Do readers grasp nuance?

When my editor at Slate asked me to look into the link between statins and violent behavior, I thought the idea was crazy. But as I dug into the issue, I decided that there was an important story there. I’m still not entirely convinced that statins cause aggressive or violent behavior in some small subset […]

Telling the whole story on stem cells

Every day, it seems, new research “raises hopes” that stem cells will cure a new disease. I myself have written about the enormous potential of stem cells more times than I can count. Since stem cells can transform into any type of cell in the body, they might become a source of replacement cells for […]

Penguin Study Sparks a Tiff (of sorts)

As a journalist, I live in constant terror of making mistakes. This anxiety typically simmers just below the surface of my consciousness, occasionally bubbling up to grab me in a full choke hold. But errors are more or less inevitable in this business. And last week, I made one. A new Nature study showed that […]