If you’ve ever fantasized about building a satellite in your basement and sending it into orbit, this is the book for you. Sandy Antunes spent two years building his Project Calliope satellite. In DIY Instruments for Amateur Space, the third of a planned four-book series, Antunes discusses what you can measure in orbit.
Science writing news
It's becoming a freelance economy, which means trading a certain paycheck for the uncertainty of sending out invoices and waiting by the mailbox for your payments. Writing for CNNMoney, Anne Fisher channels advice from Freelancers Union founder Sara Horowitz: "Send each invoice by snail mail, email, and with a phone message saying the invoice was sent," Horowitz advises. "If this is what you do on Round One, let them imagine what Round Two and Three will be like."
Congratulations to the recipients of this year's Laura Van Dam Travel Fellowships. Estrella Burgos, Dan Keller, Phil McKenna, and Eric Niiler will each receive $2,500 in travel support to attend the 8th World Conference of Science Journalists, June 24-28 in Helsinki, Finland.
Writers sued for libel in English and Welsh courts will find it easier to defend themselves under a law passed last week, Sarah Lyall reports in the New York Times. The measure restricts "libel tourism" and enacts protection for "responsible publication on matters of public interest." But it does little to address costs, Daniel Cressey writes in Nature. Also: Nick Cohen honors Simon Singh for his role in the change.
Journalism educator Jeremy Rue takes a scalpel to the New York Times and its Pulitzer-winning feature, Snow Fall, describing how designers used techniques like animation to propel the story: "The opening animated images set the mood of the project in a similar fashion to background music setting the mood of a movie. It creates an atmosphere from the very moment the project opens. It’s important that these videos are silent and repetitive."
Congratulations to NASW members David Bjerklie and Lisa Winter, recipients of the 2013 Council for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings' fellowships to attend the 63rd Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany.
The Brothers Tsarnaev: Can science explain why? ACES high? Traumatic brain injury? Immature youth? "Cowardly knock-off jihadis?" Docs speak out on the medical aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. MSM and social media were often wrong, wrong, wrong. What can be done about that? Churnalism, a new free tool for detecting plagiarism — and churnalism.
It's a common problem for freelancers. You send out a well-crafted pitch to an appropriate editor at an appropriate publication. Then you wait. And wait. Why doesn't the editor answer? Even if the answer is "no," at least it gives you a chance to find a better home for your story. Monya Baker lists possible reasons in a post on a companion blog to the NASW-funded Science Writers Handbook, available for immediate shipping from the NASW Bookstore.
Longtime Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales wishes to apologize to the editors he has vilified over the years: "I do recall sometimes feeling frustrated in my kill-the-editor campaign by the fact that every time I wanted to take a flame thrower to the copy desk, one of its tireless drones would find a hideous error I’d made in a story and save my ass." He praises one editor by name — and misspells his first and last names (now corrected).