Follow the Fish

By: | August 7, 2014

79431587_8c0f1f5d83_bFor a landlubber, I’ve been spending a lot of time around fish. Not long ago, I plunged my hands into paddlefish guts for a story about caviar poaching in the Ozarks; last year, I spent several weeks in very fishy places on and around the Mekong River, researching an ongoing project about hydropower development on the Mekong. And last month, I wrote a story about a Berkeley biologist whose work shows how declining fisheries are leading to all manner of social horrors—from terrorism to slavery—in many of the poorest places of the world.

These stories have made me think about the limits of the famous (but apocryphal) advice Deep Throat gave to Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein as they pursued the Watergate scandal: Follow the money. Of course journalists should always ask who’s paying, and who’s benefiting—those are key questions in any story. But money isn’t the only currency that matters. In many parts of the world, it’s important not only to follow the money but also to follow the fish.

Continue reading →

Days Are Numbered

By: | August 6, 2014

Feb1712Around here, we do some things by the numbers. On odd days, the older boy sits on the prime outside seat of the kitchen island and has bedtime stories from his dad; on even days, his younger brother gets these things. On even days, no one has to wash his hair.

But then we run into a problem at the end of the month: sometimes there are two odd days in a row. Continue reading →

On the Trail of the Great Tinamou

By: | August 5, 2014

great tinamou in the amazon

Three years ago, I spent a while in the rainforest of Panama, for a story. It’s one of those swashbuckling freelancer stories, except—like so many of those—it’s not all that swashbuckling when you get down to the details. I was an hour’s drive (on good roads) from an international airport. I was staying in a comfortable B&B in the town of Gamboa, which was carved out of the rainforest to house the Panama Canal’s dredging division. But the rainforest is still right there; you have the sense that if anyone left their house empty for too long, moss would grow, vines would come in the windows, and monkeys would set up housekeeping.

I was there to hang around with a biologist who studies frog reproduction. I combined the work with a family vacation; my parents came along for some sightseeing and nature before I started my reporting. On our first full day in Gamboa, we went out with a local guide who had a spotting scope and much experience with visiting birders. We saw dozens of species–green birds, red birds, yellow birds, black birds. The red-legged honeycreeper. The slaty-tailed trogon.

As we walked back toward the car, our guide stopped abruptly. Against the background of singing insects and chirps from the treetops, a haunting whistle rose. Its long, warm notes came through the dense growth at the edge of the road. He told us its name: the great tinamou. Continue reading →

Facts? Sure. Truth? Hmm.

By: | August 4, 2014

3284013391_d77d65f633_bRichard:  A few months ago, Ann wrote a post about beauty and truth in science writing. I object to neither. But she seemed to take exception to a “literary nonfiction” approach to science, and I wondered what in particular her objections were. So I thought I’d ask her. Hey, Ann, what gives? 

Ann:   Literary nonfiction is writing about the real world in a literary way, that is, a way that uses the literary techniques of fiction.  I wrote that if a science writer has to choose between literary techniques (or beauty) and reality (or truth), that writer should choose truth.  And if the writer wants both, that writer should find the beauty in truth.  Is that blindingly obvious?  Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | August 2, 2014

StateLibQld_1_141947_Female_athlete_competing_in_the_Motor_Sports_Carnival_in_Brisbane,_Queensland,_1914

July 28—August 1, 2014

The ever-helpful Abstruse Goose swoops in to start the week with a vision of astronaut Barbie going rogue and unleashing her vengeance on Earth. Unrealistic expectations, according to AG—but why, I wonder?

I’m particularly wondering this after seeing 5’0” Kacy Catanzaro climb up walls and hurl herself through obstacles to become the first woman to qualify for the American Ninja Warrior finals.

Before Tuesday, I’d never heard of American Ninja Warrior, and I sure didn’t think I’d spent seven minutes of my life watching it.  But after reading Cassie’s post on women’s bodies “as strong and capable as we train them to be,” I have, and I did. And like Cassie, I want to break out the champagne.

Also deserving of a toast, many thousands of years after the fact, are those who paddled uncharted waters. Craig visited St. Lawrence Island, once a part of the Bering land bridge, to see that sea, not land, may have been the way early settlers traveled from Asia to the Americas. (And still travel, as one man on an icebreaker learned.)

One of the perils of the sea these travelers may have faced is lightning—a danger that hasn’t gone away, even in an age of smartphone storm tracking. I write about bolts from the not-so blue, both recent and remembered.

And Christie is enlightened by tracking her own workflow. “Tracking outcomes is often tedious, but it’s worth doing, because it turns out that we’re not very good at judging our performance.” Then why, she asks, are we not doing it when it comes to new medical treatments? Maybe ignorance is bliss, after all—particularly if Astronaut Barbie is out there building her Tesla death ray.

The Case for Tracking Outcomes

By: | August 1, 2014

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Earlier this year, I installed a little program on my computer that tracks how I spend my time. At the end of the day, it can tell me how many minutes I spent editing a specific document, how long it took me to write a blog post and how much time I spent surfing the internet or checking email. The time tracker is part of my ongoing experiment on how to better manage my time. I’d been playing around with different tools for a while when it occurred to me that I didn’t actually know where all my time was going. So I started collecting data.

The results were enlightening. I was certain that social media and LOL cats were hogging too much time, but after tracking my numbers for a little while, I discovered that those diversions were just little blips. The data showed me that email was my actual number one time suck. I’d had no idea it was so bad, probably because internet surfing feels like guilty pleasure, while email feels like work.

Simply identifying the problem represented a huge step toward fixing it. Within a week, I had doubled my productivity score and cut in half the amount of time I was wasting on email. I didn’t take any drastic measures. I added a couple new filters to improve my email triage, but mostly I just paid attention. With the little timer window watching me, I automatically became more mindful of my habits.

I’ll never be one of those people who tracks every step and quantifies every possible aspect of their lives, but I’ve become a believer in tracking how I’m doing in areas I’d like to improve. Yes, tracking outcomes is often tedious, but it’s worth doing, because it turns out that we’re not very good at judging our performance. Most people think they’re above average, and this is true across disciplines. For instance, a 2006 study published in JAMA found that, “physicians have a limited ability to accurately self-assess,” and a 2012 study found that doctors overestimate the value of the care they provide.  Continue reading →

Strikeout

By: | July 31, 2014

Scottobear_-_051231_sun_(by-sa)Last weekend there was an unseasonal lightning storm on the coast. Not here (thank goodness, for our dog’s sake), but farther south. More than 1,400 strikes touched down across the region, with 13 people reporting injuries in Los Angeles County alone. A golfer was hit on Catalina Island, 22 miles from Los Angeles. One young man died after being struck in the water in Venice Beach.

Some people thought the boom of thunder was an earthquake. You see, people don’t usually think of lightning at the beach in the summer around here. Continue reading →

The Ninja Glass Ceiling

By: | July 29, 2014

StateLibQld_1_141947_Female_athlete_competing_in_the_Motor_Sports_Carnival_in_Brisbane,_Queensland,_1914On July 16, Kacy Catanzaro, a 24-year-old New Jersey native and former gymnast, shattered a glass ceiling you likely didn’t know existed. She became the first woman ever to qualify for the American Ninja Warrior finals.

I’m not a fan of American Ninja Warrior. In fact, I only tuned in the night that Catanzaro achieved fame because the show happened to be the least stupid thing on TV. And that’s saying something. Because for the first half hour, American Ninja Warrior appeared to be a competition in which muscle-bound men grimace and flex as they work their way through a ridiculously difficult obstacle course.

But then I saw Catanzaro. A woman! She looked fit, but tiny. Could she complete the course? “It’s a really tall order for someone who is five feet tall and weighs just a 100 pounds,” said one announcer ominously. Continue reading →