The Open Notebook – Interviews

William deBuys Goes to Extremes for Endangered Species

Science writers often endure arduous conditions to report stories. Most of us love following scientists into the field, to feel part of their remarkable jobs for a while. So when William DeBuys says reporting on endangered species conservation while hiking through a leech-infested jungle surrounded by armed men and woozy with food poisoning was a “dream come true,” we don’t doubt his sincerity. Here, DeBuys shares how he brought the beauty and lament of conservation science to the page.

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by Christina Selby · February 9, 2016 · 1 comment

Brooke Borel Investigates a Scientist’s Bizarre Alter Ego

Journalist Brooke Borel had written numerous stories about the science of genetically modified organisms when she stumbled upon a strange discovery about a plant scientist, Kevin Folta, who’d been promoting GMO science on a podcast he produced under the pseudonym Vern Blazek. He insisted that guests and listeners understood his intent, though he’d never disclosed that the Blazek character was fictitious, even after he used both his real and his fake identities to interview himself on the show.

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by Christie Aschwanden · January 12, 2016 · 3 comments

Stephen Ornes Explains the Science of Lightning to Young Readers

Most of us have experienced the moment of truth when thunder fractures the quiet of an afternoon and a stray lightning bolt streaks across the sky in the distance and we wonder: What are the odds that’s close enough to reach me?

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by Amanda Mascarelli · November 17, 2015 · 1 comment

Kathryn Schulz Paints a Chilling Picture of “The Really Big One”

Kathryn Schulz’s New Yorker story “The Really Big One” opens in Japan, moments before the 2011 Tohuku earthquake. American seismologist Chris Goldfinger, who is attending an international conference in the city of Kashiwa, feels the room begin to shake.

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by Michelle Nijhuis · September 15, 2015 · 7 comments

Liza Gross Digs into California’s Pesticide Data

If you eat strawberries and live in the United States, there is a good chance that you’ve had strawberries grown in Oxnard, California. Each year, Oxnard and the surrounding county grow more than 630 million pounds of strawberries—a crop that uses high levels of pesticides, including fumigants, which are among the most toxic. Writer Liza Gross spent months sifting through data to find out how pesticide use was changing around the state.

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by Hannah Hoag · June 9, 2015 · 0 comments

Resurrecting the Dead: Richard Conniff on Bringing Historical Characters to Life

It’s hard to make a character seem vivid and real on the page, even if you spend hours or days with your subject. But in his 2011 book The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Mad Pursuit of Life on Earth, which profiles pioneering naturalists and specimen collectors, writer Richard Conniff managed to do this without exchanging a single word with his characters.

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by Geoffrey Giller · May 5, 2015 · 0 comments

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 Jeanne Erdmann · April 21, 2015 · 1 comment

Phil McKenna Describes the Making of “Life in the Death Zone”

Two German boys—one from the East, one from the West—spent their teenage years birdwatching on either side of the Iron Curtain. Today, the former pen pals aim to transform the no-man’s-land into a Green Belt across Europe. To tell their story, journalist Phil McKenna literally walked into a minefield. The result of his efforts, jointly published at NOVA Next and at The Big Roundtable in February 2015, was a richly textured tale of conservation and friendship forged under the most trying circumstances. Here, McKenna tells the story behind his story.

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by Vijee Venkatraman · March 24, 2015 · 5 comments

David Wolman Explores Italian Earthquake’s Legal Aftershocks

Seven scientists and engineers were convicted of manslaughter after a deadly Italian earthquake in 2009, accused of misleading the public and creating a false sense of security in the months and days before the quake. In a feature for Matter, writer David Wolman rendered the victims’ families’ heartbreak, the science of risk communication, and the dangers of putting science on trial. Here he tells the story behind his story.

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by Amanda Mascarelli · December 9, 2014 · 2 comments

Seth Mnookin Follows a Family Battling a Rare Genetic Disease

Seth Mnookin was drawn to Bertrand Might’s family’s story by a simple question: What do you do when you learn your child could die from a disease with no other known sufferers? Reporting for The New Yorker on the scientific and administrative complexities surrounding rare diseases. In his reporting, Mnookin discovered “remarkable amounts of grace” in the families struggling to understand and cope with their children’s illness. Here, Mnookin tells the story behind his story.

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by Siri Carpenter · October 21, 2014 · 5 comments

Erica Klarreich Profiles an Award-Winning Mathematician

Erica Klarreich’s August 2014 Quanta magazine article “A Tenacious Explorer of Abstract Surfaces” describes the career arc of Stanford University professor Maryam Mirzakhani, casting the mathematician—winner of the 2014 Fields Medal, often described as mathematics’ Nobel Prize—as a fearless and accomplished scholar. Here, Klarreich tells the story behind her story, including the decision to bury the information that Mirzakhani is the first woman to win a Fields Medal.

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by Tien Nguyen · September 30, 2014 · 4 comments

Michelle Nijhuis’s Nat Geo Adventure Began with a Word

In her first assignment from National Geographic, award-winning freelance science journalist Michelle Nijhuis started with a one-word assignment: coal. Based on that single word, Nijhuis traveled from West Virginia, a top coal state, to China, […]

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by Robin Meadows · May 20, 2014 · 2 comments