Recognizing a red flag and following your gut when ethics is in question leaves a lot of science writers questioning what is or is not actually acceptable. Debates and anecdotes were encouraged during the session “Ethics in Today’s science writing landscape: A community conversation.” This plenary session kicked off the first of 17 sessions for the day, and more than 600 attendees showed up to watch two long-time freelance journalists square off.
Nov. 5, 2015Featured news
NASW member Elizabeth DeVita-Raeburn teamed up with her father, Vincent T. DeVita, M.D., a former director of the National Cancer Institute, to provide an insider’s perspective on decades of cancer research. In The Death of Cancer, they call for changes in delivery of cancer treatment in the U.S. Optimal care of people with cancer, they say, requires better-informed and less timid physicians, refocused national agendas, and fewer bureaucratic hurdles.
Science and journalism can change the world — or at least make an impact on it. On April 1, award-winning National Public Radio science reporter Richard Harris delivered that message at Virginia Tech's College of Engineering with the presentation “Using the tools of science and journalism to make a difference.”
The 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson put finishing touches on the so-called “Standard Model” of particle physics. In From the Great Wall to the Great Collider: China and the Quest to Uncover the Inner Workings of the Universe, Harvard mathematician Shing-Tung Yau and NASW member Steve Nadis describe plans to build a giant accelerator in China.
Readers eager to learn more about Ebola and its West Africa outbreak will find that information in the timely publication of the second edition of Carl Zimmer’s A Planet of Viruses. Zimmer also reports on the emergence of MERS, and provides updates on the influenzas, smallpox, and HIV.
On March 10, at a massive sound stage here in the heart of Los Angeles, Alex Trebek stared down three contestants on the game show "Jeopardy!" The legendary host has presided over the TV show for 31 years, and that day he read off the following clue, which also appeared on a blue screen behind him: This condition has doubled in the last 30 years in U.S. kids & is linked to increased risk for diabetes.