Stories from the Field
As a science journalism program with a global network of alumni, the KSJ inbox is full of wild and wonderful stories. As our bookshelf grows heavier and our reading list gets longer, it’s only fair to share the wealth of knowledge. Some of the stories we receive are not published – they’re not articles, books, or podcasts, but stories from the field that journalists share with our program, often through a quick email saying hello. On this occasion, we have two anecdotes to share with you. To our alumni – keep ‘em coming. To everyone else – keep reading, watching, and listening.
A Data leak in the German Army
Last year, Eva Wolfangel (‘20) published a book on cyber security. Wolfangel is still active in the area, writing as she would put it, “a lot about computer science, AI and security.” Which is how she ended up with this internationally quoted story. Wolfangel’s exclusive research, published in DIE ZEIT found a “huge vulnerability in WebEx that leaked thousands of links to meetings of the German army into the internet.”
It seems the military wasn’t aware of the leak before Wolfangel reached out for comment. As the story unfolded, “it was crazy to observe how difficult it was for the Bundeswehr to delete even past meeting data. Apparently, the WebEx software wasn’t designed to do that. We therefore had to delay the story several times because there was still too much internal information online to publish the vulnerability (after all, Russian spies ARE interested in these data!). And even when the army finally took its conference system offline, it was impressive: after all, this affected 248,000 army users and more than 1,500 meetings a day.”
Forty Years Writing About One Tiny Weird Thing
Scott Huler (‘15) checked in with KSJ to share what he’s been up to. That thing: the Beaufort scale. “During my Knight-Wallace fellowship [‘03] I researched and wrote Defining the Wind, a kind of weird book about the Beaufort scale of wind force and its lovely prose and place in history. That weird book turned out to interest miniaturist Bob Off, who created a miniature roombox based on his conception of what the study of Sir Francis Beaufort might have looked like around 1800. That naturally enough started a conversation, and my visit to Off’s studio started a long fascination with the world of miniatures, currently exploding in popularity.” Last November, Huler’s fascination materialized into a long feature for Esquire, which was itself chosen as Longread’s number 1 long read of the week. “I first encountered the Beaufort scale as a copyeditor in around 1983, so if you’re keeping score at home, that’s 40 years of writing about one tiny weird thing.” Huler called this a “cautionary tale,” albeit in jest.
Additions to the KSJ Bookshelf
Books Out Now
Mark Wolverton (‘17): “Splinters of Infinity: Cosmic Rays and the Clash of Two Nobel Prize–Winning Scientists over the Secrets of Creation” published in March 2024 by MIT Press. The publisher describes the book: “Set in a revolutionary era of physics and science when a series of rapid-fire discoveries was upending our understanding of the universe, Splinters of Infinity by Mark Wolverton tells a little-known story: the tale of two of America’s foremost physicists, Robert Millikan (1868–1953) and Arthur Compton (1892–1962), who found themselves locked in an intense, often deeply personal, conflict about cosmic rays.”
George Musser (’15): “Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe” published November 2023 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Musser describes the book as “a look at the convergence of physics, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and philosophy of mind. Not only could physics help those other fields—for instance, by prying open the black box of A.I. systems—many physicists say they, too, need help: To understand observations, they have to understand observers.” He traces the origins of the project to his Knight Fellowship when he got the chance to take classes in neuroscience and psychology.
Steve Nadis (’98): “The Gravity of Math: How Geometry Rules the Universe,” published with co-author and Shing-Tung Yau in April 2024 by Basic Books. The publisher describes the book: “Mathematics is far more than just the language of science. It is a critical underpinning of nature…The Gravity of Math offers an insightful and compelling look into the power of mathematics—whose reach, like that of gravity, can extend to the edge of the universe.”
Gary Taubes (‘97): “Rethinking Diabetes: What science reveals about diet, insulin, and successful treatments,” published January 2024 by Knopf. The publisher describes the book: “Taubes explores the history underpinning the treatment of diabetes, types 1 and 2, elucidating how decades-old research that is rife with misconceptions has continued to influence the guidance physicians offer—at the expense of their patients’ long-term well-being. Taubes argues critically and passionately that doctors and medical researchers should question the established wisdom that may have enabled the current epidemic of diabetes and obesity, and renew their focus on clinical trials to resolve controversies that are now a century in the making.”
Christoph Drösser (‘94): “Was macht KI mit unserer Sprache?” (“What does AI do to our language?”) published in German in March 2024 by Duden. According to Drösser the book is “an introduction into Large Language Models, a primer in prompt engineering, thoughts about the use of AI in schools and colleges, and a chapter on what creativity really is.”
Judy Foreman (‘90): “Let the More Loving One be Me: My Journey from Trauma to Freedom,” published in September 2023 by She Writes Press. The publisher describes the book: “It wasn’t until Foreman spent a high school summer as an exchange student with a Danish family that she began to see how unsafe her own family was…this book shows that with time and therapy, it is possible to heal from serious childhood trauma and lead a life of deep fulfillment, rewarding work and, most wonderfully, love. It is a book about the power of emotional courage to change one’s own inner and outer experience of the world, and about what matters most in life: cultivating healthy connections to other people.”
Yuri Aono (‘89): “Nou wo Akete mo Kokoro ha Nakattta” (“Even if you opened a brain, there was no soul: Why successful scientists get hooked on consciousness research”) in Japanese in February by Tsukiji Shokan Publishing. Aono describes writing the book: “I tried to decipher the inner thoughts of the world’s most talented scientists, including Nobel Laureates, who have been obsessed with consciousness research through interviews and documents. I covered molecular biology, brain science, quantum theory, complex systems, philosophy, and even cutting-edge AI.”
Coming Soon
Nicola Twilley (‘21) “Frostbite: How Refrigeration Changed Our Food, Our Planet, and Ourselves,” will be published on June 25, 2024 by Penguin Press. The publisher describes the book: “In Frostbite, Nicola Twilley takes readers on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting such off-the-beaten-track landmarks as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s OJ reserves…Twilley’s eye-opening book is the first to reveal the transformative impact refrigeration has had on our health and our guts; our farms, tables, kitchens, and cities; global economics and politics; and even our environment.” Twilley noted that the book “ includes a chapter with my Knight-supported research teasing out the ways in which refrigeration has affected our health.”
Rachel Zimmerman (‘09) “Us, After: A Memoir of Love and Suicide,” will be published on June 30, 2024 by Santa Fe’s Writers Project. The publisher describes the book: “When a state trooper appeared at Rachel Zimmerman’s door to report that her husband had jumped to his death off a nearby bridge, she fell to her knees, unable to fully absorb the news…A longtime journalist, she probed obsessively, believing answers would help her survive…’Us, After’ examines domestic devastation and resurgence, digging into the struggle between public and private selves, life’s shifting perspectives, the work of motherhood, and the secrets we keep. In this memoir, Zimmerman confronts the unimaginable and discovers the good in what remains.”
Annalee Newitz (‘03) “Stories are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind” will be published on June 4, 2024 by W. W. Norton & Company. The publisher describes the book: “Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats—the essential tool kit for psychological warfare—have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online.”
New to Paperback
Richard Fisher (‘20) “The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time” was published in paperback in April 2024 by Wildfire. The publisher describes the book: “…Modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles. It wasn’t always so. In medieval times, craftsmen worked on cathedrals that would be unfinished in their lifetime. Indigenous leaders fostered intergenerational reciprocity. And in the early twentieth century, writers dreamed of worlds thousands of years hence. Now, as we face long-term challenges on an unprecedented scale, how do we recapture that far-sighted vision?”
Kathleen McLaughlin (‘15), “Blood Money,” was published in paperback in March 2024 by Atria/One Signal Publishers. The publisher describes the book: “Blood Money shares McLaughlin’s decade-long mission to learn the full story of where her medicine comes from. She travels the United States in search of the truth about human blood plasma and learns that twenty million Americans each year sell their plasma for profit—a human-derived commodity extracted inside our borders to be processed and packaged for retail across the globe…And she unearths an American economic crisis hidden in plain sight: single mothers, college students, laid-off Rust Belt auto workers, and a booming blood market at America’s southern border…”
Angela Saini (‘13) “The Patriarchs: How Men Came to Rule,” was published in paperback in February 2024 by Beacon Press. The publisher describes the book: “For centuries, societies have treated male domination as natural to the human species. But how would our understanding of gender inequality–our imagined past and contested present– look if we didn’t assume that men have always ruled over women?… Angela Saini explores the roots of what we call patriarchy, uncovering a complex history of how it first became embedded in societies and spread across the globe from prehistory into the present.”
Additions to the KSJ Playlist
Julia Belluz (’14) joined an episode of Gastropod hosted by Cynthia Graber (’13) and Nicola Twilley (’21): “Why Are Restaurants So Loud? Plus the Science Behind the Perfect Playlist.” Three alumni in one podcast? We added the episode to our playlist immediately. The coincidence that this episode includes perfect playlist science is a bonus.
Karen Brown (‘13) released a new narrative podcast, “The Secrets We Keep.” The podcast is about “what the stories we DON’T tell … say about our world and do to our minds.” It’s a limited series from the NPR Network and New England Public Media. Over five episodes, Brown uses the lens of secrecy to explore society’s stigmas and taboos around LGBT issues, abortion, genetic origins, family scandals, and money. Brown added, “I also throw in some psychology, social science, history and politics. And in the pilot episode, ‘Anatomy of a Secret,’ I dissect a family secret from my own childhood.”
Awards
Laura Bliss (’23) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with her Bloomberg Staff colleagues for “rigorous, far-reaching reporting that holds corporate water profiteers to account and exposes how they willfully exacerbate the effects of climate change at the expense of less powerful communities.”
Wojtek Brzezinski (’23) was awarded the Grand Press Digital and Technology 2023 prize, and nominated for Amnesty International’s “Pioro Nadziei” (Pen of Hope) prize for a series of stories on how AI affects democracy.
Caty Enders (‘18) and Jyoti S. Madhusoodanan (‘21) were awarded a Johns Hopkins fellowship for science writing. The fellowship awards four $5,000 reporting grants for feature-length magazine articles on the funding and practice of science in the United States.
Bianca Vázquez Toness (’17) was a Pulitzer Prize finalist with her Associated Press colleague Sharon Lurye for “a deeply reported series on the corrosive effect of the pandemic on public education, highlighting the staggering number of students missing from classrooms across America.”
Rene Ebersole (‘22) received a SABEW honorable mention award for an investigative article for AARP magazine about an $80 million health care fraud.
Pere Estupinya (‘08) was awarded the CSIC-BBVA Foundation Scientific Communication Award in the category of Science Journalism. This prestigious award comes with a prize of 40,000 euros. Estupinya credits his experience as a KSJ Fellow as instrumental in achieving this recognition. The announcement is available in both English and Spanish.
Virginia Gewin (‘22) was nominated for a James Beard award in the 2024 Media Award category for her piece “As the Salton Sea Shrinks, Agriculture’s Legacy Turns to Dust” in Civil Eats.
Jared Whitlock (‘22) was awarded an Honorable Mention by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing for his piece in Endpoints News, “Families raised millions and handed rare disease therapies off to biotechs. But companies have backed out.”
Changes Behind the Desk
Jyoti S. Madhusoodanan (‘21) just started on a new fellowship with the Civic Science Program, where she will “work to increase visibility and prioritization to develop a more rigorous approach to how race is applied and understood in the design of clinical algorithms and the assessments they inform.”
John Higgins (‘13) joined Fred Hutch News as a science writer covering the Basic Sciences and Human Biology divisions of the Fred Hutch Cancer Center in Seattle.
In the News
In addition to articles that alumni have sent to KSJ directly, this section includes a compendium by Federico Kukso (‘16) highlighting a global sample of reporting by KSJ alumni.
Kelly Servick (‘23): “Can science find ways to ease loneliness?”. Science.
Rene Ebersole (‘22): “The Ugly Truth About the Wild Animals of Instagram”. Rolling Stone.
Matt Kaplan (‘22): “Was an ancient bacterium awakened by an industrial accident?”. The Economist.
Tasmiha Khan (‘22) “For Muslim women to get the health care they deserve, doctors need to listen”. The Emancipator.
Jason Bittel (‘21): “The cicadas are coming, and some may become ‘flying saltshakers of death’”. Washington Post.
Andrada Fiscutean (‘20): “How the EU AI Act regulates artificial intelligence: What it means for cybersecurity”. CSO.
Tim De Chant (‘19): “Mycocycle uses mushrooms to upcycle old tires and construction waste”. TechCrunch.
Rachel E. Gross (‘19): “Women in Menopause Are Getting Short Shrift”. The Atlantic.
Teresa Carr (‘18): “The Contested World of Classifying Life on Earth”. Undark.
Rowan Jacobsen (‘18): “Brains Are Not Required When It Comes to Thinking and Solving Problems—Simple Cells Can Do It”. Scientific American.
Iván Carrillo (‘17): “Jaguars Versus Shrimp”. El Universal.
Zack Colman (‘16) (with Alex Guillén): “Biden’s latest aggressive climate rule launched today. Will it satisfy unhappy green voters?”. Politico.
Federico Kukso (‘16): “The scientific reinvention of Malbec.” In Spanish. Agencia SINC.
Rod McCullom (‘16): “The Lasting Impact of Exposure to Gun Violence.” Undark.
Giovana Girardi (‘15): “It was not for lack of warning: Ignoring science and mutilating policies that could help deal with the climate crisis led to the tragedy in Rio Grande do Sul”. In Portuguese. Agência Pública.
George Musser (‘15): “Building Intelligent Machines Helps Us Learn How Our Brain Works”. Scientific American.
Susan Phillips (‘14): “Green hydrogen: A climate change solution or fossil fuel bait and switch?”. PBS.
Dan Falk (‘12): “Insects and Other Animals Have Consciousness, Experts Declare”. Quanta Magazine.
Pam Belluck (‘08) has been covering the science, and politics, of abortion in the United States for the New York Times. Her most recent piece on the topic: The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme Court
Luke Timmerman (‘06) climbed Kilimanjaro, sharing photos from the trip in The Timmerman Report: “Timmerman Traverse for Damon Runyon, Kilimanjaro 2024 Photo Gallery”.
Valeria Román (‘05): “Cases of avian flu in cows are increasing: could it mutate and cause an epidemic in humans?”. In Spanish. Infobae.
Annalee Newitz (‘03): “The Sci-Fi Writer Who Invented Conspiracy Theory”. The Atlantic.
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