Sat 25 Oct 2008
I woke up with a jolt at 3:30 am after Friday’s reception. Thoughts had been condensing in my mind while I was asleep. The discomfort I felt over food and fermentation the night before had worked its way to the surface of my skin and made it twitch and curl. I felt so out of [...]Sat 25 Oct 2008
On Saturday evening, presumably to unburden writers who had endured a long day of workshops, the NASW scheduled a comedic speaker during Happy Hour. Everyone gathered outside the lecture room on the patio, sipping wine and mingling. I found a seat close to the speaker and waited for crowd to file in. But it seemed [...]Tue 25 Nov 2008
If you’re a fan of National Public Radio’s "Science Friday," then you are familiar with Joe Palca’s quirky, friendly approach to communicating science. He is an occasional host for Science Friday, as well as regular science correspondent for NPR. He’s done pretty well for a guy who once hated writing. During his career he has [...]Sat 13 Dec 2008
Megan is a returning student who grew up in South Dakota, then lived in Minneapolis for several years. Fed up with the knee-high snow and blistering winds, she packed up and moved to mediterranean France. Despite three years of good wine and great friends, she felt an urge to return to the U.S. to finish [...]Mon 15 Dec 2008
Early last fall, the student newspaper sent me to collect specifics on a large grant awarded to a group of IU chemists studying viruses. The chemists let me play with nanotubes, showed me models of icosahedrons—a term describing something shaped like a twenty-sided soccer ball—but the most impassioned and optimistic of all my interviewees was [...]Mon 15 Dec 2008
In Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” the main character walks down a long corridor as personalized advertisements chase after him along the walls. A video billboard shouts to Tom Cruise’s character in the film: “John Anderton, you could use a Guinness right about now!” Current advances being made in computer science indicate that real-time advertising, specifically [...]Thu 18 Dec 2008
It’s no small task appealing to the masses if you aren’t a television set—especially regarding the need-to-know issues of our time. No, these issues have little to do with celebrity memoirs or scoring a mate. What Natalie Angier wants everyone to know will make for better voters, smarter consumers, and less likely targets for sensationalism [...]