The Open Notebook – Interviews

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 Jeanne Erdmann · August 20, 2019 · 0 comments

Apoorva Mandavilli Probes India’s Push to Eliminate Leprosy

Leprosy’s victims suffer visible pockmarks, deformed limbs, and a lifetime of social ostracism. Yet the microbe responsible for this suffering remains elusive. Last year, India’s Supreme Court ruled that the country’s government had shirked its responsibility to patients and that officials had failed to count the number of patients correctly. The news piqued Apoorva Mandavilli’s interest and led her to track down how clinics and patients cope with this ancient disease.

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by Jyoti Madhusoodanan · July 23, 2019 · 1 comment

Brooke Jarvis Uncovers an Insect Armageddon

Picture this: You’re cruising a highway in, say, Wyoming, ogling the badlands and buttes, when it hits you—your windshield is clean. A decade ago, you recall, this same drive left your grille looking like a Jackson Pollock canvas, smeared and spattered with beetles, butterflies, and grasshoppers. Today, your windshield is transparent as air, unmarred by so much as a flying termite. With growing unease, you wonder: What gives?

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by Ben Goldfarb · February 19, 2019 · 1 comment

Elaina Plott Explores Everyday Life on a Sinking Island

Scientists project that Tangier Island, a fishing community in the Chesapeake Bay, might be uninhabitable in 25 years—but locals don’t buy it. In her Pacific Standard portrait of a cozy town fighting a changing climate and a changing culture, Elaina Plott shows what climate science and climate politics look like at street level. She spoke to TON about the power of asking sources basic questions, the keys to small-town field reporting, and why opinions and empathy might both be overrated.

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by Olga Kreimer · February 5, 2019 · 0 comments

Christie Aschwanden Tackles the Science of Exercise Recovery

Christie Aschwanden thought writing a book about how the body recovers from exercise and builds resilience for further challenges should be easy. In her mind’s eye, she could almost picture how the chapters would unspool. But as she dug into reporting and writing her new book, Good to Go: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery, she learned how mistaken she’d been—laughably so, she says.

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by Siri Carpenter · January 29, 2019 · 0 comments

Laura Beil Dissects a Criminal Doctor’s Surgical Rampage

In the overwhelmingly popular podcast Dr. Death, Laura Beil chronicles the astonishing string of surgeries botched by Dallas-area neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch. Throughout the series, Beil grapples with what allowed such an inept surgeon to kill two patients and harm 31 others before he was finally stopped. And, she reveals that this could easily happen again. Beil tells Zamzow how Dr. Death fell into her lap, how she adapted to audio storytelling, and how she has handled the podcast’s success.

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by Rachel Zamzow · January 22, 2019 · 0 comments

Science Photojournalist Morgan Heim Illuminates Environmental Cost of California’s Trespass Marijuana Grows

In 2012, photojournalist and filmmaker Morgan Heim came across a study in PLOS One about Pacific fishers—house cat–sized carnivores that live in old-growth forests in the mountains of Northern California—being exposed to rat poison in a place where they shouldn’t be: our national parks and forests. One of the suspected causes was illegal industrial-scale marijuana grows, also known as “trespass grows,” set up by drug-trafficking organizations. Heim immediately knew this was a big deal, and a big story.

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by Christina Selby · January 8, 2019 · 0 comments

Lizzie Presser Reveals the Underground Work of Home-Abortion Providers

Across the United States, there’s a secret network of women working outside the law and the medical establishment to provide cheap and accessible home abortions. Investigative reporter Lizzie Presser shares how she discovered their story and brought their work into the light.

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by Aneri Pattani · September 4, 2018 · 2 comments

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 Jeanne Erdmann · July 10, 2018 · 1 comment

Nidhi Subbaraman Uncovers a Story of Medical Neglect—and of Useful Anger—on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation

When BuzzFeed News’s Nidhi Subbaraman began covering the Rosebud Sioux tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. government for its failure to provide treaty-mandated health care to tribal members, she discovered “seriously horrifying stories” of substandard care and neglect. Digging deeper, she found a narrative of not only hurt and outrage but also resilience and activism. Here, Subbaraman tells the story behind her story.

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by Siri Carpenter · June 5, 2018 · 1 comment

Adriana Gallardo Finds the Untold Stories of Black Mothers

When ProPublica and NPR put out a call for stories about women who died or nearly died in pregnancy or childbirth, they got thousands of replies. But only 200 about the experiences of black women—even though they are most affected by this issue. That’s when ProPublica engagement reporter Adriana Gallardo got creative and used a StoryCorps model to get more black women involved in the conversation.

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by Aneri Pattani · May 22, 2018 · 1 comment

Rebecca Boyle Excavates Earth’s Earliest History

Earth has a memory problem. Few rocks have survived from the first billion years of the planet’s history. This amnesia has made it hard for researchers to answer big questions like How did we get here? and Are we alone? But it hasn’t stopped them from trying. In a recent story for Quanta, freelance journalist Rebecca Boyle reports on the latest efforts to settle these existential questions. Here, she shares how she tackled the oldest story in the world.

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by Julia Rosen · April 3, 2018 · 2 comments