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NCSWHATNCSWA Newsletter, November 2007Editor: Robin Mejia, mejia@nasw.org
SAVE THE DATE: Holiday Dinner with Jack Shroder A geologist and physical geographer with the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Jack Shroder first visited Afghanistan in 1973. He quickly became head of the Kabul University seismic station, coordinating with the US Embassy, which gave him carte blanche access to its classified map program. Shroder helped organize the map collection, which he recalls was a “disorganized mess” when he arrived. When the Soviets invaded, he started to understand why they’d wanted his expertise. By the time that war was won, he’d built up an Afghanistan Studies Center at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, along with research centers in the country. He and his colleagues encouraged the US to invest in a peaceful Afghanistan. Their advice fell on deaf ears. And, he says, on September 11, 2001, he knew immediately who had flown the planes into the World Trade Center. Not the individuals, but the country where the plan originated. When Osama bin Laden’s tapes started to air, Shroder’s colleagues asked him if he recognized where bin Laden was sitting. He did. Someone told a reporter, and soon he was fielding calls. The Feds followed almost immediately, and, in the ensuing weeks, he found himself aiding intelligence agencies. At our holiday dinner, he’ll share the story of how a geoscientist helped track Osama bin Laden through Tora Bora. He’ll also share his thoughts on the future of Afghanistan, the country’s untapped natural resources, and whether the US government has learned to listen to geoscientists. Join us and meet your national colleagues in town for the AGU meeting. COMING AWARDS DEADLINES
Grantham Prize for Reporting on the Environment
American Institute of Biological Sciences
Livingston Awards for Young Journalists
NASW Science in Society Awards
National Academies Communication Awards
For excellence in reporting and communicating science, engineering, and/or medicine to the general INTERNSHIP AND FELLOWSHIP DEADLINES
Kaiser Media Internships in Health Reporting
Marine Biological Laboratory Science Journalism Program
Kaiser Media Fellowships in Health
LONG TERM FELLOWSHIPS
Nieman Fellowships at Harvard University http://www.nieman.harvard.edu John S. Knight Fellowships at Stanford http://knight.stanford.edu/index.html Knight-Wallace Fellows at the University of Michigan http://www.mjfellows.org/fellowships Ted Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellowship at the University of Colorado at Boulder http://www.colorado.edu/journalism/cej/scripps_fellowships/index.html Knight Science Journalism Fellowhips at MIT http://web.mit.edu/knight-science/fellowships/overview.html NCSWA ABOUT TOWN
On Sunday, September 9, more than 25 NCSWA members and guests joined wine and health expert Dr. Arthur Klatsky at the historic Picchetti Winery in the Cupertino foothills. The day began with a leisurely hike of less than 2 miles through the open space preserve adjacent to the winery. Docents described the natural and cultural history of the area, and took walkers to a seasonal pond, as well as viewpoints overlooking the Santa Clara Valley. Back at Picchetti, where a resident flock of peacocks strolled the grounds, the group met inside the century-old winery for a wine tasting, and then moved to the picnic area for lunch and a talk by Dr. Klatsky, a Kaiser Permanente cardiologist who’s studied the health effects of wine, beer and spirits since the 1970s. He gave an overview of the hows and whys of the effects of wine and other spirits on cardiovascular health, as well as ways moderate consumption can even reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Dr. Klatsky also provided a hint of data he was soon to present at an international conference, on a new study he’s involved in that clearly shows it’s the alcohol that provides much of the health benefit. Wine has the added benefit of providing phytochemicals, but the same could be said of drinking grape juice. He also had more details on the links between breast cancer and drinking. Afterward, a few members stayed for additional hiking, or to taste and purchase more wines. EMBRYOS AND DINNER AT KINGFISH On October 2, Barry Behr, chief of the in vitro fertilization lab at Stanford, kept an intent audience of NCSWAns and UC-Santa Cruz science-writing students on the edge of their seats at Kingfish, a San Mateo restaurant, as he led them through the vagaries of PGD (pre-implantation genetic diagnosis), a procedure in which one or two cells are removed from an eight-cell embryo (about three days after conception) so their genetic contents can be analyzed. Behr regaled the assembled Cajun-food-feasting throng with videos of fertilization, embryogenesis, and the PGD-associated biopsy itself, entertained them with slides of deformed sperm (which in humans are more common than normal ones, he remarked), handled himself with aplomb when, on two occasions, the LCD projector got so worked up it fried to a crisp and had to be resuscitated, and deftly handled a solid half-hour of non-stop questions. Some of his candid answers left the males in the crowd crossing their legs in self-defense, while others caused females to cover their ovaries. But that's the way we NCSWAns like our science: straight, no chaser. ALSO OF INTEREST SEJ Annual Meeting If you couldn’t get to the Society of Environmental Journalists meeting at Stanford this fall, don’t despair. You can still read about how to write your own Freedom of Information Act letter, use satellite imagery to report stories and mapping software to aid investigations, and learn why environmental journalists call EPA databases “investigative gold” in Doug Fox’s write up on SEJ. UCSF Media Briefing on Inflammation and Disease
How inflammation contributes to disease -- from heart attack to cancer, diabetes and possibly Alzheimer's -- was the focus of a day-long briefing at UCSF on September 27. Scientists from UCSF, Harvard, UC-San Diego and Genentech described the emerging view: how some of the same molecules that defend against infection are also responsible for arterial wall plaque buildup leading to stroke and heart attack; the advancement of precancerous cells to metastasis, as well as growing evidence re inflammation and diabetes and Alzheimer's disease. The program also covered new treatments that build on this new understanding.
MEMBERS NEWS Robert Adler arrived home after a long trip to find a package from his publisher, John Wiley & Sons, containing a surprise--an edition of his book, Medical Firsts, translated into Korean. Wiley had earlier published a Korean translation of Robert’s first book for them, Science Firsts, plus a Portuguese translation of Medical Firsts. “I'm hoping for a translation into Spanish, which I could at least read, or better yet, Mandarin, with 885,000,000 potential purchasers,” Robert tells us. Janet Basu has retired from the UCSF public information office and is moving on to new freelance adventures Science filmmaker Ruth Carranza, known for her seven-part Silicon Run Series featuring semiconductor and computer manufacturing, has been awarded a major grant from The National Science Foundation to produce an educational video trilogy on emerging technologies. The new films, to be produced over the next three years, will explore the world of MEMS, or Microelectromechanical Systems, and nanotechnology. To find out more, contact Ruth at carranza@siliconrun.com Joe Devney has gone back to school. He is in Washington, D.C., pursuing a master's degree in Linguistics at Georgetown University. Roberta Friedman has resumed freelancing fulltime, after three years working part-time with the ALS Foundation. On November 9, NCSWAn Bruce Goldman tied the knot with Lynda Di Cesare, a Montreal transplant and a graphic designer and art director by trade. Paul Kleyman, in conjunction with the American Society on aging, has released "The Journalists Exchange on Aging Survey on Style" at www.asaging.org/agebeat Almost 100 journalists responded to an extensive questionnaire about the words we use in writing about older people and those in midlife. A separate two page glossary "Words to Age By: A Brief Glossary of Tips on Usage" is available at the same website listed above. Questions? Contact Paul at paul@asaging.org. Czerne M. Reid is having a banner year. After winning the South Carolina Medical Association award for excellence in print journalism for the second year in a row, Czerne won a Kaiser Media Fellowship to report on federal and state funding for HIV/AIDS treatment and care, and the economic and social impact of the disease in South Carolina. David Schwartz just published his fiftieth children’s book. “It’s about camouflage and it’s my first book to combine poetry with prose,” David explains. “Where In the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed...and Revealed,” which he wrote with his wife, Yael Schy, also has remarkable nature photography by Dwight Kuhn, a master of capturing small animals in their surroundings. David is particularly excited about the unusual layout he developed: a foldout reveals each hidden animal. When readers unfold the page, they see the same photograph with the background muted so the hidden animal stands out. Mark Shwartz, former PIO at the Stanford News Service, has been named communications manager at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. Gordy Slack’s new book is getting great reviews. Published by Wiley, The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA stems from Slack’s coverage of the trial for Salon.com, but he says the book is “also about my own effort, as an evolutionist, to understand my father (a scientist) and his advocacy of intelligent design theory.” Renowned AMNH evolutionary biologist Niles Eldredge has called the book “magnificent—by far the best depiction I have seen of America's culture war that pits religious concepts of the supernatural against the materialism of science.” Margaret Talbot, staff writer for The New Yorker calls it "a lively, lucid account of a fascinating trial." For more, check out Gordy's Blog Multimedia pioneer Jane Stevens is focusing on Web-centric science journalism this year, with the launch of the Great Turtle Race http://www.greatturtlerace.com and Tagging of Pacific Predators http://www.topp.org. “I'm trying to figure out how explanatory science journalism fits into social networking and other ways of telling stories, including games. It's been a real learning journey, and I haven't figured it out yet, except to know that there's no going back to newspapers,” says Jane. NASW members can check out her article on the Great Turtle Race in the latest issue of ScienceWriters. In October, Lynda Williams brought her Science Cabaret to the NASW meeting in Spokane. Lynda took the stage as the Physics Chanteuse, regaling the audience with snappy parodies of hit pop, rock and jazz songs. NEW MEMBERS A development editor at Genetech, Jena Abel recently completed a master’s degree in religion. Debbie Alexander is a postdoctoral research associate at Carnegie Institution of Washington. An adjunct instructor at Canada College, Jesse M. Boyett Anderson is considering becoming a science writer. Clare Baldwin is a recent Stanford grad who majored in English and minored in human biology. She’s launching a career as a freelance science journalist, with clients including the San Francisco Chronicle and Reuters. Currently an exhibit writer and editor with the American Museum of Natural History, Kevin Boyd is considering leaving New York. Elizabeth Buchen is a graduate student at UCSF Recent AAAS Mass Media Fellow Erin Cline is now freelancing from San Francisco. Laura K. Kerr is a freelance author and editor in San Francsico. Susan Kuchinskas is a freelance writer who covers Internet technology and health. The co-author “Going Mobile,” published by CMP in 2002, is at work on her next book. “Love Chemistry: How Oxytocin Lets us Love, Trust and Mate,” which will be published by Amacom Books in 2008 Roberta Kwok is a student in the UC Santa Cruz Science Communication program Caitlyn McCullough is a graduate student in bioengineering at Stanford. Greg Miller is the San Francisco correspondent for Science. Anne Brooks Pfister is the executive assistant to the director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. Raphael Rosen is a human resources assistant at The Exploratorium Bruce Schaar is a senior scientist and editor at the Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Neurosurgery. UC Berkeley research astronomer Dr. Steven Stahler is considering transitioning to science writing. Medical writer Nina Wax wrote a book on occupational health, published by Chelsea House. NCSWA also welcomes Gunder Hefta and John Watson! We look forward to meeting your and learning more about what you do… |
