The Tracker just spent an enjoyable and enlightening hour or so cruising through the pages of Miller-McCune magazine online. Never heard of it? I had, barely, but only now checked it out. This foundation backed, non-profit magazine from Santa Barbara is a treasure chest of well-crafted, deep, and to these eyes, original science reporting. For more background on it, read its About Us page. It says it is non-partisan but the impression I get is of a distinctively progressive tendency.
Science Story Examples (An old pal pointed it out to me, mainly because she has a story in it right now. So I’ll start with that one) :
- Christie Aschwanden: RATIONAL ARGUMENT: Convincing the Public to Accept New Medical Guidelines ; This headline is misleading. The topic and story go far beyond medical guidelines and, in the main example, the backtracking by government agencies after the public furiously rejected guidelines urging less breast cancer screening mammography. It’s about people’s tendency, if they think they already know something about a topic, to summarily discount any disagreeing scientifically gathered data even if they are so solid they amount to hard facts. One is hooked by her lede and first example, a vignette that will have most readers asking themselves how it is some people can be so pigheaded in the face of reality-based argument. But as her story gets into other examples, such as mammography, the reader’s own head may start to make oinking noises.
- Tom Jacobs – ESP Study Suggests Lack of Trust in Science ; This story is convincingly depressing, and subversive, doubling down on the anti-science reflex addressed in the previously bulleted story. It suggests that for most of the public, the worst way to get them to change their minds about something is to cite science.
- Bijal Trivedi: The Science of Green Microbes ; Very long, rollicking ride through the life of a man whose re-engineered (or, prospected cleverly) microbes destroy poisons in the ground, with asides on other bugs that’ll do more. This is an expansively written, lavishly reported profile with an important message. *Correction: An earlier version of this post objected to Trivedi’s reference to a pollutant’s role in the Erin Brockovich crusading public advocate saga of some years ago. As I mixed up in my own mind what pollutants were involved…never mind. I’ve deleted the passage.)
- David Richardson : Shining Light on Clean Energy Superbugs ; The perfect complement to the previous bullet. Nifty passage on the home brewing system to make hydrogen (maybe economically, too, someday).
Needless to say I’ve added M-M’s rss feed to my list. Now all I must do is check it regularly.
– Charlie Petit
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