Articles

On science blogs this week: Catty

Meet a new human ancestor, maybe. Can 2 million year-old soft tissue be recovered from a fossil site? The politics of vaccination: Republican presidential candidates, HPV vaccine, and cervical cancer. Green fluorescent cats: These are not cute kitties, but genetic engineering a possible weapon against AIDS.

2011 Science in Society Award winners

Winners of the 2011 Science in Society Journalism Awards, sponsored by NASW, are Maryn McKenna for her book Superbug: The Fatal Menace of MRSA (Free Press). Katy Butler for her New York Times Magazine article, “My Father’s Broken Heart,” Barbara Moran for her Boston Globe Magazine article, “Power Politics,” Charles Homans, for his Columbia Journalism Review article, “Hot Air.”

On science blogs this week: Lightning

Cloudy and unfair. The latest controversial climate change paper led a journal editor to resign. Should he have retracted instead, or did his resignation force useful new analyses of the paper? Open The Open Notebook and see how science writers do their work. The 9-11 tenth anniversary: fewer health problems than forecast. Is a less scary world on the way?

Now Tweet This! Social media and the news

Not all social media are created equal for news purposes, three studies find. Rick Borchelt discusses them in "Scholarly pursuits: Academic research relevant to the workaday world of science writing." Excerpted from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.

Canadian science writers protest government’s muzzling of scientists

The party leaders vying to form the next Canadian government are being urged to “take off the muzzles” from federal scientists. Emily Chung explains the details in an excerpt from the Summer 2011 ScienceWriters.

On science blogs this week: Tremors

That Virginia earthquake caused the Earth to move the East coast, but wasn't a big deal after all. Is there a pattern in recent quakes? Tracking the Tweetquake: Tweets really did outrun the quake itself. Fossil news. The oldest life? The oldest placental mammal? How the Juramaia find affects dating mammal evolution, particularly primates. The latest trendy chef is Homo erectus. Maybe.

Get a handle on home-office deductions

Thinking of taking a home office as a tax deduction? Not so fast, says ScienceWriters columnist Julian Block. Just because you can walk 20 feet from your bedroom to your work area and conduct business in your bathrobe doesn’t mean the nook with the computer qualifies as a bona fide office. Excerpted from the Summer 2011 issue.

An update on copyright class actions

An appeals court has (for a second time) tried to reject settlement of a long-running U.S. Copyright class action suit over unauthorized use of freelance magazine articles in data bases. Meanwhile, if you have written for Canadian magazines or newspapers, you should check out terms of a Canadian class-action settlement for similar unauthorized use of freelance articles. For details, see this update from NASW member Jeff Hecht.

On science blogs this week: HIT & Hits

Big HITs: Health information technology is not a snore. Really. Chinese scientists to deflect Earth-threatening asteroid Apophis! The physics preprint server ArXiv at 20. Are physics and chemistry getting more popular because of television? The potential influence of the TV show Breaking Bad.

Science writing news