While in Tucson (see other post today) I had a beer, yesterday, with old pal Jim Cornell. He lives nearby and, after many years in Boston and other eastern locales, has relocated to a spot near Coronado National Forest outside of town. He's an ex newsman, was for years at the Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr for Astrophysics, and is president of the Int'l Science Writers Association. He said, "You see what Tom Beal is doing? It's pretty good – a story a day for 100 days."
It is amazing is what it is. Sorry to have missed it until now. Beal, a reporter at the Arizona Daily Star, is doing his bit to celebrate Arizona's centenary as a state by running, every day since early June, a story on local science now, recently, or historic. There will be 100 of them. It is difficult to gauge their overall excellence but the ones I looked at are diverse, engaging, and mostly about things I didn't know at all. Some are replays of stories that ran before but most are fresh-done for the occasion, it appears.
Today's is appropriate given the hubbub about Mars and its new rover:
- 100 days of science: Shoemaker created field of astrogeology to study, map other worlds ; That, of course, means the late great Gene Shoemaker.
I cannot find a designated place in hte paper that exclusively lists the stories in this series, but the link to Beal's recent stuff of all kinds has them, and they are easy to spot. They each say "100 days of Science" in their heds.
It is satisfying to see such enterprise and energy at the local paper.
– Charlie Petit
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