REGIONAL GROUPS

by Suzanne Clancy

New England

Suzanne Clancy

Mid-October turned out to be a spectacular science week for NESW. First, a trip to Deer Island on Oct. 14, organized by Ann Parson, gave members a chance to explore the country's second-largest sewage treatment facility. Then, on Oct. 17, the group enjoyed an evening with science journalist and author Richard Preston, best known for his chilling non-fiction book The Hot Zone. The program, co-sponsored by the MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies and Whitehead Institute, featured a talk by the author on how he combines news- and fiction- writing techniques to add interest and drama in his books and his articles in the New Yorker magazine. And on Oct. 19, NESW spent an evening with its own Marcia Bartusiak, who kicked off the tour for her new book, Einstein's Unfinished Symphony: Listening to the Sounds of Space-Time at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

In early December, NESW gathered for a special year-end fling at Masa, a restaurant in the South End whose food has been praised by the Boston Globe's Alison Arnett for its "southwestern air of sophistication." Quite possibly Masa has the longest copper bar this side of the Mississippi; it definitely serves up just about the best margarita in Boston-a "Masarita." The guest list included science-writer colleagues in town for MIT's Genes and Cells boot camp.

In early February, David Ropeik of the Harvard School of Public Health discussed the complexities of communicating risk to the public-everything from cell phones causing brain cancer to global threats of climate change. Previously an anchorman at WCVB-TV, in Boston, David is now director of risk communication at the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis.

Washington, DC

At DCSWA's February program, science writers pondered the public-health mantra "Early cancer detection saves lives." Translating the principle of early cancer detection into public health practice can be a tricky business. What happens when doctors diagnose and treat a cancer that never would have caused the patient any trouble? This type of overdiagnosis carries a significant monetary and emotional cost.

Three speakers discussed how best to deploy cancer screening technologies with the goal of limiting overdiagnosis. Participants were Dr. Barry Kramer of NIH's Office of Medical Applications of Research; Dr. Bernard Mansheim, senior vice president and chief medical officer of Coventry Health Care; and Dr. David Atkins of the Center for Practice and Technology Assessment at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

New York

Recent SWINY programs for NASW members and other science writers in the NYC metro area included a meet-the-book-editors event, the group's annual holiday party, and a master class on dietary supplements, cosponsored with the American Chemical Society.

At the book event, authors and editors shared their war stories of how they conceived, developed, and completed their projects, and discussed the role of agents. Participants included National Book Critics Circle's 2000 biography award nominee Robin Marantz Henig (The Monk in the Garden), Dennis Overbye (Einstein in Love), and Carl Zimmer (Parasite Rex), and editors Laura van Dam (Houghton Mifflin), Rick Kot (Penguin Putnam), and Stephen Morrow (Freepress, Simon & Schuster).

As part of the ACS's master class "Everything You Wanted to Know About Dietary Supplements But Are Too Cynical Too Ask," SWINY members heard presentations by Michael Pariza, Ph.D., director of the Food Research Institute, University of Wisconsin; Varro Tyler, Ph.D. Sc.D., dean emeritus of Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Lori Love, M.D. Ph.D., director of Clinical Research and Review Staff in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the FDA. Pariza is developing a fatty acid, conjugated linoleic acid, which, in randomized human studies, appears to help dieters lose fat and build lean muscle. Tyler specializes in pharmacognosy, the study of pharmacologically active substances in plants, and is the author of A Guide to Clinically Tested Herbal Products in the U.S. Market, Health Notes Review 7(4);279-287 (Winter 2000). Love developed a new voluntary surveillance system for reporting of adverse events associated with special nutritional products, including infant formulas and dietary supplements.

Georgia

In January, GASWA members visited Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum to see conservation and scientific research on a new collection of 10 Egyptian mummies acquired in 1999 from Canada's Niagara Falls Museum. The program began with a tour of the Carlos Museum's conservation laboratory, where the mummies are being restored.

Members heard Emory radiologist Heidi Hoffman, M.D., describe how she and radiology colleagues used advanced CT technology to conduct three-dimensional virtual tours of all 10 mummies. Hoffman shared a "fly-through" of the mummies that revealed details about mummification methods. Emory molecular geneticist Jeff Lell, Ph.D. described efforts to use DNA analysis to help determine whether one of the mummies might be the missing mummy Rameses I, the only royal mummy remaining outside of Egypt and founder of the Egyptian Rameside dynasty more than 3,000 years ago. Douglas C. Wallace, Ph.D., renowned for his research using DNA to trace the earliest origins of humans, is leading Emory's DNA mummy research.

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Suzanne Clancy is science writer at The Salk Institute, in La Jolla, CA. Send information on regional meetings and events to clancy@salk.edu.