In search of cranes
After 6 months in Tennessee, I’m still a little overwhelmed by the number of beautiful overlooks and natural spaces within a short drive. So we’re already compiling a mile-long mental list of places we’ll want to visit, particularly to take a peek at the various animals that live there. But the tricky thing about going [...]
PitchPublishProsper.com: my other online project
Over the last few months, I’ve been spending the bulk of my blog-related time on a new project: the website for The Science Writers’ Handbook. The book, which will publish in April, is a collaboration involving more than 30 science writers. I contributed one chapter to the book about “The Diversity of Science Writing.” I [...]
My alternate Sandy reality: a love letter from a former New Yorker
I am just under 3 months and just over 800 miles removed from Hurricane Sandy. Watching the news, I’m overwhelmed with relief, distressed for our friends and layered with a veneer of survivor’s guilt. We couldn’t have known, but we made a lucky escape in our move to Tennessee. A part of me longs to [...]
The Nobel Prize and Fuzziness Between Chemistry and Biology
“When you get into University, you learn that Biology is really Chemistry, Chemistry is really Physics, Physics is really Math.”* Many years ago, a friend sent me a version of that quote among a whole host of other quotes that he’d collected over the years. When I first read it as a chemistry undergraduate, I [...]
The Science of Monet
Before we left New York City, we finally made it to the New York Botanical Garden. What finally kicked us into gear to make the trip was a special exhibition about Monet’s Garden at Giverny (It closes October 21). Though Monet can sometimes loom on the edge of a giant Impressionist cliche, I’ve always been [...]
Webb of Science moves South
Summer turned out to be a little crazy at Webb of Science. My husband got a new job, and we’ve moved South to Chattanooga, Tennessee. So my blog needed to go on hiatus, and I’ll be shifting my focus a bit. Instead of hearing about New York City, you’re more likely to get a slice [...]
Notes on the leaky pipeline: realism or disillusionment? [Updated]
[Update in italics: May 3, 2012] After I wrote this post PLoS ONE published a paper that fits nicely with the points I was making.] Beryl Benderly’s blog post over at Science Careers caught my eye yesterday because she mentions a 2008 report from the UK about the retention of women chemistry PhDs in academia. As [...]
Cocktail hour in the Facebook age
Whether you’re a scientist, a writer, or a science communicator, most of us spend some time at conferences, or more appropriately noshing on cheese, fruit and other snacks, and sipping free wine or beer at the end of the day. And then depending on how well you know the other people in the room, you [...]
Science Communication Without Borders: reflections on ScienceOnline 2012
I’m hardly a newbie to science communication. But last week was my first trip to ScienceOnline. The energy buzzing around that conference for 72 hours made me flash back a decade to when I was still in a chemistry Ph.D. program but desperate to reboot my career without leaving science behind. At that point, I [...]
