Suppose wrinkles in space-time could open gateways to other universes. That’s fantasy, but fun to contemplate, says Dennis Meredith, who explores this premise in his latest novel, Wormholes. Meredith self-published the book in both adult and young adult versions, hoping to tap both markets.
Science writing news
The winners of the 2013 Science in Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by the National Association of Science Writers, are: In the Book category, David Quammen; in the Science Reporting category, Douglas Fox; in the Longform category, Patricia Callahan, Sam Roe and Michael Hawthorne; in the Science Reporting for a Local or Regional Audience category, Hillary Rosner; and in the Commentary or Opinion category, Christie Aschwanden.
Sarah Kolb-Williams titles her post "10 Ways to Fake a Professional Edit," but it's really more about using professional editing techniques to improve your own copy. For example, she warns to be mindful of the difference between hyphens, en-dashes, and em-dashes: "Some authors use hyphens as a catch-all dash-but as you can see here, the hyphen confounds. There’s no such thing as a 'dash-but,' and it takes a few runs through the previous sentence to catch the syntax."
Poynter's Roy Peter Clark is a speaker at ScienceWriters2013, and his new book How to Write Short is prompting discussion of journalism in the Twitter age. CJR's Trevor Quirk seems to lament the changes but Carlos Lozada in the Washington Post writes that Clark "rejoices in the quality short writing he sees everywhere, on Facebook and Twitter feeds, in text messages and Match.com profiles."
Thirty-six years after its launch, Voyager 1 officially leaves the solar system, and Tabitha M. Powledge rounds up some commentary on the spacecraft's conception and construction, and how it manages to stay in contact with mission control after more than three decades. Also, the latest from Mars, where Curiosity once again has not discovered signs of life, and what that means for the future of space exploration. Plus: What's entomogaphy and why does it have a blog?
Popular Science has shut off its website comments, citing research on their dangers as justification. PopSci's Suzanne LaBarre ties uncivil comments to "a politically motivated, decades-long war on expertise [that] has eroded the popular consensus on a wide variety of scientifically validated topics." But Marie-Claire Shanahan says the studies weren't that solid. More: CJR, the Atlantic.
"The internet and other technology keeps us on insanely high alert, ultimately producing an effect where we attend to everything and we attend to nothing (deeply)," L.L. Barkat writes in a post that discusses overload's physiological effects and suggests ways of curbing the beast: "When you let yourself get carried away by the high-alert cycle and give in to its constant interruptions … it takes you about twenty-five minutes to fully return to your original project."
When the Wisconsin legislative joint finance committee inserted a motion into the proposed state budget that would have banned the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism from maintaining its offices on campus — and would forbid any university employee from working with the center — the university and journalists pushed back, and won. Deborah Blum tells the story in the Summer 2013 ScienceWriters.
About $30,000, in the case of Jeff Chu, a Fast Company editor and newly published author: "This is the first time I've run these numbers," Chu writes. "I didn't realize I've spent more than $30,000 on this thing. It hasn't become a best-seller, and who knows if I'll ever get a royalty check? Even after you factor in my advance (after, of course, my agent's cut and those pesky taxes), it's doubtful I'm doing better financially than if I'd just stayed at my day job."