Coming from a strong medical family, Middleton began her undergraduate program at IU as a pre-nursing major but, found that after a summer of representing her community in 2006 as Miss Monroe County she should harness her talent for writing and communicating and become a journalist.

"The crown didn’t affect me as much as the opportunities that were made available to me did. I took every chance I was given as Queen to discover the community I belonged to. I met people who moved me. Their stories… I also got to accompany State Representative Peggy Welch to specific events. I became fascinated with researching audiences, writing speeches and sharing my work with crowds. Specifically, I remember giving a speech at a Veteran’s Day dinner about the war-reporting of Ernie Pyle during WWII and how his work still sets a mark that is barely reached today." I remember dreaming of wanting my work to reach that stature.

Middleton welcomes opportunities to explore the many aspects of journalism but has been developing a niche in broadcast media and public communication. She has written her share of articles for the Indiana Daily Student and has more recently interned at NBC affiliate, Channel 13, WTHR, in Indianapolis.

A member of Alpha Gamma Delta sorority, Middleton rides in the Little 500 cycling race every spring. It’s her way of staying in shape and focusing on goals. Like the goal to survive and persevere as she graduates, leaves her hometown and enters the unstable workforce. Despite all that, she remains headstrong and is determined a to make a difference in journalism "by embracing new media and possibly re-establishing foreign news bases."

"Something like that,” she continues."It’s this internal feeling and drive, I’m going to do something big and it won’t be in a cubicle…if anything I want what I do [in journalism] to leave a mark on me, like the cinders in my skin from wrecking my bike."

 

Angier has served up a frothy brew for all those who fail to grasp, or more sarcastically who intentionally avoid, the importance of science in everyday life. Her rendition of the five major disciplines of science—physics, chemistry, biology, geology and astronomy– brings readers back to childhood awe and wonder, a time where our adventures and discoveries weren’t labeled as scientific feats but as fun! Using information gleaned from interviews with some of the top scientists and mathematicians in the United States, she deciphers some of the most complex theories and terms with youthful spunk and flare.

“Kings pour coffee on fairy god-sisters,” Angier’s favorite way to remember the taxonomic system that is used to classify species, is just one example. It stands for kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus and species.

In nine chapters, Angier explains everything I wish I would have gotten from my high school science teachers and science profs. Why didn’t my Earth-Space science teacher stop my back of the room class-chatter by telling me I was made of stardust instead of making me memorize all the fireballs hundreds of light-years away? Or, more recently, why couldn’t my finite professor inform me the secret to miracles, that they can be defined probabilities? John Littlewood’s “Law of Miracles,” sparked the little mathematician inside me. Turns out everybody experiences a miracle at least once a month…

After writing hundreds of science-related stories for the New York Times over the years and more recently winning the Pulitzer Prize for her  book, Woman: An Intimate Geography, Angier starts The Canon in retaliation for a decision her sister made with respect to the science education of her pre-teen children.  That decision was to allow her family’s membership to the science museum to lapse, noting that it was expensive and her children were getting enough science-babble in school and on PBS.  Rattled by this, Angier cries out to American families to nurture children’s interest in science. Today’s society, it is clear,  shies away from science instead of embracing it as the incredible life-force it is. Angier addresses this by connecting to her reader’s inner child — you know, the curiosity that led us to dismember our parents’ radios or fry a bug under a magnifying glass?

 

Whether you are sipping a cocktail or hot cocoa, The Canon is a fast-paced read for any age, and essential, no matter your profession.

–Kate Middleton

 

“It may sound odd but that’s usually how medical studies are received at first before they start saving lives,” said Leann Tolliver a registered nurse for local medical doctor of cardiology, Carter Henrich, in response to her receptionist’s shocked reaction to Dr. Michael Murphy’s current study.

As assistant professor of surgery at Indiana University School of Medicine, Murphy is doing preliminary research with stem cell researcher Keith March to see if endometrial regenerative cells (ERC) extracted from menstrual blood can restore blood flow to people suffering from critical limb ischemia (CLI). CLI is diagnosed when a patient with peripheral artery disease shows symptoms of chronic ischemic rest pain, ulcers or gangrene.

Some 13 million Americans who have peripheral artery disease, an intense build-up of plaque within the arteries that severely blocks oxygen flow to the limbs and tissues. Some of those patients contract CLI. It’s a very serious disease, Murphy said, and these patients are left with few or no options. An average of 50,000 amputations are performed each year due to CLI, and of those who lose one or more limbs thirty percent die within the first year after surgery.

According to an article in the August 2008 issues of the Journal of Translational Medicine, when mice afflicted with circulation-blocked limbs were injected with the stem cells derived from menstrual blood, circulation and functionality were restored within 14 days.

This study is awaiting clinical trials involving humans but already has sparked a new hope for improved treatment for patients with CLI. Currently stents can be surgically inserted to open up and strengthen collapsed arteries, but "we usually have to refer patients to a vascular surgeon," Tolliver said. Tolliver sees about 1,500 to 2,000 peripheral artery disease patients a year.

“Yes," Murphy said, "potentially we could cure heart attack and stroke victims," by being able to restore clogged blood vessels throughout the body. But those results will only be found through further research and testing. The research has only begun, he added.

Diagnoses for peripheral artery disease are growing in numbers due to the growing waistlines of Americans. Even though most CLI patients are 55+ years old, there are still cases documented of patients being as young as in their twenties.

To prevent plaque development in arteries, Murphy said, don’t smoke and exercise. He recommended a 30-45 minute brisk walk at least five times a week and a low-fat Mediterranean diet. Not intending for everybody to jump on a bike, ride fifteen miles and cut fats completely out of their diets, but rather to be active and eat the “good fats” that are found in olive oil, fish and whole grains.

 

–Kathryn Middleton

I would have to describe it all as rather serendipitous. I started writing local sports for my high school newspaper but switched to radio in college. One day the college newspaper needed someone to report on a press conference about school budgeting with the governor. I had a tape recorder as big as a suit case, and I got a ten minute interview with the governor. I wrote the article and low and behold it ran on the front page. After that I found myself in a journalism class even though I was working on a history major. I graduated in 1971 from the University of New Hampshire, and looking back I wish I had taken more science classes.

 

I learned science along the way at the Journal. It’s a great place to learn to write about anything really. I started writing healthcare in 1989 on the verge on the Clinton Administration’s attempt to reform healthcare. To ground myself in my newly assigned beat I traveled; I took different courses with experts in the field, went to drug and medical seminars. It was a new beat for me but I knew how to ask good questions and I knew how to ask, well, “dumb” questions.

 

On the one hand, I think that there’s a concern that new science today is portrayed as definite. What journalists need to work on is making sure they give the entire story (i.e. the study, findings, and all caveats).

 

On the other hand, I think we underestimate the public’s ability to absorb science and its technicalities, and I think a lot of editors make the decision, whether it be print or broadcast, to dumb it down. I’ve done a number of stories over the years where I’ve interviewed families and people who have dealt with daunting medical tragedies. These individuals haven’t gone to medical school, but because of what they went through, what they know is incredible. I think we’ve really got to raise the assumptions on the public’s ability to grasp these topics because everyday science is changing their lives, our lives, and we shouldn’t duck the story. We have an obligation to give them the information.

 

I think there’s a current situation in the media where commercial interests are automatically presumed, and there’s a demonization in the industry to a point that I think has gone too far. We need a balance/reality check on "breakthrough" stories. There are extraordinary examples of corporations behaving badly, but there’s room for stories that go into how people are trying to develop new treatments and relay study findings without the public assuming what they’re reading is self-serving public relations. This conference, with all its workshops, does wonders for the field of science writing; it really tries to bridge the gap.

 

Yes, I think that’s probably the case, but we don’t assume a whole lot of technical expertise. A very famous anecdote, you have to know a little bit about baseball for this, but we once had to define batting average in a story about a baseball player. So it’s not like we assume knowledge about everything. There’s a cardiology device called a stent that is implanted to prop open diseased arteries. It’s been one of the big medical stories for the past 15 years, and you start to wonder when you can stop defining that after first reference. Certainly you have to fill in and inform people, but we do have a pretty smart audience.

 

We’ve had some changes in the paper, whereas now the front page is more inclined to breaking news. So much of the breaking news lately has been about the economy and the election and energy so getting anything on the front page is very difficult. Articles get crowded out and/or placed elsewhere. But don’t get me wrong, we have a pretty ambitious staff of about 30 covering health and science around the world and we get stuff in. Usually on Tuesdays we have a sort of personal Journal that discusses new medicines and procedures and the articles involve a lot of patient narratives. I’m hoping that after this election and after some of this economic stuff, if we ever get to the other side it, well you know, I have a list of five different stories I really want to do and I keep on having to put them off. I’m gonna get to them. They will be prominent stories.

 

We don’t do as much “pure science” stories as the (New York) Times or some other publications. I think the investment the Times makes is an incredibly good investment and validating the whole subject. Although, I do believe they write a little more towards the scientist than the consumer. We tend to write things closer to the market or some specific application. That said, there are stories out there that are pretty basic science that can really open a window onto some sort of theme that we would definitely run with.

 

I wrote a story a while ago about melting fat cells, and the hook was a picture of a fat mouse and a thin mouse and they were both on the same diet. Researchers had figured out a map of cells in the body and a kind of smart bomb that could be delivered right to the fatty cells’ address in the body. Essentially, every cell in the body needs a blood and nutrition supply and the smart bomb choked that supply. Now the study had only been performed on mice, but it shed hope on possibly sending these “smart bombs” to cancerous cells. The study ended up having all the public interest elements. I love stories like that.

 

 

I would recommend loading up on some science courses. Take biology, take physics, and get grounded in a fashion that teaches you to find your way through a story. I would certainly encourage students to get involved in groups and organizations like this where it’s a community solely based on expanding knowledge and networking. We’re all trying to do the same thing. It’s competitive, but here we come together and share with one another in hopes of moving the field.

 

Well there are a number of them but I’ll tell you one in particular. I did a story in 2001 about a $5.2 million hospital bill, one patient, at Duke University. Most of the bill was because of drugs. The patient, from rural North Carolina, was in his late sixties and had developed a rare case of hemophilia and he was bleeding internally. After 34 days and all that money, he died. The man’s grieving widow agreed to do the story finally after some set conditions.

Essentially, after writing the story I met up with her again really trying to make sure I wasn’t exploiting her husband or had made errors. The story ran in the Journal in August and it got a lot of attention. It was a quintessential story about either an out-of-control healthcare system, or, as one of my colleagues wrote to me, “this was a story about a $5.2 million hospital bill and everybody did what they were supposed to do.”

 

So it ran in August 2001 and, well, then there was 9-11…and I live in New York. About two days after the Twin Towers fell and all chaos seemed to break loose, the widow called me and asked if I was okay. I will never forget that. She was…it was…it was just extraordinary.

 

–Kate Middleton

Born on a small farm in Montana, Betty Wallace attended a local college and then traveled far North into the snowy depths of Alaska where “all the men were,” the ones who hadn’t been shipped abroad in World War II.  To hear her tell it, she had a lust and love for two things — men and precious jewels. After moving to a naval base in Anchorage she married. From what I was able to piece together, she did live in New York for a number of years, working at Tiffanys & Co. on 5th Avenue while attending night school for a masters degree in gemology. She traveled the world time and time again, and as fate would have it, I ran into her at the Cabana Hotel in Palo Alto, California.
 

    –Kate Middleton

 

–Kate Middleton