Blogathon time again
I’m back for the WordCount May Blogathon again this year. Daily blogging each day in May was both challenging and fun last year, and I’m hoping that I’m up to the challenge again this year. More details about my partners in posting soon. This time last year I wondered if I’d manage to post each [...]
Ada Lovelace Day– science teachers and Mrs. Findley
I’m participating in Ada Lovelace Day, saluting women in technology and science. I thought about writing about a particular researcher, but I decided instead to single out the often anonymous heroines (and heroes) of science and technology, the teachers who inspire young minds to pursue science careers. Though their names aren’t remembered by Nobel or [...]
Science museums: lab rats or researchers?
It depends on where you visit, but maybe a little of both. This NY Times article from last week tries to distill apart the complex reaction of visitors within the vessel of a science museum and sniff the ether of what’s to come. A science museum is a kind of experiment. It demands the most elaborate equipment: Imax [...]
The role of great sources
Though my writing life ranges from writing health stories for teens to writing about research topics and careers issues for scientists, the sources that I speak with for the former type of article generally don’t overlap with those for the latter. Until now. Last spring, I was working on an article about the common cold, [...]
Science Writing Resources (Friday follow-up)
Last Friday afternoon, I spoke on a panel about media careers for the “What Can You Be With A Ph.D.?” Symposium held at NYU Langone Medical Center. I talked to several students and postdocs after the program and wanted to pull together a list of resources related to careers in science writing. It was a [...]
Encouraging (women) scientists to opt in to academia
It’s an interesting week to talk about women in science. On Tuesday afternoon, I listened in on the end of a White House panel discussion about Title IX and its impact on women in both athletics and science and technology. Scientific American also reported on a new government study about the state of women in [...]
Data and writing– unpublished or unpublishable?
Scientists, writers and even science writers share a common plight: there’s always a subset of their work that lies fallow, tucked in a notebook, lingering on a hard drive. The question remains whether that work should remain on a dusty shelf, or whether it actually belongs among “the published.” When I was in graduate school, [...]
Science, Journalism and Inform-vs-Educate
Almost 6 years ago, I attended a conference of scientists and communicators about issues of communicating global warming to the general public. At that point I was still wearing my graduate student hat and was still learning the ropes of science writing. The issues related to global warming and the public were different– this was [...]
Daily blogging like daily exercise
So, it’s day 31, and I made it! I’ve decided that daily blogging is like daily exercise– it’s much easier to keep going when you’re supported by a group of other people with the same goals and mission. So, I’m grateful for the support of my fellow bloggers and the new friends I’ve made along [...]
Connecting science and life: a guest post by Jennifer L.W. Fink
Before I was a writer, before I was a mom of four boys – before I was the mother of one boy – I was a nurse. Guess I’ve always been interested in science. In high school, I loved biology and advanced biology. In college, I studied anatomy, physiology, pathophysiology, microbiology, chemistry, biochemistry, nutrition and [...]
