The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing (CASW), in cooperation with NASW, this week launched a new fundraising campaign to provide travel fellowships for international science writers attending the 10th World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ2017) scheduled for October 26-30 in San Francisco.
Featured news
The winner of the 2016 Diane McGurgan Service Award is longtime NASW volunteer Lynne Lamberg, as announced by president Laura Helmuth on October 29 during ScienceWriters2016.
Nov. 16, 2016From cutting down forests to polluting air, trashing oceans, and even leaving junk in space, humans are writing a new chapter in Earth’s history, David Biello asserts in The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age. Scientists have dubbed this new age the Anthropocene. “The choices made this century will help set the course of the entire planet for at least tens of thousands of years,” Biello contends. There’s still time, he argues, for humans to be a force for good.
Writers know that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a.k.a. Obamacare, overhauled the rules for medical insurance. What they might not know is that the ACA’s overhaul also changes some tax laws. Julian Block provides details.
Our brains are willing to bend a few rules or even cheat to make our expectations match reality, Erik Vance writes in Suggestible You: The Curious Science of Your Brain's Ability to Deceive, Transform, and Heal. This behavior affects our response to medications, surgery, acupuncture, placebos, hypnosis, and other traditional and alternative treatments. It helps account for false memories. It also enables us to take an active role in healing ourselves, Vance asserts, reporting findings from his readings and interviews of researchers at the NIH and other universities, Christian Science practitioners, New Age healers, and even a witch doctor in Mexico.
Thank you to the 700 members who took the time to participate in the recent votes on the NASW bylaws. The final vote, shown below, is that the general housekeeping updates to the bylaws overwhelmingly passed. The proposed Article IV amendment, which would have allowed any NASW member to be an officer, did not pass. The most important takeaway, however, is not which option prevailed, but how close the margin was.
This book’s title, The Left Brain Speaks, The Right Brain Laughs, serves as a glaring example of oversimplification, its author, Ransom Stephens, asserts. The brain’s left and right lobes compete, collaborate, and provide more redundancy than scientists thought until recently, he says. He explores how the brain works in commonplace and quirky ways, examining what goes on when we have “eureka” moments, immerse ourselves in the lives of fictional characters, and know when something’s “right.” Stephens focuses on creativity throughout. “We only get a few decades of awareness,” he asserts. “We should put our heads to work.”
The annual meeting of the National Association of Science Writers and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing ends today in San Antonio, Texas, and our conference travel fellows have been filing reports on many of the panels and other sessions. You can read their coverage now on our past events page. Watch that page for more updates as they become available, and start making plans now for the World Conference of Science Journalists in San Francisco next October.