Articles

Pearl/Mackenzie: The Book of Why

“You are smarter than your data,” Judea Pearl and NASW member Dana Mackenzie assert in The Book of Why: The New Science of Cause and Effect. “Data do not understand causes and effects,” they say. “Humans do.” Their book explores recent developments in the science of causal inference that make such understanding possible.

Groups request info on border stop cases

Are you a journalist who was stopped for extra border screening or had your device searched at the U.S. border at any point in your career? CPJ and RSF have been working to understand the scope of the problems. Read more and report any cases thru June.

From ScienceWriters: Can artificial intelligence beat fake news?

How are computer scientists building their army of virtual fact-checkers? What are their models of truth? And how close are we to entrusting their algorithms to cull fake news? Popular Science tried out an automated fact-checker, using a piece of fake news, and compare its process to a human fact-checker.

Dennis Meredith: The Neuromorphs

It’s 2050. Lifelike neuromorphic robots provide domestic, professional, even sexual services for their human owners. Then a rogue engineer programs robots to murder and rob their owners. Dennis Meredith’s sixth sci-fi thriller, The Neuromorphs, explores possibilities and drawbacks of AI. Meredith's nonfiction books include Explaining Research, a guide for scientists and science writers.

From ScienceWriters: SciLine provides journalists with scientific expertise

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) announces the launch of SciLine, a new service that will provide journalists with high-quality scientific expertise and context — on demand and on deadline.

Meredith Wadman: Vaccine Race

The story of development of vaccines against rubella and other childhood diseases in the 1960s pits a daring young biologist against his world-famous boss, testing that used prisoners, intellectually disabled children, and other disenfranchised subjects, political roadblocks that nearly derailed the research, and other elements of high drama. Meredith Wadman covers it all in The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease.

Heather Hansen: Wildfire

To research and write Wildfire: On the Front Lines with Station 8, Heather Hansen followed the crew of a fire station near her Boulder CO home for two years. She went through training and testing to become a certified wildland firefighter, and joined the crew for emergency calls and planned burns. She provides here an insider’s view of the challenges of addressing increasingly frequent, severe, and costly conflagrations.

From ScienceWriters: Writers expound on taxes

Writers will soon be facing the deadline of IRS 1040 forms, an annual chore that is one of the few constants in our continually changing society. In recognition of that shared ordeal, here are some quotations (invariably negative; seldom positive) about America's tax system that bring to vibrant life a dry subject that has long been the source of fierce political contention.

Crume: Environmental Health in the 21st Century

An estimated 60,000 or more chemicals on the market have never been safety tested. Many of the roughly 2,000 new chemicals introduced every year are used daily by the general public. New technologies, such as production of nanomaterials, may contaminate the environment in novel and unexpected ways. We often learn about toxicity of various substances only after they cause problems, Richard Crume reports in Environmental Health in the 21st Century: From Air Pollution to Zoonotic Diseases.

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