Articles by: Jeanne Erdmann

Roxanne Khamsi

Roxanne Khamsi Explores a Potential Revolution in Cancer Treatment

One typically thinks of Darwin’s theory of evolution playing out in natural habitats. Over time, random mutations that make a species more fit for its niche lead to the giraffe’s neck, the spider’s venom, the bees’ communicative dance. Journalist and genetics junkie Roxanne Khamsi was intrigued to learn of a theory that cancer cells are subject to similar evolutionary pressures. She spoke to TON about the challenges and pleasures of tackling a math-dense subject with implications for extending the lives of people with cancer.

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by · August 20, 2019 · 0 comments
Linda Nordling Probes the Transformation of South African Science

Linda Nordling Probes the Transformation of South African Science

Reporting on the decolonization of South African science for Nature, Linda Nordling—a native of Sweden who had long lived in the United Kingdom before moving to South Africa more than a decade ago—found herself in an uncomfortable spot. She was passionately interested in the subject, but worried whether it was right for a white journalist from a former colonial power to tell such a story. Here, she talks about confronting those doubts and becoming the custodian of someone else’s story.

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by · July 10, 2018 · 1 comment
Maggie Koerth-Baker

Maggie-Koerth Baker Untangles the Story behind Trump’s False Claims of Immigrant Voter Fraud

On the campaign trail leading up to last year’s presidential election, then-candidate Donald Trump claimed, based on a debunked 2014 study, that the election was rigged by fraudulent voters, many of whom were illegal immigrants. Coverage of the 2014 study tended to focus on its mistakes. But FiveThirtyEight staff writer Maggie Koerth-Baker wanted to find out why those mistakes occurred. Here, she tells the story behind her May 2017 feature “The Tangled Story behind Trump’s False Claims of Voter Fraud.”

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by · September 12, 2017 · 0 comments
Read This! (Or Not): Writing Book Reviews

Read This! (Or Not): Writing Book Reviews

The trick to reviewing books well is to approach the task systematically, keeping a clear eye on what you’re trying to accomplish, and keeping in mind what your responsibility is to readers. Book reviews should give an idea of the quality and style of the book, helping readers figure out whether they want to read the book, but without providing so much detail that readers feel as though there’s nothing left to learn.

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by · June 6, 2017 · 1 comment
Melinda Wenner Moyer Tracks Drug-Resistant Bacteria from Farm to Table

Melinda Wenner Moyer Tracks Drug-Resistant Bacteria from Farm to Table

In a December 2016 Scientific American feature that was a finalist for the National Magazine Award and won first place in its category in the AHCJ Awards for Excellence in Health Care Reporting, journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer wove together the stories of contract hog farmers; the science of antibiotic resistance; the public policies that help perpetuate resistance; and researchers’ efforts to understand how the problem can spread from farm to table, and might spark more drug-resistant infections in people. Here, she tells the story behind her story.

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by · May 2, 2017 · 1 comment
Michelle Nijhuis

Natural Habitat: Michelle Nijhuis

Today we visit the White Salmon, Washington tiny house and office shed of science writer Michelle Nijhuis.

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by · October 4, 2016 · 0 comments
Lauren Morello

Lauren Morello Examines Twitter and Sexism in Science

Twitter is a visible and sometimes volatile platform for decrying sexism in science. Some such online discussions do more than inspire memorable hashtags such as #distractinglysexy, #shirtstorm, and #addmaleauthorgate. Twitter, writes Lauren Morello, U.S. news editor for Nature, is a “megaphone” that amplifies the voices of those who might not otherwise be heard. And, Morello says, the platform has helped make people more aware of the challenges that sexism poses for women in science. Here, Morello tells the story behind her Nature story “We Can # It.”

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by · May 10, 2016 · 0 comments
Virginia Hughes

Virginia Hughes Enters the Land of the Sleepyheads

People with a rare sleep disorder called idiopathic hypersomnia can sleep for days at a time and still wake to sluggish brains and bodies and often take extreme measures just to get out of bed. Science journalist Virginia Hughes immersed herself in the lives of the self-dubbed “sleepyheads” for “Wake No More,” published in Matter on January 26, 2015. Here, Hughes tells the story behind the story.

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by · April 21, 2015 · 1 comment
Natural Habitat: Mark Schrope

Natural Habitat: Mark Schrope

TON visits the working digs of Florida science writer Mark Schrope, who built a garage office that features a hammock, a shrunken head (of sorts), a chandelier, and a boat.

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by · January 13, 2015 · 2 comments
How to Prepare for the ScienceWriters2013 Power Pitch

How to Prepare for the ScienceWriters2013 Power Pitch

  The “power pitch” session at ScienceWriters2013 will give writers a chance to connect face-to-face with editors from 11 different publishers and publications. The session will be held Saturday morning from 11:15 a.m. to 12:15 […]

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by · October 30, 2013 · 5 comments
Single Best: Paul Raeburn

Single Best: Paul Raeburn

Paul Raeburn shares the ideal he always has in mind for the perfect story. Raeburn is a journalist and blogger, and the author of Do Fathers Matter? The New Science of Fatherhood, to be published for Father’s Day, 2014 by Scientific American/FSG. He is also the chief media critic for the Knight Science Journalism Tracker at MIT.

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by · September 10, 2013 · 0 comments
Natural Habitat: Robin Marantz Henig

Natural Habitat: Robin Marantz Henig

The Open Notebook visits Robin Marantz Henig, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the author of several books, most recently Twentysomething: Why Do Young Adults Seem Stuck?, written with her daughter Samantha Henig.

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by · May 21, 2013 · 1 comment
Maryn McKenna

Maryn McKenna Reports the Dark Side of Agriculture

Science journalist Maryn McKenna has covered the infectious diseases beat for more than a decade. During that time, she’s written countless articles and two award-winning books on the subject. Through her reporting, she developed an interest […]

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by · February 12, 2013 · 1 comment
Post-Slam Dunk

Post-Slam Dunk

  [Editors’ note, November 2018: This guidance for pitching at a pitch slam was written in 2012. None of the editors mentioned below are at the publications listed.]   The great thing about a pitch […]

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by · November 19, 2012 · 4 comments
Cramming for the Slam

Cramming for the Slam

Few tasks bring more stress and anxiety to freelancers than pitching a story, except coming face-to-face with an editor at a meeting and pitching a story on the spot—in front of an audience. With ScienceWriters […]

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by · October 24, 2012 · 3 comments
Natural Habitat: Erik Vance

Natural Habitat: Erik Vance

The Open Notebook drops in on Erik Vance, an award-winning freelance writer who has written for Discover, Nature, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Conservation, and many other publications.

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by · October 1, 2012 · 0 comments
Natural Habitat: Cassandra Willyard

Natural Habitat: Cassandra Willyard

The Open Notebook visits the office of Brooklyn-based freelancer Cassandra Willyard, who writes for many excellent publications and blogs at the always-riveting The Last Word on Nothing. Cassie tells us that she went a little bonkers and took more than 100 photos of her office; she whittled it down to a smaller number for us, but you can find more photos and details about her office here.

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by · May 3, 2012 · 12 comments
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

Yudhijit Bhattacharjee Weaves a Tale of Scientific Rivalry and Nobel Celebration

The three cosmologists who shared the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics for the 1998 discovery of the accelerating universe were only a few of the dozens of scientists, working on two competing teams, who contributed […]

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by · May 1, 2012 · 0 comments
Erik Vance

Erik Vance Scrutinizes a Battle over Dolphin Rights

Reporting from the trenches in the war over dolphin rights, freelance science writer Erik Vance relates the story of Lori Marino and Diana Reiss, dolphin researchers who have spent most of their careers as close colleagues […]

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by · November 10, 2011 · 2 comments
Maryn McKenna

Maryn McKenna Describes Life as “Scary-Disease Girl”

For nearly all her career, journalist and author Maryn McKenna has written about public health, from Midwest droughts to bird flu to Gulf War Syndrome. While covering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) […]

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by · August 30, 2011 · 2 comments
Meredith Wadman Probes the Aftermath of a Shooting

Meredith Wadman Probes the Aftermath of a Shooting

On February 12, 2010, biologist Amy Bishop stood up in a conference room at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and shot six of her colleagues; three died. Nature correspondent Meredith Wadman visited the campus to recount the horror of those moments and efforts to rebuild a shattered department. Here, she tells the story behind her story.

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by · August 15, 2011 · 0 comments
Robin Marantz Henig

Robin Marantz Henig Explores the Biology of Anxiety

New York Times Magazine contributing writer Robin Marantz Henig traveled to Harvard and the University of Maryland for a story on the biology of anxiety. Alongside top developmental psychologists, she watched research videos on infant […]

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by · March 17, 2011 · 16 comments
Brendan Borrell

Brendan Borrell Jets to Bolivia for a Hot Story on Chili Peppers

For his first major feature, freelancer Brendan Borrell crisscrossed Bolivia for 2 ½ weeks in an old truck with notebook, recorder, and camera, waiting out roadblocks, going a long time between meals, and of course […]

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by · November 24, 2010 · 0 comments
Tina Saey

Tina Saey Couldn’t Sleep, and She Wanted to Know Why

For a special issue of Science News, staff writer Tina Saey explored research on why we sleep—and what happens when we can’t. Here, Saey, who wrote the package along with staff writers Laura Sanders and […]

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by · November 1, 2010 · 1 comment
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