Category: Uncategorized
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My Appearance on PBS’ The Open Mind Show
Appearing on The Open Mind to discuss my book was a huge honor! Host Alexander Heffner asked me about The Stronger Sex: What the Science Tells Us About the Power of the Female Body – but we also got into a bit of a political convo too, which was interesting. Especially proud as Alexander’s show is hosted…
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“Your BMI Can’t Tell You Much About Your Health, Here’s What Can” for New Scientist
It’s always exciting to have a cover story! The 14 February issue of New Scientist featured my story debunking BMI and sharing a variety of alternatives to that measure that’s so flawed, The Lancet special commission on obesity called it out as being problematic. LOVE to be in print!
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Incredible Feedback from Stronger Sex Readers!
Image by Bianca Nogrady, a science journalist and a reader of the book. Hi Ms. Vartan, I just wanted to say that I discovered your new book “The Stronger Sex” in one of my local bookstores over the summer and after reading it I can confidently say that I learned SO much about female bodies…
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“Women have supercharged immune systems and we now know why” for New Scientist
My newest feature (which they pubbed w/out telling me, doh) for New Scientist is all about why and how women’s immune systems are so badass (there’s also a sidebar abt testosterone’s immune-dampening effects too.) It’s important to understand how hormones affect immune function in order to diagnose and create right treatments, including vaccines. Here’s how the piece…
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Interview with Me on the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC)!
Well this is exciting! I was so honored to be interviewed on The Science Show with the redoubtable Robyn Williams of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)! Really proud of this one; something about being interviewed by someone with 50 years’ experience in broadcast brought out my best. I met up with Robyn at his home…
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Pregnancy and Endurance Athletics for CNN
In my latest piece for CNN Health, I wrote about how female bodies are built for endurance, a topic I covered in great detail in my book. For this piece, I expanded upon how that basic physiology has been ignored, especially in female athletes, who have been detrained when they followed the extremely conservative advice…
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Does AI Need a Body to Get Truly Intelligent? For New Atlas
I really did a lot of deep thinking both pitching and writing this piece for New Atlas, where I was given a wide remit in how to cover this topic by editor Rich Haridy. I talked to Chinese soft robotics experts, AI researchers, and one of the pioneers of robotics, Cecilia Laschi (quoted below), and…
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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.…
Starre Julia Vartan 