J460 Science Writing » Dani Williams

The Canon: It’s not for everyone

Dani Williams — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 16:58:38 +0000

Natalie Angier loves science. Her passion for all things physical, chemical, biological, geological, and astronomical is clear on every page of The Canon. Unfortunately, her love for quirky phrases and personal commentary negate the universality of the book’s appeal. Simply, The Canon is an interesting read, but not a “one-stop science education” for everyone, as the back cover claims.

Angier’s tour through science is all-inclusive. In a mere 264 pages, readers learn about everything from the fundamentals—probability and scales—to the science most Americans have touched on in school—physics, chemistry, evolutionary and molecular biology, geology, and astronomy. And Angier’s research is thorough. In each field, she cites the work, findings, and passion of many noted scientists.

Of course, inclusivity and thoroughness do not a good education make. After all, every textbook is thoroughly researched and includes the fundamentals. The Canon distinguishes itself from the average science primer by Angier’s unique writing style.

A chapter or two into the book, I found Angier’s writing to be fairly entertaining. She inserts pop culture references and smirking puns into at least one extra-long sentence per paragraph. And as a member of a generation that enjoys the snarkiness of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, passing references to The Love Boat, Milk Duds, and Rocky are generally chuckle-worthy. Such comments get tiresome, though, when they fully saturate every description.

Not only are Angier’s comments often distracting, they are alienating to many of those she seeks to lure into loving science.

Her witticisms frequently aim for smiles from those like Angier: the college-educated, upper middle class. I am of that group so I get the joke, but what about those who aren’t? It’s difficult to imagine my relatives in rural Arkansas, a very intelligent collection of teachers and blue-collar workers, enjoying Angier’s work.

Angier’s personal opinions all too often shine through as well, especially her scorn for the religious. Halfway through The Canon, she tells of David Wake, an evolutionary biologist who sees no problem with being a religious scientist. But her description of Wake seems like a half-hearted attempt at being open-minded.

Her neutrality towards religion is already dashed in the first chapter of the book. Just 26 pages in, Angier derides early American Christians for believing that God causes lightning. By the time she gets to Wake, she’s either bashed the heads of or scornfully silenced any science-curious Christians.

So, who is Angier’s actual target audience? It’s not the sub-upper middle class, who may be more distracted by obscure references than drawn in by them. It’s not the religious of America, who are more likely to be offended by Angier’s condemnations than persuaded by them.

The Canon’s target audience is almost exactly the crowd who would read Angier’s columns in The New York Times. Those who would like this book are those who enjoy snarky hipness and can understand complex ideas with lots of quirk thrown in. I can easily see fellow classmates from high school—now-English majors who claimed to be no good at science, yet always managed to get at least a B—loving The Canon. But do those people really qualify as “science-phobes,” that elusive group the back cover claims will love the book?

No, they don’t.

Not to seem too judgmental (or did I already lose my credibility on that count?), those who will like The Canon will gain lots of good information from it. Angier’s analogies are intelligent and enjoyable. Her descriptions, of chemistry and physics especially, are insightful and interesting. But her book works best to reawaken science-philia in those who have lost it, or to be an amusing detour for scientists weary of dry textbooks.

The Canon may claim to be a “one-stop science education,” but Natalie Angier could have better served the science community by talking more about science and less about Rocky and religion.

–Dani Williams

Dani Williams

Dani Williams — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 20:21:22 +0000

Dani Williams is a sophomore at IUB studying dietetics. Although she’s lived most of her life in Indianapolis, she was born in Charleston, SC, and considers herself a true Southerner at heart. Among her favorite things are good barbecue, old movies, jazz, and Agatha Christie. When not immersed in schoolwork, Dani spends her time with friends or at church, where she serves in the kitchen, holds babies in the nursery, and makes joyful sounds in the choir. If all goes as planned, Dani will graduate in 2011, become a licensed dietitian in 2012, and not long after, create a big family.

Links to Dani’s articles

UW-Madison Researchers One Step Closer to Pure Biofuel

Dani Williams — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 04:24:02 +0000

A car run entirely on converted remnants of grass and corn stalks sounds like the stuff of a kid’s imagination. Thanks to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, though, that dream is closer than ever to reality.

Through funding by the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, researchers have discovered a process to convert simple sugars into a gasoline equivalent. Unlike some alternative fuels, the product of this process is chemically identical to gasoline, making it a potential alternative or supplement to current supplies of gasoline. Because it is made from sugars, which can be found in any plant material, the study is the next step toward making gasoline purely from biomass.

Edward Kunkes, lead author on the study published September 18, 2008 in the online edition of Science, explains that their processes are an alternative to ethanol, the fuel most Americans think of when considering alternative fuels.

Kunkes cites several drawbacks to ethanol: It is water-soluble, it requires engine modifications, and it uses large amounts of energy during the distillation and concentration stages.

When asked about these drawbacks, Kristin Brekke, of the American Coalition for Ethanol agrees that, yes, large amounts of energy are used to manufacture ethanol, but calls it a “positive energy balance product,” meaning that it produces more energy than is required to make it.

Brekke points out that there is still research being done to improve ethanol, especially its energy efficiency. But, she makes it clear that ethanol is used more often than most people realize, and as to researching improvements, she says, “We’re on the right track.”

In a similar fashion, the scientists at UW-Madison are researching ways to improve their sugar-based gasoline’s efficiency. As of now, this new process is 70% efficient in converting the energy stored in sugars, and Kunkes explains that they “are not maxed out on the efficiency.”

Reaching the limits of that efficiency is one of the next steps in this research. Another subject for further research is combining the two conversion processes into one. Currently, the conversion from sugar to gasoline consists of two main processes. The first process converts the sugar solution to an oily liquid, which the second process then converts to gasoline.

During the first step, researchers pump a concentrated solution of glucose through a heated tube. The heated tube contains a powder consisting of precious metal particles around 2 nanometers wide. (For perspective, the width of a human hair is around 100,000 nanometers).

As the solution is pumped through, the sugars react on the surfaces of the metals, losing their oxygen atoms and becoming species that “resemble gasoline more than sugar,” explains Kunkes.

Although the oily liquid produced by the first process resembles gasoline, a second process must take place to complete the sugars’ conversion to fuel. One of the future goals of the research group is to combine these two steps into one process.

The term “precious metals” can seem extravagant to the casual observer. Are there not any cheaper metals that could work just as well? Kunkes agrees that these metals—platinum and rhenium—are expensive, but he hastens to point out that the metals are catalysts, meaning that they participate in the reaction, but are not consumed by it.

“We have used them [the same metals] for months,” explains Kunkes, “and there is no sign of decreased activity.”

Kunkes also notes that when the metals are no longer useful, it is possible to make new catalysts by recycling the old metals. The cost of making a fresh batch is one-tenth the cost of buying new catalysts.

In discussing the future of the project, Raul Miranda, of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, emphasizes that it is only in the research stage.

Although there is great potential in the future, Miranda says that this study primarily “brings to the attention of the public, and particularly the scientists and technologists in the country, that there are ways to make use of our renewable resources, especially carbohydrate-related resources.”

There are many limitations to converting biomass into gasoline, but studies like the one at UW-Madison are fundamental to understanding the processes. Miranda explains that much of what the scientists are doing is trying to “imitate nature to some extent.” Plants are already able to convert their sugars into energy; scientists are attempting to accomplish the same thing.

Both Brekke and Miranda cited ethanol as a good source because it is available right now. Brekke says that the alternative fuels industry understands that it will take “a wide variety of alternative energy to get the solution we need.”

That solution may not be arriving at your local gas station in the next few months, but the because of pioneers like Kunkes and his colleagues, we may be a tiny bit closer to understanding and using biofuels.

–Dani Williams

Doing Time in the Chem Lab of Jeff Zaleski

Dani Williams — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 21:15:01 +0000

I had fully intended to do a complete write-up of my hours spent in a lab. But as I started, I realized that a simple retelling would not be the most efficient use of my time or my readers’. Working in a lab is like working in any other building. It’s a long day sprinkled with busy moments. A minute-by-minute replay would keep no one’s attention. So, instead of describing each detail of my visit with Meghan Mulcrone, a member of Jeff Zaleski’s synthetic chemistry lab, I will tell you the top five things I learned during my visit.

Before I jump into the list, though, I should give a rundown of the basics of Meghan’s research. Basically, she is working on anti-cancer drugs. But what she actually does is pretty technical. Some of the more technical descriptions can be found at the Zaleski group website: (http://www.indiana.edu/~zalegrp/Research/bioreagents.htm)

But here’s what I’ve gathered:

Each day in the lab, Meghan works to create a ligand. Ligands are compounds that bind to a central metal. The ligand that Meghan makes in the lab is called an enediyne. Once Meghan isolates her enediyne, she can then work to bind a metal to it. (The bound metal will be in the center of the molecule.) Meghan knows what she needs her ligand to look like, but I can’t post an image here, since it hasn’t been published yet.

In cyclization, the double bond and two triple bonds in the molecule become a six-carbon ring with three double bonds, otherwise known as benzene. To work as an anti-cancer drug, this reorganization has to happen inside a cell. What Meghan is trying to do is make her enediyne first, then study how it cyclizes. This usually happens with heat, so she has to be careful when she’s making the molecule that she doesn’t get it too hot. This is a problem, since most of the known synthetic schemes involve heat.

***

1) Organization is everything… except when it doesn’t happen. Two of the first things I wrote in my notes were Meghan’s rules of “Label everything” and “Write everything down in two places.” Because many of the solutions the group makes can look similar, and because many of them are unknown compounds, it is critical in the lab to record as much information as possible. A note taped to each refrigerator/freezer reads as follows:

All items placed in this refrigerator/freezer must be labeled with your name or initials, compound identity, and date. If this information is not on the item, the Lab Gnomes will come and steal the sample away in the middle of the night!

As far as I could tell while there, Meghan followed her two rules to the letter. She had her red sharpie out all the time to write down the mass of a beaker or the identity of a solution to put in the freezer.

But, sometimes even the best laid plans go awry. Vinnie Cavaliere, another grad student in the lab, spent his Friday clearing out the freezer and testing unmarked beakers. A lot of unmarked beakers. The lab members write on their beakers with markers, and those notes often get rubbed off accidentally. So, when they have downtime, they try to clear out the freezer and identify the now-mysterious compounds.

What does this say about a laboratory? Yes, organization is essential. But, scientists are like any other person. They try to be as organized as possible, and sometimes, it just doesn’t work like it should.

***

2) Safety first! When Leigh first emailed me the okay to shadow in the lab, she warned me that the materials in their lab could be toxic, explosive, etc.

Accordingly, I showed up with my lab goggles, ready to avoid any toxic, exploding compounds. Signs on nearly every fridge, cabinet, or drawer warned “Irritant,” “Flammable Liquid,” “Poison,” or “Corrosive,” with helpful images of cartoon hands being burned through by cartoon liquids. When it came down to it though, I saw no such dangerous activity.

But the lab members know the capabilities of the materials in their lab.

Around the materials that they know well and have handled often, the workers in the lab can be confident that they won’t explode something. But in other areas, they are safer. For instance, when washing her glassware in an acid/base bath combination, Meghan wears a giant green glove and a lab coat to protect her and her clothes from any splashing.

As with their organization skills, scientists are like any other person when it comes to safety. Be safe, but be realistic, too.

***

3) Chemistry machines are pretty cool. I got to visit several of the different machines used in the chemistry department, including the mass spectrometers (http://chemfacilities.chem.indiana.edu/facilities/masspec/default.htm) and the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) machines (http://nmr.chem.indiana.edu).

Mass spec analyzes the mass-to-charge ratio of charged particles to identify the material in a sample. The analysis occurs by passing the sample through magnetic and electronic fields in the mass spec machine. The machine at IU is very nice and allowed us to leave our sample in line behind several others. When the sample was analyzed, the machine emailed the results to Meghan. Although the mass spec machines are cool, I got to spend more time with the NMR machines, so I know a bit more about those.

NMRs are giant magnets which can be used in all kinds of chemistry. To help identify one of the unknown compounds, Meghan and I trekked down the hall to the NMR room. When we got there, Meghan advised me to leave my cell phone and any credit cards on a table by the entrance. NMR uses high-powered magnets that can affect the usability of some electronic devices and the magnetic strip of credit cards.

The machines are in almost constant use, but we went during a scheduled “free time.” Meghan put the sample in a slim glass tube, which she then put into a holder in the NMR machine. She climbed a ladder to reach the holder and when the tube was in, the device reacted in true sci-fi fashion, whooshing and whirring as it lowered the holder into the giant belly of the machine.

I won’t pretend to know the specific mechanics of the NMR machine, but the end result was a reading of how the substance in the tube reacted with the magnetic field around it. By reading the results, Meghan could figure out what substances were in the sample she had made. A great benefit of the NMR machine is that the scientist doesn’t need to submit a pure sample. Meghan knew that there may be some ethanol in the sample, since she had used ethanol as a solvent earlier. But, since she knows what results ethanol produces in the NMR machine, she can ignore any of those spikes on the readout.

Electronics are the kind of thing that it’s easy to take for granted. But if we weren’t at a university like IU, we wouldn’t have access to very cool, very useful, and very expensive things like mass spectrometers and NMRs.

***

4) Being a chemistry grad student is not all fun. When I visited the lab on Monday, I got to sit in on Nick Mayhall’s talk entitled "Transition Metal Thermochemistry and Reactivity: Developments and Applications." Nick is a fifth-semester grad student and as such, he had to present the dreaded Fifth Semester Exam.

Meghan and several other grad students helped explain to me that the Fifth, for most people, is the most frightening part of being in grad school. At some point during the fifth semester, every grad student must present a talk to a panel of faculty members. This talk, in essence, justifies their presence in the Ph.D. program.

During the hour-long talk, the faculty asked questions about Nick’s presentation, which consisted mainly of the research he’s done over the past two years and the work he plans to do in the future. None of the faculty had any sympathy and the whole situation was, in a word, terrifying. To pile on the terror, after the talk, Nick and the faculty panel went to another private room, where the questions continued with no time limit.

But, the questions aren’t just for kicks. If the faculty think that the presenter does not meet whatever standards they have, the grad student is given a master’s degree and removed from the program.

Scary, no?

***

5) Working in a lab is a lot like any other job. I realize that I’ve said this several times now, but this was really the most important information I gathered from my time in the lab. Lab work is much like any other work. Zaleski’s group knows a lot more about inorganic chemistry than I ever will, but their days are neither more exciting nor more boring than mine are.

They forget to label their beakers; I forget to turn in an assignment.

They have intimidating moments, like presenting their Fifths; I have intimidating moments, like interviewing a scientist for a story.

They have busy days of doing reactions and boring days of reading papers; I have busy days of tests and meetings and boring days of reading for class.

They take time off to go to lunch together and relax; I take time off to eat dinner with a friend and have fun.

***

So, there it is. There is no better way to learn about lab work than to get in the lab and see it for yourself, so that’s exactly what I did. Hopefully, you will do your own time in the field at some point during your science journalism career, so that you can learn firsthand about the science we love and the people who figure it out.

Conversation with Sheila Sperber Haas, Freelancer

Dani Williams — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 13:53:40 +0000

Science writers are one of two breeds — those who start as journalists and those who start as scientists. The end result is usually similar, but the path that each writer takes is as different as the individual. Sheila Sperber Haas received her PhD in psychology from City University of New York. After finishing her dissertation, she began her career as a journalist, writing especially about medicine and biology. Her work has been featured in Dermatology Focus and Complementary Medicine for the Physician, and she is the author or co-author of several books, including The Chronic Bronchitis and Emphysema Handbook and Neem: A hands-on guide to one of the world’s most versatile herbs.

You spent years and years studying psychology to get your PhD. Do you feel like all that study influenced you as a science writer?

The experience of working on my dissertation very definitely influenced my early approach to science writing. The need for organizing my material, for expressing it as clearly as possible, and also–and I have to credit my advisor for this–learning to separate material and phrases that were really necessary for what I was writing from what I liked simply because I liked the sound of it.

I had several experiences interacting with my advisor in which he wanted to delete something and my first response was, "No, I like it." I would explain why and he would say, "But it gets in the way of what you’re saying. It’s not really relevant. You like how it sounds, or you like the piece of information, but it’s not relevant to what you’re talking about and you have to get rid of it." Of course, he was the one with the final word, so I had to listen to him.

But, I realized that what he was saying was incredibly important. One of the keys to being a successful writer is learning what is important, but also recognizing what’s not important and getting rid of it.

When was it during your study that you decided that you wanted to be a writer instead of a psychologist?

That’s very hard to say. I think it happened gradually–probably toward the end of my graduate studies, and working on my dissertation. I was an older graduate student, in part just because it took me so long to finish, and I wanted to start a family, and I wanted to be able to stay home with my kids and still work at something that was meaningful to me. I had always enjoyed writing, and I had already had a number of experiences of editing and helping a couple of physicians get some articles written. So I knew that I really enjoyed it and was very good at it. I guess it must have been that latter phase of working on my dissertation that I decided to go in that direction.

In science writing, we hear about scientists turned journalists and journalists turned scientists. When you read other science writers’ work, do you notice a difference between people like you, who were scientists and then decided to write, and journalists who just get tossed in there?

I think it really depends on what they’re writing about. Because of the nature of my work, I tend to read a lot more hard science stuff, but I, in general, don’t have a great deal of respect for an awful lot of people who write about health and medicine in science. There are some fabulous people regardless of which side of the issue they come from in terms of their basic training, but there are many terrible science writers. It’s a combination of two things: They don’t really understand the science, so they do a terrible job of explaining it, and they get it wrong. Plus, a lot of writers just aren’t really good with words; I find their writing to be either superficial or awkward, not well-phrased, not smooth-flowing. I’m a tough critic.

You’re a freelancer. How did you get into working with the different magazines you write for?

The first one that I got in touch with was a piece of luck. My father-in-law was a physician in pulmonary rehab and an important name in the field. The editor of the Journal of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Technique called him and asked if he knew of a writer, and he recommended me. They got in touch with me and have me an assignment.

It was my first experience interviewing and I was terrified, and almost gave the job back because I was so scared. I also thought that they wanted me to send my tapes back, I thought they were going to listen to me and htink I was an idiot and I was so terrified that I was paralyzed. I was about to retern the job to them and then I realized that if I did that, I would never forgive myself, and so I decided to take the chance of sounding like an idiot, and I finally realized that the tapes were just in case there was some question about accuracy of information from an interview and they could listen to the tapes and see if there was really a problem or not.

So I did it and discovered that it was really fun asking questions and I enjoyed it, and I discovered that I was very good at writing these articles and it opened up a whole new thing for me.

Do you have any advice for a science writer who wants to become a freelancer?

I would immediately find out what local organizations there are for medicine and health care science writers, and I would join and start going to whatever events they have because you meet people. These groups also have presentations that help young writers become familiar with the lay of the land, and there are sessions on how to get started as a freelancer, and various aspects of improving your craft. So, I think it’s very helpful.

If I were starting out now, one of the things I would do is, with the areas of science that I would be particularly interested in or have an expertise in, you Google the topic online and you come up with all sorts of resources including articles at a variety of levels and variety of publications. then you can identify publications that you feel are at an appropriate level or readership for what you want to do. And that points you to publications to become familiar with and you can find out if they accept freelance writers or not and do your best at pitching your ideas.

Is there a story that is your favorite or that you like returning to over and over?

It’s more broad areas than favorite stories. The work of complementary and alternative medicine changed my whole approach to my health care, to aspects of my diet, to my supplements. So I keep up as a combination of academic and very personal interest.

I don’t find anyone’s story the most interesting. It’s more a question of topics. In dermatology, I find immunology to be absolutely fascinating. If I came back in another lifetime as a dermatologist, it would be an immunodermatologist.

–Dani Williams

Session 2A: Who’s Consuming Science, and How Do We Reach Them?

Dani Williams — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 17:00:21 +0000

This session focused on propaganda but in the very best sense of the word: How do universities and laboratories convince people to care about them? The answers were good, but they applied to a specific group of science writers, which unfortunately did not include me with my waning attention span.

Jim Barlow, the director of science and research communications at the University of Oregon, opened the session and made one point very clear: The people and institutions of the news media are no longer necessary; organizations like his can release their own information and reach their audiences without the aid of any journalist or newspaper.

At the time, Barlow’s statement bothered me, and I think now I understand why. Except for the speakers in that session, who are employed by universities and laboratories, most of the journalists I had met at this conference still work in the news media.

According to all three panelists, science news channels are disappearing. While this may be true, it seemed strange and less than helpful to condemn science news writers to the graveyard and move on. Maybe I’m being too idealistic…

String cheese?

On a brighter note, Zack Barnett, the assistant director of web communications at University of Oregon, brought up points that I both enjoyed and agree with. He talked about how, with new media, it’s possible to work on a “string cheese” budget. (Heard of a shoestring budget? This is miles below that!) The part I most enjoyed was his passion about making “a story only we could tell.” Any school can make a video about their new Dean of Education, he said. The challenge is: How can we make ours something that is especially for our audience?

The team at U. Oregon showed us some of their videos about recent big issues on campus. One about making the campus more environmentally friendly featured students and professors, and cited very specific examples of going green. It wasn’t necessarily a topic that only applied to Oregon (lots of schools are going green), but they told it in a way that was uniquely Oregon.

Some more good advice from Barnett: “You have to be willing to suck.” He said this about the string cheese budget of his public information office, but I think it’s great advice for any part of work/school/life. The staff’s first few videos were pretty bad, but they had to get past those to get feedback and change things.

Facebook=modern word-of-mouth

The final panelist, Bob Nellis, from the Mayo Clinic, is the managing editor of Mayo’s online research magazine, Discovery’s Edge. His section was more technical, but he finally said what everyone was thinking: The new media hyped in this session—YouTube, blogs, podcasts, Facebook—are all used because these organizations want to reach us, the younger generation.

Nellis also discussed the idea that new media is today’s word-of-mouth, which I think is totally true. I can’t count the number of times I’ve checked out a new book, song, restaurant, or movie because a friend mentioned it in their Facebook status. Since word-of-mouth is the way the Mayo Clinic gets most of their patients, Nellis and his colleagues are very concerned with using new media well.

On a side note, since they aren’t working on a string cheese budget, Mayo’s videos are a little prettier than Oregon’s, but the same principles applied to both.

So what did I learn?

• Even if science writing news positions become scarce, there will always be spots for science writers available at labs and schools.
• We, the generation in college and high school right now, are the target of hundreds and thousands of propagandists, eager to get our attention and interest.
• For any science writer, the best story is one only you can tell. So find that one!
• Flip video cameras are cheap and a media member’s best tool. (Seriously, I think I heard that about three dozen times, so you should probably invest.)

–Dani Williams

***

Extras!

http://researchnews.osu.edu/blog/

Earle Holland’s blog for Ohio State University was much touted at this session. For the most part, I can agree with their praise. The blog looks clean, not overly cluttered, which is a huge plus in my book. Holland’s entries are varied in their content, which keeps matters interesting.

The blog was praised for being both journalistic and attention-grabbing, and overall, I think it’s a great example of a university science blog.

–Dani Williams

Friday, 3:30 am: In limos to the airport!

Dani Williams — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:30:59 +0000

I had no grand dreams for this trip. I was expecting average shuttles, average plane rides, and average hotel accommodations. But at 3:30 am Friday, my modest expectations flew out the window.

As an ordinary limo and a Hummer limo pulled up in front of the IMU, I was positive they were not for us. What crazy school sends a bunch of students in limos for an hour-long drive? And I didn’t believe Marcia when she said they were for us. I hardly knew this woman—maybe she was that cruel kind of person who gets a person’s hopes up just to crush them. Obviously, she’s not, because the 15 of us rode in limos (!) to the airport at 3:30 in the morning. It was certainly a grand beginning to an above-average weekend.

–Dani Williams