We often want to know the history of something (cars, relationships, pets) before we invest in it. Learning about the past helps us understand how things, people, and ideas got to where they are today. But often the history or story behind an idea gets left out of science writing. From the Fall 2011 ScienceWriters.
Science writing news
Can social science research be trusted? The Open Notebook has a birthday. Here comes the HPV vaccine again. ScienceOnline2012 registration begins next week!
ScienceWriters2011: reports, photos, tweets. The malaria vaccine interim report. Should science journos let sources fact-check their stuff? The Scientist rises from the dead, hurrah!
Reports are coming in quickly from the ScienceWriters2011 conference in Flagstaff, Ariz. You can read the first seven reports on our conference reports page. They include "Crossing over to non-science publications," "You're not going to print that, are you? Handling difficult interviewees," and "Exploring longform narrative story structure." More reports will be posted on Monday. Also, it's time to start thinking about ScienceWriters2012.
Field trips on forest and range science management near our Flagstaff, Ariz., meeting site, workshops on audio and video production, and a welcome reception are among today's highlights at "a meeting for science writers, by science writers." If you are unable to attend, you can follow the Twitter hashtag #sciwri11 or just check this page, where Purdue University is aggregating tweets. Watch this space over the weekend for further reports.
The Scientist is dead. The Bolshoi Simulation: It's Life, the Universe, and Everything. Except Life.
The latest on early human migration to Australia and Southeast Asia. The latest on what a mongrel species Homo sapiens is. Bioethics and Aborigine genetic research. 50 reasons not to believe in evolution. Nearly mind-reading and somewhat spooky: Capturing images of what the brain is seeing. Best video of the week: The NASA satellite that fell to earth. Not.
DON'T PANIC, but Microorganisms R Us. Gut bacteria govern the brain and behavior, mice say. Yogurt and the Mind-Body Problem. My.microbes wants your microbes. The Encyclopedia of Life is reborn: 700,000 species and counting.
NASW Treasurer Ron Winslow, the New York-based deputy bureau chief for health and science and a veteran medical reporter at the Wall Street Journal, has been awarded the 2011 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting. Winslow was cited for the “exceptional breadth, precision and clarity of his coverage about how technological innovation is transforming the world of medicine.”