Author: Starre Vartan
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Science-led Startup Twelve for Nature Index
A truly inspiring article and my first for Nature Index. I covered the details of the technology behind the startup Twelve, which is doing some incredibly advanced work converting captured carbon dioxide from an ethanol facility to make critical chemicals. Namely, airplane fuels. This is the kind of work that may help humanity avoid the…
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New Book Debut: July 15th 2025
Preorder Now: My new book, The Stronger Sex: What Science Tells Us About the Power of the Female Body available on the Hachette site and at bookshop.org. Available July 15th, 2025 A myth-busting vindication of women’s physical strengths For decades, Starre Vartan–like most women–was told that having a woman’s body meant being weaker than men.…
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For National Geographic: Why Older Women Should Lift Heavy Weights
Proud that my first published piece of 2024 is this one for National Geographic about how older women can and should lift heavy weights to grow bone that was lost via osteoporosis. And also why starting lifting and getting stronger bone pre-menopause could stop bone weakness issues before they start. This information directly informed my…
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More Audio Adventures for SciAm: My Latest Podcast All About Puget Sound Kelp Forests!
Image Via Wikimedia Commons by Oliver Dodd I took my brand-new sound recorder out for a spin (more like a crash-course in recording in situ) at the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to speak with Anne Shaffer about her new research on how salmon do indeed use kelp forests—and explored why these…
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My First Podcast! How Wildfire Smoke Affects Orangutans for SciAm
It was really exciting to write (and narrate) my first podcast with the wonderful multimedia team over at SciAm. I covered behavioral ecologist and biological anthropologist Wendy Erb’s fascinating work and her inquiries to determine how wildfire smoke impacts orangutan health. Erb’s wealth of recordings as a bioacoustician meant that podcast editor Jeff Delviscio was…
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Op/Ed on Sexual Harassment in Field Sciences
Co-conceived and written with fellow science-writer Jenny Morber, this piece was a full year in the making. Jenny and I researched what didn’t work to prevent sexual harassment in the field sciences (pretty much everything we currently do) and what concrete, evidence-based actions could change that in the future. This was a difficult piece to…
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For Scientific American: Using Frequency Comb Technology to Breath-test for Disease
I tackled a tough assignment for SciAm that required me to learn the ins and outs of optical frequency combs and dig deep into my physics knowledge to explain it in plain language. Thanks to the patience of my SciAm editor, I finally got it after a few rounds! Explaining complexity simply is one of…
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Essay On the Genetics of Ending (Part of) My Family Line for Psyche
I’d always been curious about the science behind being the last of my line on my father’s side. I explore the genetics and my feelings about it in this essay for Psyche, part of Aeon Magazine. So, when I end my family line, unless I have a totally new, unique mutation that will then disappear…
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Climate Change Assessment Using Biosensors for Grow Magazine
I wrote about the fascinating subject of biosensors for Grow Magazine, exploring how they can be used to track and quantify the impacts of climate change. What ARE biosensors? Great question: “Akin to a filmmakers’ zoom lens, they allow scientists to get just the information they want from a given environment, whether that’s the human…
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For New Scientist: Male Mammals Aren’t Always Larger, Contrary to Popular Assumption
One of the keys to Darwin’s theory of Sexual Selection was that male mammals are always larger. But, it turns out they’re not, as I reported on for New Scientist. Researcher Kaia Tombak at Hunter College in New York found this out when she took the time to measure hundreds of mammal species using the…
Starre Julia Vartan 