NCSWHAT

NCSWA Newsletter, October 2004

Editor: Jane Stevens, jsteven@mmjourno.com

NEWS UPDATES

Kammen FAQs Hydrogen Economy

UC Berkeley's Dan Kammen wowed some 70 NCSWAns and guests on Sept. 22 at the Basque Cultural Center in South San Francisco with a lively, balanced and understandable account of the pros and cons of the hydrogen economy.

With a firm grasp of the physics, economics, sociology and politics of the hydrogen economy, Kammen paints a picture of a technology that is definitely part of our future, but not quite ready for prime time. Kammen is a professor in the Energy & Resources Group at U.C. Berkeley and the Goldman School of Public Policy, and Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory (RAEL). He focuses on energy science and policy at the national and international levels, so he deals with supply and conservation issues on a daily basis.

Hydrogen, he says, is a safe fuel that can be made from a number of sustainable sources, including solar and biomass. But producing hydrogen from fossil fuel sources results in a net loss of energy. As a result, its most significant niche may be in energy storage – as a reservoir for energy produced by wind or solar or fossil fuels and used either at a different time of day or, as with cars, in a different place.

He cautions that moving toward a hydrogen economy too early, before sufficient renewable and sustainable sources of energy can be developed, would get us deeper into an energy hole. So don't expect hydrogen to solve our energy supply problem, and don't plan on buying a hydrogen-fueled car yet. But someday, we may be scooting around in cars that produce no tailpipe emissions, only water.
– Bob Sanders

Shifting Gears: New Directions in Science Writing

For the third time in the last four years, NCSWA organized a workshop for science writers and students in the San Francisco Bay Area. This year, the theme was how to push the envelope: branching into new career directions, making innovative use of research tools, and pursuing projects and topics that might seem daunting. Our keynote speakers, K.C. Cole of the Los Angeles Times and David Perlman of the San Francisco Chronicle, energized the audience of nearly 100 writers with tales from their own stellar careers.

Ten students in this year's class of the Science Communication program at UC Santa Cruz reported on the workshop. Their stories are posted at our website.

The NCSWA board of directors thanks all of the panelists, who donated their time on a Saturday to speak about their careers and their favorite writing tools and approaches. Major credit also goes to the board members who took on the time-consuming task of organizing each panel: Dawn Levy (tools to dig deeper), Mary Miller (innovation journalism), Charlie Petit (mid-career fellowships), Sarah Yang (back to basics), and Lynn Yarris (writing books).

We hope you will find these reports useful, and we welcome any comments you may have.
--Robert Irion

NEWS ABOUT MEMBERS

Norm Sperling has just published his first issue as editor of The Journal of Irreproducible Results, the science humor magazine. The magazine publishes 6 funny issues a year, focusing on science, medicine, and academe, just as they have since 1955. It's a friendly escape from the harsh and the hassle. JIR makes you feel good, says Sperling. You can reach him at nsperling@california.com.

An elegant and beautiful particle physics magazine debuted in October (www.symmetrymagazine.org). symmetry is a joint publication of the two largest particle physics facilities in the U.S.: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in Menlo Park and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago. Editor David Harris expects the magazine to serve readers, including those in the policy community, whose fields overlap with particle physics. SLAC science writer Heather Rock Woods wrote one of the first issue's features, on how the increasingly international nature of the field affects physicists' families. K.C. Cole, who spoke at the recent NCSWA conference, wrote the inaugural essay, naturally on the notion of what the word symmetry means to physicists.

At the American Geophysical Union’s upcoming meeting in December, J. Madeleine Nash of Time Magazine will be awarded the American Institute of Physics Award for her book, El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker, which was published by Warner Books in March 2002.

Geoff Koch spent a very rewarding summer at The Dallas Morning News under world-class editor and mentor, Tom Siegfried. He counts it as the best professional experience he’s ever had, hands down. He extends a very big public and grateful thank you to Tom and the rest of great writers/editors in Dallas. Koch is now a science writer for Michigan State University and can be reached at kochg@msu.edu.

John Ruley, a freelance writer based in Modesto, writes that he recently published two short articles in The Scientist.

Aging Today editor Paul Kleyman, who is also national coordinator of the Journalists Exchange on Aging, reports that for the fourth year he will collaborate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on a project to develop media backgrounders on under-covered areas of public health affecting older people. To date the media-backgrounder series, titled "The CDC's Spyglass on Aging," has produced nine papers on such topics as preventing falls and injuries, disability issues, West Nile virus, preventing hospital infections and a backgrounder on immunizations for flu and pneumonia. The 2005 project will focus on oral health and cardiovascular disease. NCSWA members can access the archived backgrounders at www.asaging.org/media, and click on "CDC Press Project." To reach Paul or subscribe at no cost to Age Beat Online, the Journalists Exchange on Aging e-newsletter, contact him at Paul@asaging.org or 415-974-9619.

Mike Chorost's new book, "Rebuilt: How Becoming Part Computer Made Me More Human," will be published by Houghton Mifflin in June 2005. The book is a memoir of Chorost's journey from deafness to hearing with a cochlear implant. It discusses the science and technology of cochlear implants, and pointedly critiques that staple of science fiction, the cyborg, in the light of the author's experience with a computer implanted in his skull. At once memoir, science writing, and literary criticism, "Rebuilt" is the story of one man's intimate collision with computational logic and the life lessons he learned from the experience.

Suzanne Bohan, the Bay Area correspondent for the Sacramento Bee, was one of 25 print and broadcast journalists selected nationwide to attend a fellowship sponsored by the Casey Journalism Center in Maryland and held in San Francisco in October. During the two-day program, called "Covering Children's Health," experts addressed topics such as trends in health coverage and efforts to address the rising rates of obesity, asthma and mental illness in children and adolescents. Guest journalists also shared skills-based reporting techniques.

Roberta Friedman is the research information coordinator for the ALS Association. Roberta has covered science and medical news for the past 20 years after completing the Science Communication Program at UC Santa Cruz. She will now be doing the same tasks for ALSA, which is satisfying, as her mother has ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

Rachele Kanigel, assistant professor of journalism at San Francisco State University, is writing a book for college journalists called The Student Newspaper Survival Guide. She's looking for tips and examples for the section on covering science. What advice do you have for students writing about science and medicine for their student papers? Did you -- or anyone you know -- write a great science story for your college paper? Rachele is looking for "how I got that story" essays to accompany examples of excellent work published by student newspapers. Send your tips and tidbits to kanigel@sfsu.edu.

NEW MEMBERS

Welcome!!

Roopa Ghirnikar is a science writer with Genencor International Inc.

Joan Aragone is a freelance writer/editor who has written for UCSF, the California Medical Association and various publications.

Tonya Clayton is a student with the UCSC Science Communications Program.

Alison Fromme just moved to Berkeley from Pullman, Wash., having just completed her MS in Zoology. "I'm looking forward to meeting other writers in the area," she wrote.

Marianne Smith is a new member who is currently doing media relations for the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI).

Dorothy Heller is an experienced tech writer transitioning to biomedical/health and grant writing. She's been home with a special-needs child, and is looking for ways to refresh her portfolio and resume. She can speak both English and Spanish.

Jim Downing, a reporter with the Seattle Times, has joined NCSWA. Even though he lives a bit farther north than most members, he plans to return to the Bay Area soon. He was a Summer 2004 AAAS Mass Media Fellow.