A Tech Journalism Cheat Sheet

A few weeks ago, the Human Brain Project announced that it had been selected as a finalist in a competition whose winners will get €1 billion worth of funding from the EU. The Human Brain Project (HBP) plans to use the prize money to build a simulation of the human brain on a supercomputer. HBP [...]

The Stuff of Hot

Late Saturday evening, I was cutting jalapeños for the salsa for the next day’s barbeque party. I had a few other things on my mind — like my bean salad, and cleaning the bathroom, and figuring out what to write for this post — and so I forgot the lesson learned the last time I [...]

Guest Post: Lies and the Lying Bicyclist Who Tells Them

Tyler Hamilton has finally confessed. I am not inclined to give him another hug. In 2007, I wrote a Bicycling magazine feature about Tyler, his supporters and why I don’t believe. (You can read the story here.) While writing the Bicycling story, I spent a lot of time with Tyler and his fans. Tyler— a [...]

Arsenic, RNA, and the unpleasant aftertaste of hype

I will never forget the last time I got serious food poisoning. I was a teenager, and my family went out to eat one sunny Saturday morning. Soon after we returned home, I was grasping the toilet bowl, retching in agony. I could still taste the omelet I had eaten for breakfast. To this day, [...]

The

Fifty years ago today, President Kennedy, speaking before a joint session of Congress, said, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Love that “the.”

Abstruse Goose: Newton #2

I see two problems here.  Number 1 is that no squirrel ever slipped and fell off a tree.  Squirrels’ understanding of gravitational physics is hard-wired and mathematically immaculate. Number 2 is with AG’s mouse-overed comment, “Not even an insatiable thirst for knowledge can compete with our innate affinity for cute fuzzy little animals.”  I agree [...]

No More Clock-Punching

As part of LWON’s first birthday celebrations, Ginny set a question for me: Your upcoming book is about experiencing time in different cultures. I can’t wait to read it. In the meantime, could you tell us which country/city/village, in your opinion, has the best conception of time? (However you’d like to define best.) In other [...]

Blammo! Yay! Lists!

One year ago today, the People of LWON published their first post. It was by Josie Glausiusz, it was on flesh-eating algae, and we thank her for setting that tone. Writing LWON — that is, writing what we want to and in the way we want to write it — turns out to be a [...]

Obesity and Falling off the Edge of the Known World

When my husband and I moved to a suburb of Vancouver eleven years ago, many of our friends ribbed us wildly about our decision. Instead of living in a leafy urban neighborhood, a short walk from a good cappuccino, an organic fruit and veg store, and a pilates studio, we had, it seemed, forsaken civilization [...]

Drugging Our Way Out of the HIV Epidemic

When antiretroviral drug cocktails hit the scene in 1996, they were so effective they became known as ‘the Lazarus drug.’ Many AIDS patients recovered seemingly overnight. Over the past 15 years, these drugs have saved the lives of millions of people infected with HIV. Several new studies suggest antiretrovirals could save millions more if we [...]