Desk Notes Newsletter, November 17, 2021
Inside the November 2021 edition: Our Summer Diversity Fellows share their experiences, #SciWri21 coverage, meet a new member, & more.
Featured news
Diversity Summer Fellows advance careers and field with NASW support
Earlier this year, NASW members Delger Erdenesanaa, Alex Ip, and Claudia López Lloreda, were awarded Diversity Summer Fellowships to help offset the costs associated with pursuing science communication internships over the summer. Read about their experiences and the work they produced.
Meet new member Tove Danovich
Tove K. Danovich, a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore. and a new addition to the NASW community, shares #WhySciWri in this short Q&A.
Lina Zeldovich—The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth
Innovative upcycling methods can transform human excrement into fertilizer, electricity, and biofuels, Lina Zeldovich reports in The Other Dark Matter: The Science and Business of Turning Waste into Wealth. Fecal transplants can benefit people with C difficile infections and other disorders. Sewage treatment plants, Zeldovich predicts, soon may be known as resource recovery facilities.
Timothy J. Jorgensen—Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life
An advanced arm and hand prosthesis allows an amputee to hold and control movement of a muffin, egg, soda can, and even a wine glass. It soon may be possible for a prosthesis-wearer to enjoy the sensation of petting a dog, Timothy Jorgensen reports. In Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life, he explores electricity from a biological perspective, detailing its role in health.
Mark A. Marchand: The Answer From Surveyor 3
Suppose Lee Harvey Oswald was not alone when he shot and killed President John Kennedy from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas in 1963. Did Kennedy’s plan to send humans to the moon trigger his assassination? In his novel, The Answer from Surveyor 3, Mark A. Marchand provides an out-of-this-world explanation for questions conspiracy theorists still debate.
Making the Invisible Visible: Challenges to explaining deep tech
As one of the final sessions of ScienceWriters2021 (#SciWri21), the "Making the Invisible Visible: Challenges to explaining deep tech" session addressed how journalists and science writers can explain “invisible” science findings.
Desk Notes Newsletter, October 21, 2021
Inside the October 2021 edition: ScienceWriters2021 conference coverage, #SciWriAwards winners, meet a new member, & more.
Brendan Borrell—The First Shots: The Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine
“Researchers who run human clinical trials often say that mice lie and monkeys exaggerate, but everyone watching the progress of the Moderna vaccine was eager to hear the reports from the animal world,” Brendan Borrell relates. He interviewed 150 sources for his gripping in-the-moment narrative, The First Shots: the Epic Rivalries and Heroic Science Behind the Race to the Coronavirus Vaccine.