Category: Science Writing
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How Breastfeeding Prevents Breast Cancer for Nature
In my first piece for Nature, I was assigned an embargoed study (it hadn’t published yet) and had to put this story together over a weekend. I was able to speak with a principal researcher, Shirene Loi as she was on her way to Berlin for the prestigious ESMO conference, where she was presenting her…
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Not Every Women’s Midlife Health Issue is Perimenopause for New Scientist
The first of a couple of feature stories based on my book for New Scientist, this piece analyzes how both doctors and patients can make assumptions about healthcare for women in midlife. While it’s wonderful that perimenopause and menopause are receiving some (VERY!) long overdue attention, there’s also some pretty serious bandwagoning going on, with…
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For Vice: California’s Wildfires Could Be the New Normal
I connected the dots between loss of Arctic sea ice and California’s recent devastating wildfire season in this piece for Vice: “Calling this [fire season] the ‘new normal’ —that’s not out of line at all,” says Professor Jennifer Francis, an atmospheric scientist and research professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers…
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For The Daily Beast: IVF Might Bring Baby Coral Back to the Florida Keys
“When I was 7 years old, I traveled to the Florida Keys with my grandmother and learned to snorkel, spending most of the day, every day, for over a week, peering down at countless corals bursting in indescribable shapes and glorious colors. Nearly 30 years later, I returned to the same beaches, eager to strap…
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For Vice: Make Antarctica Green Again?
Our world’s climate is changing, we have changed it, and now we need to prepare for what’s next. The ends of the earth are ground zero for understanding these changes. Which is why I wrote this article about the greening of the Arctic for Vice’s new environment-focused site, Impact.
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For Gizmodo: How Fake Science Saved Lives in Victorian London
I had a lot of fun putting together this story on how the bad science of miasma actually ended up doing some good in Victorian London:
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I Wrote: How You May Be Eating Plastic and Fibers with Your Fish
Plastics aren’t the only thing that fish are eating; now they are consuming fibers (from our clothes washing machines) too. I wrote about a new study on the subject on what’s in fish stomachs—and what that may mean for human beings’ health—in my latest article for Mental Floss. In short, “the mismanagement of our waste is coming…
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I Wrote: 5 Promising Male Birth Control Methods for Mental Floss
My first article for Mental Floss was on one of my favorite topics: Male Birth Control. I honestly think it would be a better world for men and women if men had more birth control options—women have more than a dozen—men have only 2.
Starre Julia Vartan 