2010…
Could East Antarctica be headed for big melt?
Science, 25 June 2010
The Orangeburg Scarp, a band of crusty sediment teeming with plankton fossils, runs from Florida to Virginia under tobacco fields, parking lots, shopping centers, and Interstate 95. It marks an ancient shoreline where waves eroded bedrock 3 million years ago. That period saw carbon dioxide levels and temperatures that scientists say could recur by 2100. Evidence at Orangeburg suggests that sea levels then could have been up to 35 meters higher than present—much higher than would have been expected. So where could all of that melt water have come from?
The insanity virus
Discover, June 2010
Scientists have long puzzled over the fact that people born under the signs of Aquarius or Pisces (roughly February to March) are more likely to grow up to become schizophrenic. It’s only a small increase in risk—just 5 to 8 percent—but it’s been demonstrated in over 200 studies worldwide, and the pattern is reversed in the southern hemisphere, as though it really does somehow depend on season. A small group of scientists now believe they have the answer. Schizophrenia, they say, is triggered by a virus. What’s more surprising is that we all carry it.
Expedition to Antarctica
National Geographic, January-March 2010
Ten blog entries tell the story of a 57-day voyage as scientists on board the Nathaniel B. Palmer, an icebreaker, investigate the impact of warming temperatures along the Antarctic Peninsula.
Computer learns to reason like Isaac Newton
Discover, January-February 2010
A newly developed artificial intelligence algorithm has enabled computers to analyze data from physics experiments and derive natural laws—including some of Isaac Newton’s well-known laws. The technology won’t put scientists out of a job, but it could allow for more efficient analysis of large volumes of scientific data in fields as diverse as astronomy and genomics.
Oldest animal fossils recovered
Discover, January-February 2010
A pair of recent finds have pushed the fossil record of animals back from 550 million years to roughly 850 million years. Molecular fossils and mineral imprints suggest that the first animal on Earth was none other than a sponge—or sometime like one.
Pollution at the ends of the Earth
Science News for Kids, 6 January 2010
No roads lead to Kuujjuaq. You can only reach this village, high in the Canadian Arctic, by boat or plane. This place might seem far away from the big problems of big cities, like water pollution and air pollution. But pretty little Kuujjuaq, with its clear skies and crystal streams has an invisible pollution problem that rivals any city. Long-term studies of children born in this region are revealing the ongoing toll of persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs and polybrominated flame retardants—even years after these compounds were banned in most countries. The chemicals continue to flow into the Arctic from thousands of miles away.
2009…
Sweet dreams
New Scientist, 27 December 2009
Brain imaging studies suggest that even when artificial sweeteners fool our conscious senses, they still don’t fool our brains. Aftertaste may be part of the problem. Researchers are hard at work designing a new generation of noncaloric sweeteners that might well avoid aftertaste—and for once, actually fool the brain.
Letting molecules do the work
Science News for Kids, 16 December 2009
Here—put on this white bunny suit. And these slippers. And the hair net, please. And I almost forgot—and no farting allowed, OK? Welcome to the molecular foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where nano-scientists are teaching molecules to arrange themselves. If the science of directed self-assembly works out, it could lead to new generations of cheaper solar cells and silicon chips.
California’s sinking delta
The Christian Science Monitor, 2 December 2009
People living and farming on the Sacramento River Delta face an unsettling truth: This land, which some families have farmed for four generations, is sinking. Parts of the Delta now lie as far as 20 feet below sea level, and continue to sink up to an inch per year. All told, the Delta has exhaled over a billion tons of carbon dioxide since farmers settled here 150 years ago. The Delta provides a profound testament to the capacity of humans to change landscapes—but its example pales next to the Netherlands.
IBM unveils biggest brain simulation of all time
Popular Mechanics.com, 18 November 2009
This massive cortical simulation consisted of 1.6 billion virtual neurons, run on one of the world’s fastest supercomputers—the 147,456-processor Blue Gene /P supercomputer. At the current rate of supercomputer growth, the team estimates that they’ll have enough computing power to build a simulation the size of the full human cortex by 2019. Sounds impressive—but here’s the catch: That super-supercomputer will devour up to a gigawatt of electricity—about equal to a nuclear power plant, with an annual power bill of $1 billion. The take home message is that energy consumption, as much as anything else, may ultimately determine what we can and can’t accomplish with computers.
The time machine inside your head
New Scientist, 24 October 2009 (COVER STORY)
Neuroscientists have long debated the nature of time—does our brain experience it as a smoothly flowing river, or a sequence of snapshots? And does time really slow down when we’re frightened? People have gone to great lengths to answer these questions—including dropping nervous volunteers from a 10-story tower.
Thinking machine
Discover, October 2009
People admire the brain for many reasons, but its most amazing attribute may be its energy efficiency. The human brain runs on just 20 watts of power—about equal to the dim light bulb behind the pickle jar in your refrigerator. By comparison, a digital computer with the same processing power would devour at least 10 megawatts of power—equal to a small hydroelectric power plant. A few engineers are trying to emulate the brain’s efficiency. Doing it will mean forgetting everything that we’ve learned about building computers over the last 60 years.
[Selected for publication in The Best Technology Writing 2010, Yale University Press.]
The brain may not be fooled by sugar substitutes
Los Angeles Times, 31 August 2009
Food manufacturers have gotten so good at using artificial sweeteners that we often can’t tell the difference between zero-calorie foods and the real thing. But a recent spate of brain imaging studies suggests that even when our conscious senses are fooled, our brain is not. Researchers are busy debating what it might mean to people who simply want to keep an eye on their calories and lose a few pounds.
On the fence
Conservation, July-September 2009
The three-meter fence surrounding Addo Park in South Africa is credited with saving one of the largest elephant populations in the region from being hunted by extinction. But the fence has produced more subtle knock-on effects. Confinement is subjecting these pachyderms to a slow-motion crisis, marked by overpopulation, soaring elephant-on-elephant homicide, and an increasing tilt in the mix of antelope and other species inhabiting the park. Problems like these are prompting some ecologists to wonder whether it’s time we reinvent the fence.
Dawn of the animals: Solving Darwin’s dilemma
New Scientist, 11 July 2009
Charles Darwin was troubled by the outcrops of shale which dotted the English countryside. Crumbling it in one’s hands revealed the spidery forms of fossil trilobites. But in older layers of rock, the fossils suddenly vanished. Darwin’s opponent, Roderick Impey Murchison, saw this sudden burst of complex life as the moment of Creation. “The innumerable facets of the eye of the earliest crustacean [reveal] the evidences of Omniscience,” he once wrote. According to Darwin’s theory, life should have evolved gradually. But a century of discoveries have only deepened Darwin’s dilemma: it seems that single-celled life existed on Earth for 3 billion years before complex creatures with eyes, legs, and gills suddenly appeared, 540 million years ago. Why did life sit idle for so long before blooming into the 100 facets of the trilobite eye?
Volcano watchers
Popular Mechanics, July 2009
As KLM flight 867 descended toward Anchorage on Dec 15, 1989, sulfur and smoke suddenly stung the pilots’ nostrils. Static electricity flashed across the windshield. Then all four of the 747’s engines whimpered to a halt. The jet turbines had ingested abrasive ash vomited forth by nearby Redoubt Volcano. Shards of volcanic glass melted, then re-solidified into lumps, choking the engines’ air supply. With 245 souls on board, the plane began to fall. The 27-year-old copilot nosed the plane into a dive in order to build enough airspeed to maintain the million-pound craft in a glide. She heroically guided the plane to safety that day. This incident—over in a matter of minutes—spawned the modern era of volcano monitoring.
Flu pandemics may lurk in frozen lakes
Wired.com, 20 May 2009
Some scientists believe that viruses have evolved to spend years or even centuries frozen in Arctic ice. It could allow influenza and other pathogens to hide away once their hosts develop resistance—then re-emerge after resistance is lost to trigger a new pandemic.
Driller thriller: Antarctica’s tumultuous past revealed
New Scientist, 11 April 2009
In the endless daylight of the Antarctic summer, drillers in hard hats work round the clock to extract a kilometer-long column of stone from the sea floor. They must hurry to finish their job before summer warming renders the sea ice too slushy to support the 40-ton drill rig. The stone core which they extract will provide a 19 million-year record of Antarctica’s ice–and crucial insights for predicting its future.
Invisible fossils of the first animals
Science News for Kids, 4 February 2009
Fossil imprints of the first animals have not survived the geologic tortures of being buried and cooked deep inside the Earth for 700 million years. But by analyzing molecular fossils, scientists can still find evidence of their existence, and make some educated guesses about what they looked like.
Redoubt Volcano’s rumblings threaten world’s third largest air cargo hub
Popular Mechanics.com, 4 February 2009
Redoubt’s last eruption, in 1989, lead to a dramatic emergency landing after KLM flight 867 strayed into a volcanic ash cloud. Scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory are monitoring Redoubt 24/7 in order to prevent a repeat.
Born in an acid bath
New Scientist, 17 January 2009
Researchers have long studied the origin of life under squeaky-clean laboratory conditions, lest some speck of bacterial contamination lead to an embarrassing false discovery. But a handful of scientists are now working to recreate the first cells in the filthy real world. Welcome to the sulfurous grime of Northern California’s Bumpass Hell.
The inner savant
Discover Presents: THE BRAIN, Winter 2009
Autistic savants have long fascinated us with their ability to multiply 9-digit numbers and render realistic drawings–despite being unable to read or sometimes even speak. One researcher believes that all of us possess these innate abilities deep within our brains. The challenge lies in accessing them.
2008…
The ‘micro’ enterprise that is chip repair
The Christian Science Monitor, 31 December 2008
Using a high-energy ion beam as a microscopic blowtorch, Rodrigo Alvarez slices and re-welds wires no wider than a red blood cell–a 7-hour procedure which he hopes will repair the computer chip which he spent 2 years designing.
Private life of the brain
New Scientist, 8 November 2008 (COVER STORY)
In 1953 a physician named Louis Sokoloff laid a 20-year-old college student onto a gurney, attached electrodes into his scalp, and inserted a syringe into the jugular vein in his neck. For 60 minutes the volunteer lay there and solved math problems. All the while Sokoloff monitored his brainwaves and checked levels of carbon dioxide in his blood. Sokoloff wanted to answer a fundamental question: how much energy the brain consumes during conscious thought. The surprising results of his experiment are only now beginning to make sense.
[Honorable Mention, American Society of Journalists and Authors, Award for Medical Journalism, 2009.]
Impostor fish
Conservation, October-December 2008 (COVER STORY)
Up to 50% of the fish sold in supermarkets and restaurants aren’t what the label says. Preventing consumers from knowing what they’re buying wreaks havoc on marine conservation efforts.
Icemen cometh
Discover, September 2008
A profound feeling of isolation sets in as the plane departs. The twin-engine Basler bounces on skis over the wind-pocked ice, bobs into the air, and shrinks to a dot in the sky. The four of us are on our own in Antarctica for the next few weeks, in the middle of a million square miles of ice, just 380 miles from the South Pole.
A sanctuary that’s 600 cats’ meows
The Christian Science Monitor, 31 July 2008
Life with 600 felines provides unexpected insights into the fundamental nature of Catdom.
Where rivers run uphill
Science News for Kids, 25 July 2008
Three scientists travel to Antarctica to explore a secret world hidden beneath a half mile of ice.
[2009 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Award for Excellence in Science Reporting for Children.]
Something’s shaking in Antarctica
ScienceNOW Daily News, 4 June 2008
Magnitude-7 ice quakes twice per day in West Antarctica… glaciologists are trying to understand what it all means.
Freeze-dried findings support a tale of two ancient climates
Science, 30 May 2008
The Olympus Range of Antarctica may be the oldest landscape on Earth; its naked buttresses and stony, Martian plateaus haven’t tasted liquid water in 13 million years. So when 3 students stumbled upon the tattered stems of dried plants fluttering in the wind, they knew it would raise eyebrows.
Identity crisis
Conservation, April-June 2008
It’s bad enough when invasive species wreak havoc on fragile ecosystems. But when the genes themselves start to mix it challenges our most fundamental ideas of what a species is, and what should be protected.
Hunting animals—with cameras
The Christian Science Monitor, 10 April 2008
Chris Wemmer and Reno Taini came of age four decades ago in the formaldehyde-and-stewed-rat school of zoology. Now they stalk the hills of Northern California in search of the elusive mountain beaver.
Solar energy trumps shade in California prosecution
The Christian Science Monitor, 18 March 2008
The Treanors and Vargases were next door neighbors in the suburbs, but nearly a mile of road lay between their front doors. Perhaps it was symbolic of the conflict that would arise between them.
Scientists read Antarctic mud
The Christian Science Monitor, 20 February 2008
In Antarctica’s McMurdo Station, the sun never sets and life never quite stops. Welcome to the 24-hour sedimentology lab, where two shifts of tired scientists work around the clock to tease the secrets of past climates out of a 3,600-foot cylinder of petrified mud.
Did life begin in ice?
Discover, February 2008 (COVER STORY)
One morning Stanley Miller lifted a glass vial from a cold, bubbling vat. For 25 years he had tended that vial as if it were an exotic orchid, checking it daily, adding a few pellets of dry ice to keep it cooled to –108 degrees F. He had told hardly a soul of its existence. Now he set the frozen time capsule out to thaw, ending the experiment that had lasted more than a third of his 68 years.
[Selected for publication in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2009, Houghton Mifflin.]
Antarctica’s required course is Happy Camper School
The Christian Science Monitor, 24 January 2008
The good life in Antarctica begins with digging your first snow shelter—and spending the night in it with a guy named Ed.
2007…
Wildlife contraception
Conservation, Oct-Dec 2007
Saved by the trees?
New Scientist, 27 October 2007
Frequent hurricanes decimate sea turtle beaches
New Scientist, 13 August 2007
Remote control brains
New Scientist, 21 July 2007 (COVER STORY)
Life—but not as we know it
New Scientist, 9 June 2007 (COVER STORY)
Back to the no-analog future?
Science, 11 May 2007
Primordial soup’s on: Scientists repeat evolution’s most famous experiment
ScientificAmerican.COM, 28 March 2007
Robotic amphibian takes to the water
New Scientist, 17 March 2007
The mind chip
New Scientist, 3 Feb 2007 (COVER STORY)
Consciousness… in a cockroach?
Discover, Jan 2007
[Selected as Notable Writing in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2008, Houghton Mifflin.]
Worlds collide
Conservation Magazine, Jan-Mar 2007 (COVER STORY)
[Outstanding Feature Article, Society of National Association Publishers, 2008.]
2006…
Feathers with ZIP codes
Conservation in Practice, Oct-Dec 2006
The light at the end of the tunnel
New Scientist, 14 Oct 2006
Subzero survivors
New Scientist, 12-18 Aug 2006
Dig deeper
Conservation in Practice, July-Sept 2006
Single gene drives fruit flies bananas
New Scientist, 19-25 Aug 2006
Through the mind’s eye
New Scientist, 6 May 2006 (COVER STORY)
2005…
Brainwave boogie-woogie
New Scientist, 24/31 December 2005
Brain box
New Scientist, 5/11 November 2005 (COVER STORY)
Subterranean bugs reach out for their energy
New Scientist, 25 June/1 July 2005
Healing powers
Conservation in Practice, January-March 2005
IVF embryos starved of vital ingredient
New Scientist, 19 February 2005
Do the locomotion
New Scientist, 12 February 2005
2004…
Pouch or no pouch
Discover, July 2004
The elephant listening project
Conservation in Practice, Summer 2004
Mud’s eye view
Natural History, April 2004
Ecological reform school
Conservation in Practice, Spring 2004
Finding the baseline
Conservation in Practice, Spring 2004
Do fruit flies dream of electric bananas?
New Scientist, 14 February 2004 (COVER STORY)
Evolution not revolution
New Scientist, 31 January 2004
2003…
Non-shrink sheep
New Scientist, 20 December 2003
The shining
New Scientist, 20 December 2003
The speed of life
New Scientist, 1 November 2003
Distributing risk
Conservation in Practice, Fall 2003
Lethal impact
New Scientist, 30 August 2003
Gut feeling
New Scientist, 16 August 2003
Behavior and conservation: more than meets the eye
Conservation in Practice, Summer 2003
Does masturbation prevent prostate cancer?
New Scientist, 19 July 2003
Endgame
New Scientist, 5 July 2003
Breathless
New Scientist, 8 March 2003
An accidental experiment on Rodrigues Island
Conservation in Practice, Winter 2003
One step at a time
New Scientist, 25 January 2003
2002…
Bread to blame for plague of pimples
New Scientist, 7 December 2002
What came first, bigger brains or lots of sex?
New Scientist, 23 November 2002
Moths use colour to see flowers at night
New Scientist, 2 November 2002
Why sex—really?
US News and World Report, 21 October 2002
The descent of man
New Scientist, 24 August 2002 (COVER STORY)
Wallaby nations
New Scientist, 3 August 2002
The virus within
ORGYN Magazine, Summer 2002
Blinded by bread
New Scientist, 6 April 2002
The inner savant
Discover, February 2002
Gentle persuasion
New Scientist, 9 February 2002
2001…
Hard cheese
New Scientist, 15 December 2001
Keep your hair on
New Scientist, 13 October 2001 (COVER STORY)
The worm that earned
New Scientist, 15 September 2001
1918 Spanish influenza pandemic down to pig flu RNA
NewScientist.com, 7 September 2001
Electric eye
New Scientist, 25 August 2001
2000 and before…
Could diet attack bones?
US News and World Report, 30 October 2000
Cut the carbs
New Scientist, 18 March 2000
The famished road
New Scientist, 13 November 1999
The false crisis in science education
Scientific American, October 1999
Following frozen frogs
California Monthly, September 1999
Why we don’t lay eggs
New Scientist, 12 June 1999
The spinners
New Scientist, 24 April 1999
Cold-blooded solutions to warm-blooded problems
Exploratorium.com, December 1998