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Writer - passing stranger

Almost forty years ago I walked out of a lab and into a newsroom and that was that --I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life and somehow, so far, that’s happened.

Coming from a science background I niched into more technical journalism; writing mostly for sources like the American Society for Microbiology’s Microbe magazine, the New York Academy of Sciences eBriefings and the American Institute of Biological Sciences BioScience magazine. An obsessive attention to detail suits me as does extensive interviewing and vetting; writing for monthly magazines and online resources without tight print deadlines provides the time needed to do a thorough job. Scientifically astute editors are an added benefit and certainly not to be taken for granted.

The range of things I get to write about is a big draw: in the last few months, for example, I’ve written about bacteria genetically engineered to blink in synch; farming ants and the antibiotic-producing bacteria that protect their fungal gardens; a giant virus called “Mimivirus” and its diminutive infecting “virophage” called “Sputnik;” a predator fungus that turn ants into zombies; two outstanding emeritus microbiologists’ belief that the loss of our ancient bacteria is causing much present day illness; lung-infecting mycobacteria lurking in urban showerheads; a little bit of genes escaping from a doomed bacterium by stealing the infecting bacteriophage's protein; an expert challenge to the accepted three-domain Tree of Life (archaea, bacteria and eukaryotes); malaria research at Johns Hopkins; and the human microbiome (we’re actually more bacterial than human).

But I do have a bit of foreign-correspondent envy so let’s consider the work I cover for the scientific community an exotic assignment and bringing these fascinating stories to the general, albeit highly intelligent, reader as domestic reporting.