All posts by erin

Hard At Work

BioTechnology, Genetics, Past Articles,

I spent all day today working on a new article for BioTechniques. The editor in chief of the journal offered me a freelance job, which is awesome, but the stipulation was that I had to get it done in two weeks. We’re now at the one week mark, and I’ve now got a working draft, so I’m happy with that progress.

I got to interview David Goldstein from Duke University today for the article, which was pretty cool… even if he only gave me 15 minutes. The article is about the hunt for rare variants and how genome wide association studies were never intended to find rare variants, only common ones. Its slated to run in BioTechniques print edition in October. It still needs a few more sources, and some editing so hopefully in between moving (tomorrow!) and settling in Wisconsin I’ll have the time to do more interviews… I better find the time.

Reporting on Science Misconduct

Journalism
I usually prefer to read the BBC for science news (and all other news for that matter) because I find their reporting, especially only US Politics, to be fairly balanced in the grand scheme of journalism. But,  as a NJ/NY native, I can’t help but check out the New York Times everyday. That is where I found this article on a case of alleged misconduct at Harvard that is still under investigation, but may have a trickle-down affect to various fields that the PI worked in, and students that he worked with.

I always found it very interesting that when we ran stories at BioTechniques about cases of scientific misconduct, they caused a huge jump in hits to the website. People love gossip, and they especially love hearing drama about their colleagues. I guess its an old journalism standard that juicy stories usually win big, even in a field that can be dry (when not done right!) like science writing. Stories about misconduct feel a little cheap to me, almost like they belong in the Star magazine of the biological research community. But, then again misconduct is a huge issue that does need to be reported on.

Integrity in any field is important, but for researchers, the “publish or perish” adage adds to the pressure to get results no matter what the cost. Conducting research requires a lot of overhead, in addition to the time and energy of students, post docs, and technicians. When a PI choses to alter their data to get more favorable results it does have a huge affect on the other members of their lab, and can tarnish their careers even if they were unaware of the misconduct. Hopefully that case at Harvard won’t derail too many promising careers.

Since When do Journalists Need Grad School?

Grad School

Most people agree that what counts most in creative fields, like journalism, is experience. However, in a field like science journalism there is a certain expectation that a writer will have extensive credentials, including a higher degree. When I interview scientists I have to hold my own with incredibly intelligent and accomplished people, all of whom have their Ph.D., and usually I do just fine, but they often ask me what my Ph.D. is in. Imagine their surprise when I tell them that I don’t have a Ph.D. or even a M.A. (my B.A. in Science Writing is from Lehigh University.)

In my year at BioTechniques, I worked with several interns, three of whom moved on to full-time positions at NPR’s Science Friday and Genome Web. What these writers had that I don’t was a Master’s Degree in Journalism. I’ve always wanted to pursue a graduate degree, so it just made sense for me to apply to grad school for science journalism. I start at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in September.

Part of my reasoning for starting this blog, in addition to wanting to constantly write about science and needing a new venue, was to chronicle my grad school experience as I try to make a name for myself as a science writer. So hopefully this blog will become a mix of personal stories, observations about science, and a few adventures (and I’m sure stumbles) as I chase that dream.

Science Writing Highlights

Genetics, Past Articles

For the last year (2009-2010) I’ve been writing for the journal BioTechniques. In that time I’ve written way to many articles to post here, but here are a few favorites from Spring/Summer 2010:

“Ending cell line contamination by cutting off researchers” is my most recent piece, about how the biological research community can end the widespread use of contaminated cell lines for published (and peer reviewed) research. New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Skloot (who literally wrote the book on HeLa cell contamination) posted a link to the article on her Twitter.

“Fastest case of adaptation documented in Tibetans” reported on (what I think is) a really interesting development in the study of human genetic adaptation to environmental conditions. Basically, Tibetans adapted rapidly from Han Chinese to thrive in low-oxygen environments.

“The sequencing race: the home stretch” was a follow up to an article that I wrote that appeared in the February 2010 print edition of BioTechniques. The whole suite of articles reports of the progress that has been made (and is anticipated) in the field of genome sequencing technologies.

“Plant biology blasts off: shuttle missions explore biofuels” reported on experiments featured on the last few NASA shuttle missions exploring the affects of zero-gravity on possible new biofuels.

“Facial expressions quantify pain in lab mice” is about a method to quantify whether or not laboratory mice are experiencing pain due to their role in an experiment based on the way the features of their face change, indicating pain. It raised some important issues about animal rights, specifically what constitutes suffering and whether the animals are aware of what is happening to them.