The journalist as expert
I recently turned down some requests for interviews because the topics of discussion in each case indicated that I would be treated as a scientist, not a science journalist (something that happened shortly after the…
April 2020
In defence of ignorance
Wish I may, wish I mightHave this wish, I wish tonightI want that star, I want it nowI want it all and I don’t care how Metallica, King Nothing I’m a news editor who frequently…
Avoiding ‘muddled science’ in the newsroom
On April 23, I was part of a webinar called ProtoCall, organised by Pro.to with the support of International Centre for Journalists and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. It happens once a week and is…
Time and the pandemic
There is this idea in physics that the fundamental laws of nature apply the same way for processes moving both forwards and backwards in time. So you can’t actually measure the passage of time by…
There is more than one thunder
Sunny Kung, a resident in internal medicine at a teaching hospital in the US, has authored a piece in STAT News about her experience dealing with people with COVID-19, and with other people who deal…
Remembering the ‘Game of Life’
The English mathematician John Horton Conway passed away last week, due to COVID-19. He was 82. I’m afraid my memory of him doesn’t do him justice because, if nothing else, Conway resented that many people…
‘Science alone triumphs’: A skeptic annotates
An article entitled ‘Science alone triumphs: Providing a true picture of the world, only science can help India against coronavirus’, penned by a Jayant Sinha, appeared on the Times of India‘s editorials page on April…
How does a fan work?
Everywhere I turn, all the talk is about the coronavirus, and it’s exhausting because I already deal with news of the coronavirus as part of my day-job. It’s impossible to catch people having conversations about…
The virus beyond biology
A perfectly agreeable suggestion on first glance, especially since it provides an opportunity for a quick rebuke when faced with such conspiratorial, often xenophobic claims. But on a second or third reading, you find the…