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 [...]
In search of manatees
Though my current home is in the Big Apple, I was born and raised in the Sunshine State and return on occasion to visit my family. This time our trip south also included an animal-based day trip to Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park in search of manatees. In the area around Crystal River, particularly this [...]
A Glimpse of our Space Future
The American Museum of Natural History‘s new exhibit, Beyond Planet Earth, which opened last Saturday through August 12, 2012, provides a window through the past and an optimistic glimpse at the future of space exploration. As I moved through the historical portion at a press preview last Tuesday, Russian spacecraft pinged, and news reports captured [...]
Seeing the forest for the Birch reduction
This post is a part of the Chemistry Carnival hosted by Chemical & Engineering News in celebration of the International Year of Chemistry. Check there later in the week to see what others have blogged or look for the #chemcarnival hashtag on Twitter. I spent nearly a decade of my life doing organic chemistry. [...]
Pondering medium and “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams”
I’ll admit a kind of mixed relationship with 3D movies. Done well, I love experiencing the depth, but it seems to me that 3D should be an artistic choice for its ability to convey an experience, rather than just a way to make sure that people see a movie in the movie theater. Cave of [...]
A ruler among science books
Though I’d read the excerpt adapted for the New York Times magazine, picking up The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee, with its regal and imposing title, was just a little intimidating. But open the first page and the language propels and compels the reader to follow the disease, its [...]
A leaky pipeline postmortem
I was just a couple of years into my chemistry Ph.D., when a good friend forwarded me a copy of an article about this MIT report: A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. I wasn’t surprised when I read about the inequalities in resources and that many of the women faculty had felt [...]
Stop, Think and Listen
So, who is your audience? My whole workday can be focused around that simple yet complicated question. As I’m crafting a stream of words for an article, I’m lining them up against a mental picture, a mini-dossier, of the person will read them. On any given day, I might spend my morning writing sentences for [...]
Science at the Circus
We finally went to see the Big Apple Circus last week before they finished up their run at Lincoln Center. Though I’d been to larger 3-ring circus performances, I love the intimacy of this single-ring show, where you can connect with the facial expressions of the clowns and marvel at the strength, talent, and skill [...]
Snow: the marvel of frozen water
From my unplowed street in New York City last week, two feet of beautiful fluffy white stuff morphed into frustration if you actually needed to leave the house. But secretly snow still reduces me to an 8-year-old child every time I see a few flakes. I grew up in Florida where I rarely saw a [...]
