I’ve been surprisingly absorbed by the task of writing 140-character Tweets recapping the Apollo XI lunar landing. The project, roughly timed to mimic the mission on a 40-year delay, has had a very encouraging response so far! I also got roped into writing a landing page and timeline for Nature’s online special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo program. It’s been a great excuse to revisit books I read about Apollo when I was a kid and to check out new sources of Apollo history.
I’ve continued to follow the battles between chiropractors and watchdogs provoked by the Simon Singh libel case (here,here, and here). Reporting on this case and that of the Ida fossil have been really instructive–I’d rarely followed the same news story for very long before. I aim to do more of that when I return to freelancing next week.
Finally, I wrote a quick blog post about how Swedish natural scientist Carl Linnaeus invented the index card to help him keep track of all the animal and plant species he was classifying.
I covered monkey business of several types this week. First, I wrote a news story about Simon Singh, who announced that he hopes to appeal a judge’s ruling in a libel case about chiropractic. He and his supporters are also campaigning to limit the influence of English libel laws on public science-related debates.
I also wrote a news story about scientists who tickled apes and human babies so they could see how ape laughter reflects our evolutionary relationships.
Finally I blogged briefly about a topic that’s gotten attention in the media: the failure of the American health care insurance system to adequately protect Americans from financial ruin.
Thanks to Ida the fossil primate I got out of the office last week, on Tuesday to see a screening of the documentary about Ida at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and on Wednesday to interview Ida’s other half Jørn Hurum at the studio that produced the film. I blogged about the screening and Nature ran an online question-and-answer story culled from my interview. Nature also ran a few choice quotes from the press juggernaut in the print magazine, along with an editorial, though I can’t take credit for the editorial. It’s trickier doing in-person reporting, but I really enjoy it and hope to include a little more of it in my work.
I also dashed off a quick blog on a US federal directive which halts road-building in about 50 million acres of US Forest Service land, a reversal of a Bush reversal of a Clinton rule. Not clear? Click here to read the whole thing.
Update: My interview with Jørn Hurum appeared on the Brazilian website terra.com.br on 2 June.
This week my work, like much of the science media world, was dominated by a 47-million-year-old fossilized primate nicknamed Ida. It is an exciting find, primarily because of its completeness, and it’s gotten a lot of attention. I wrote a pair of blog posts on Monday and Wednesday sandwiching the actual news story I wrote on Tuesday. If you only read one, I’d recommend the Wednesday blog post.
I also wrote a news story about how neither the sky nor GPS as we know it are falling, but there’s a growing chance that the GPS signal many scientists rely on may drop in quality during the next few years. That story was a good learning experience: my editor and I spent a while negotiating the headline and first sentence, which I thought didn’t really represent the cautionary note I thought the rest of the story struck. But I’m learning to choose my battles and cooperate with colleagues, I hope.
Journalist covering global development by way of science and technology.
I’ve been surprisingly absorbed by the task of writing 140-character Tweets recapping the Apollo XI lunar landing. The project, roughly timed to mimic the mission on a 40-year delay, has had a very encouraging response so far! I also got roped into writing a landing page and timeline for Nature’s online special commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Apollo program. It’s been a great excuse to revisit books I read about Apollo when I was a kid and to check out new sources of Apollo history.
I covered monkey business of several types this week. First, I wrote a 
Thanks to Ida the fossil primate I got out of the office last week, on Tuesday to see a screening of the documentary about Ida at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and on Wednesday to interview Ida’s other half Jørn Hurum at the studio that produced the film. I 
This week my work, like much of the science media world, was dominated by a 47-million-year-old fossilized primate nicknamed Ida. It is an exciting find, primarily because of its completeness, and it’s gotten a lot of attention. I wrote a pair of blog posts on