Yup. So the battle is uphill and science writers are in the front lines. I do know words like “antibodies” and “herd immunity,” but as a biomedical writer, I write well about astronomy. I know this isn’t exactly what AG is saying, but it’s all I have to say: last week, I got my […]
I do seem to keep referring to Freeman Dyson, even writing whole posts about him. The reason, I think, is that I want to write a profile of him, even though 1) profiles of him have been done and done and done, the most recent being a full-blown biography; and 2) he’s way above my […]
This subject is dear to me at the moment: I’ve been working forever on a short, cheap news story on the National Security Agency. One thing I’m learning — or I think I’m learning, with this stuff you can’t be sure — is more or less what AG is saying, that an internet without back doors […]
The sidewalk astronomer – usually a star-haunted amateur setting up a personal telescope on city sidewalks for both money and love – is familiar with doubt. Mr. Tregent, 1856: “Sometimes when I have been exhibiting, the parties have said it was all nonsense and a deception, for the star was painted on the glass. If […]
Sept 2 to 6 We’ve been spoiled by gluts of gorgeous hi-res Hubble photos of spiral galaxies and nebulae, but it wasn’t always that easy to see off this planet. This week, guest poster Jeff Kanipe unearthed the compelling mystery behind the first public glimpse of Arcturus at the 1933 worlds fair. Erik explained why […]
August 26 – 30 What is a writer to do, wonders guest Laura Dattaro, when she realizes that all the members of JPL’s Curiosity team are, every single one of them, women? Point it out? Pretend she’s not surprised? Shrug, because why not? A young immigrant woman gets sick of her work conditions, enlists the […]
Physicists, like the ancient Greeks, like to gossip about their gods. A few days ago, three physicists* were talking on Twitter** about a review by a fourth physicist, Freeman Dyson, of a biography of one of these gods, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and about his war with another one, John Archibald Wheeler. Physicist #1: Oppenheimer did […]
Ann: In the last year or more or so, science writers have had Twitterfights with a culture/media writer, a nonfiction writer, and a script writer. After the latest fight another science writer, the wise and civilized Dan Vergano of USA Today, Twitter-messaged me that he wished these fights would stop because they reinforced the walls […]
