrote a guest blog for Scientific American.

I still get anxious every time something goes online or appears in print. We dancers always say that if you’re not nervous, it’s because you’re not invested in the performance, and to me, every piece of writing is a bit like a performance, on deadline. There’s no substitute for being ready once the audience is there, the stage manager calls places, the music starts, and you’re in the wings. But there is less rehearsal time and a bit less control over the final product.

Do you write a personal or science blog ? How much do you use social media networks, e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, Tumblr, Pinterest, Flickr, YouTube etc., to promote your own and your friends’ work, to learn and to connect?

Overall, I think I need to work on my social media skills. Yup.

I don’t have a personal blog, but I did contribute quite a bit to our UCSC class blog. At first, I was very intimidated by blogging – like, who cares what I think about anything? – and ended up writing my first piece about losing my Twitter virginity. Until we had to sign up for Twitter during Erika Check Hayden’s social media class, I’d avoided the site. That turned around. It might be worth noting that my Twitter handle, @slugnads, is a portmanteau of the UCSC mascot and the only nickname I’ve ever had.

And as the year went on, I discovered that I enjoyed the challenge of finding something interesting to write about that I could color in a bit. I even found a mini-niche in quirky, image-driven pieces, which is something I’d like to explore a bit more (it’s just dang fun, and lets me indulge my more whimsical side).

Now, I still find it kind of hard to promote my own work using social media. So I pick the pieces that I think are worth sharing. When I come across something that moves me or is particularly well done, I happily share that. And I do find many good tips and stories from social media sites.

Apart from writing, do you also do other aspects of science communication, e.g., podcasts, video, art/illustration, photography, infographics, or do you do any coding, web design and programming?

Well, the UCSC program is very multimedia intensive during the spring quarter. We produce podcasts, slideshows, and videos, as well as work with the artists illustrating our feature stories. My classmates produced some really outstanding pieces in these areas (including this video, this video, and this podcast). We take a course in the spring that introduces us to data viz (things like this), which is something I need to think about getting into a bit more because it reminds me of everything I loved about being a scientist.

Sadly, I haven’t managed to banish the A/V gremlin that has been following me around since 1997, when a website I designed for a physics course erased itself the day before my final project was due (I also tarnish silver jewelry, am poison oak and mosquito-resistant, and seem to data-jam my phone, so it might just be me…). I love working with the medium(s), but the constant crashing/cameras v. computer smackdown/general fustercluckity renders these endeavours somewhat less than efficient.

But that being said, how can you argue with the opportunity to share a mountain lion’s pissed off snarls in a podcast? I can’t. I do love photography, and I did manage to capture the San Jose Mercury News-bots on video (a labor of love). So I’m optimistic.

How do you see the current and future science media ecosystem, how it differs from the past, and what role will new, young science communicators like yourself play in building it and making it the best it can be?

I hope the predictions for magazines and newspapers aren’t as dire as everyone says they are. Am I a bit old-fashioned? Maybe. But there’s something irreplaceable about turning pages and smelling that freshly-printed aroma, even if newsprint-fingerprints end up stamped all over the door frame.

On the other hand, you can see that I’m quite link-happy. Embedding videos, slide shows, podcasts, links, infographics like this hypnotic map – that stuff adds tons of value that is impossible to incorporate in print. You should see the Science News iPad edition – it’s gorgeous. That backlit screen, the photos, swiping and scrolling – I need to get an iPad.

But even with all its merits, I think the web can be a treacherous landscape. It enables somewhat more casual reporting and writing, which can be both good (more colorful and accessible stories) and bad (first-draft-style typos and errors, things masquerading as reporting). The Guardian just published an interview with Sergey Brin in which he raises some alarming points about the convoluted state of freedom on the web. And the recent success of crowd-funding for Matter suggests that readers are ready for reliable sources of creative, in-depth reporting. It’s all kind of mixed up, and I think it’s too soon to tell where the pieces will land.

Thank you!

====================

Previously in this series:

Kristina Ashley Bjoran
Emily Eggleston
Erin Podolak
Rachel Nuwer
Hannah Krakauer
Rose Eveleth