SCIENCE WRITING
A selection of my freelance science journalism and technical writing
Massive Science
November 2020
How do tissues “know” they should grow after exercise? Scientists have understood for a long time that these kinds of changes depend on the ability of cells to sense forces, including those created during exercise. Exercise isn’t the only time that the human body is subjected to forces. The cells in our tissues are constantly being pushed and pulled this way and that.
Twig Education
December 2020
Space is full of meteoroids—or objects that can be as small as a grain of sand or as big as 100 meters—comets, and asteroids, which are even bigger. Meteorites are pieces of comets or asteroids. When these pieces fall through the Earth’s atmosphere, we call them meteors. Every day, millions of meteors enter through the Earth’s atmosphere and quickly burn up.
Twig Education
October 2020
A submarine is cruising along the deep, dark depths of the ocean. It must be stealthy to avoid detection by other underwater vessels. Sunlight cannot penetrate down here, 450 m below the waves, so you would think the submarine would be difficult to find. However, it would still light up like Times Square on a sonar system! So how do you make a submarine invisible?
Twig Education
September 2020
While hunting for fossils in the rocky hills of Como Bluff, Wyoming in 1879, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh made a startling discovery. Hidden in the rock was the gigantic, nearcomplete skeleton of a long-dead dinosaur. The fossilized bones included huge vertebrae and gigantic leg bones—some of which were almost the height of an adult human! Based on the size and shape of the bones, Marsh concluded that he was looking at the remains of a new kind of sauropod dinosaur.
CytoSMART
July 2020
When cells are grown outside of their source organism, they must be cultured under conditions that closely mimic their native in vivo environment.
Antibodies.com
June 2020
It may be surprising to learn that the history of the western blot only stretches back to the late 1970s.
CytoSMART
June 2020
Spheroidal cultures exhibit greater physiological relevance than 2D cell cultures, including improved cell viability, morphology, proliferation, differentiation, metabolic activity, migration, angiogenesis, and gene expression.
CytoSMART
May 2020
Advancements in microscopy over the last two decades have created a revolution in biology, allowing complex, dynamic processes to be recorded with high spatial and temporal resolution.
Antibodies.com
April 2020
The cell nucleus is the largest and quite often the stiffest organelle in a cell, and is a richly complex and dynamic structure that supports a surprisingly diverse set of functions.
March 2020
Viruses are basically a ball of genetic material surrounded by protective proteins that have one goal, often at odds with human health: self-reproduction.
Massive Science
Scientists are studying this fungus for use as a more environmentally-friendly insecticide.
Massive Science
Cell division involves around 600 different proteins — it could take five or so years to study a single protein.
