Freelance science writer covering water, animals, art, chemistry, and technology. Stories in Scholastic, Hakai Magazine, and Live Science. MA in science journalism (NYU). BA in chemistry (Drew Univ.).
States with the most rural hospitals at risk of closing
Rural hospitals in the U.S. serve 60 million people, or 1 in 5 Americans. These hospitals provide critical care while also serving as major economic drivers.
How will sea levels change with climate change?
In some places, sea levels are actually falling.
How many organs are in the human body?
It depends if you count teeth as a group or separately.
Why do dogs have cold noses?
After an especially good belly rub, a dog might bump its nose into its human as a way of saying thanks. Often, this snoot boop feels cold and wet. The owner might wonder: Is it normal for a dog's nose to feel like this?
How to Exorcise the Ghosts of Crab Traps Past
Clad in multiple layers of sweatshirts, three commercial crabbers brace against the choppy waters and brisk winds of New Jersey’s Great Bay. Watching a sonar screen mounted near the boat’s steering wheel, Warren and Karen Unkert, the two lead crabbers, navigate toward black circles marking the location of their targets like Xs on a treasure map. They’re training the third crabber, another local fisher, to operate the sonar. Suddenly, the daisy chain of grappling hooks trailing behind them...
Reading the Quran with ‘green glasses’
How one religious leader finds environmental roots in Islamic tradition. When the light streams through the four large windows of NIA Masjid & Community Center, it casts an intricate pattern onto the prayer room floor. These exquisite windows, whose designs pay tribute to Spanish influence, are one of the mosque’s “green” features. They let light inside and reduce the need for artificial lighting. Just outside this haven, though, is the heavily polluted city of Newark, New Jersey.
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What happened to prehistoric giant animals?
Saber-toothed tigers, giant ground sloths, woolly rhinos and other ice age megafauna are all extinct now — but who or what is to blame remains a mystery. Was it overkill, overchill or overgrill?
Climate change could leave utilities in hot water
Warming temperatures are a breeding ground for vulnerabilities in water distribution systems. A new study tackles challenges with maintaining and engineering water systems for a hotter future.
Baby anteaters sound like car engines, and other observations by zookeepers
Over time, it’s natural for zookeepers to become very familiar with their animals. At the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, Conn., zookeepers have noticed plenty of odd or interesting behaviors, particularly with their mammals. Pana the Giant Anteater, for instance, gets very nervous at certain loud noises. The Goeldi’s Monkey sticks his tongue out at one particular male zookeeper.
Anybody out there?
For hundreds of years, people have looked into the night sky and wondered if anyone’s looking back. But answering the question “Are we alone?” isn’t easy.
It unleashes more questions: How many other planets could support life? If there is other life somewhere out there, is it intelligent? Is it near enough to us that we could ever make contact?
To Mars, without leaving the couch
What if you could be in two places at once — and one of them was Mars? With avatar robots, you could feel like you’re out of this world without ever leaving the comfort of Earth. A new competition’s sponsors are betting $10 million that engineers can get closer than ever to making science fiction a reality in the next few years.
Building public trust in science not part of science writer job description
Cheerleader, critic, both, or neither. What is the role of the journalist, and more specifically, the science writer? This was the crux of the opening plenary debate at ScienceWriters 2018.