Science Cheerleader

Here’s a piece I recently wrote for DiscoverMagazine.com about research that suggests infants have rhythm. (I love the dancing baby in the closing video.)

Here’s a piece I wrote for Discover Magazine.com yesterday about a pharmaceutical ice cream–called ReCharge–New Zealand is producing to counter side effects of chemotherapy. I learned about this in The Scientist. The most important ingredient: Lactoferrin, a protein found in milk that possesses the power to impede tumor growth and improve intestinal immune response. Wow.

Here’s a quirky (and sad) science news item I wrote for DiscoverMagazine.com this week: Booming Music May Have Triggered Club Goers Heart Attack:

ABC News reports on an unusual and tragic case of a heart attack triggered by blasting music. A British teenager died shortly after complaining of loud music at a London nightclub, according to reports. Details are sketchy but U.S. doctors suspect a genetic condition may be to blame. Read more.

Discover Magazine’s Top 100 Stories of 2009 #69: Science Sets Its Eyes on the Prize
Big money awaits innovators who can build rockets, sequence genomes, predict people’s movie preferences, harvest energy from the tides, or explore the Moon.
by Darlene Cavalier
From the January-February special issue; published online December 25, 2009

Last night, I was reading through the January edition of Discover Magazine, which chronicles the 100 Top Science Stories of 2009, when I made quite a discovery (pun intended): a story written by our very own Darlene Cavalier placed #69! Darlene’s piece, “Prize-Driven Research Takes Off,” focuses on the growing number of organizations offering prizes for successful science and technology innovations. The article should be released online in the next few weeks, and we’ll make sure to post it here.

Congratulations Darlene! What an honor!

Here’s a quirky piece I wrote for DiscoverMagazine.com this morning about a guy who got a bit too ambitious in his search for extraterrestrial intelligence.
Citizen Scientist Gone Wild.

Happy Friday!

In the current edition of the New York Academy of Sciences Magazine, you’ll find a piece co-authored by me and Alex Soojung-Kim Pang.  We hope that our op-ed, “The Growth of Citizen Science” helps articulate how “average people” are contributing to science.

Here’s an excerpt:

Not so long ago, “citizen scientist” would have seemed to be a contradiction in terms. Science is traditionally something done by people in lab coats who hold PhDs. As with classical music or acting, amateurs might be able to appreciate science, but they could not contribute to it. Today, however, enabled by technology and empowered by social change, science-interested laypeople are transforming the way science gets done.