#sciencejournalism — Public Fediverse posts

Please reshare! Here's the first in a series of #sciencewriting resources I'm posting to my website: A list of science writing/communication internships and fellowships.

https://brittanytrang.com/science-journalism-fellowships-and-internships/

#sciencejournalism #scicomm #scicommjobs #journalismjobs #journojobs #sciencecommunication #sciwri #stem

The (slow) thread collecting all my features published in #CurrentBiology in 2026 starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology The old thread for 2025 is here: https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/113782468349225978

I did a #chemistry news story for #ChemistryWorld: https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2025/08/carbon-ring-hooked-up.html #science #sciencejournalism #carbon #allotrope #catenane #molecule #supramolecular

last year's feature about ancient #Australia is now in the #OpenArchives:

https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/06/ancient-australia.html #science #CurrentBiology #ScienceJournalism #ScienceWriter #ancientDNA #anthropology #humans #migration

It has gotten to the point that even good science reporting sucks. It’s simplified down to the usual 8th grade vocab & comprehension, so I’m left wondering thru all the oversimplification what exactly was discovered?! Sure in this wondrous Information Age I could look up the paper, but, like, not while driving & listening to the radio where I heard the science report. #dumbingdown #sciencejournalism #moreinfoplease

It has gotten to the point that even good science reporting sucks. It’s simplified down to the usual 8th grade vocab & comprehension, so I’m left wondering thru all the oversimplification what exactly was discovered?! Sure in this wondrous Information Age I could look up the paper, but, like, not while driving & listening to the radio where I heard the science report. #dumbingdown #sciencejournalism #moreinfoplease

It has gotten to the point that even good science reporting sucks. It’s simplified down to the usual 8th grade vocab & comprehension, so I’m left wondering thru all the oversimplification what exactly was discovered?! Sure in this wondrous Information Age I could look up the paper, but, like, not while driving & listening to the radio where I heard the science report. #dumbingdown #sciencejournalism #moreinfoplease

It has gotten to the point that even good science reporting sucks. It’s simplified down to the usual 8th grade vocab & comprehension, so I’m left wondering thru all the oversimplification what exactly was discovered?! Sure in this wondrous Information Age I could look up the paper, but, like, not while driving & listening to the radio where I heard the science report. #dumbingdown #sciencejournalism #moreinfoplease

A nice shoutout from the Association of Health Care Journalists in their recent tip sheet, “Covering the ongoing bird flu story as it unfolds.” Thanks for including us!

Explore more:

👉 Read the tip sheet:
https://healthjournalism.org/blog/2025/05/covering-the-ongoing-bird-flu-story-as-it-unfolds/
👉 Check out our explainer:
https://knowablemagazine.org/content/article/health-disease/2025/scientific-facts-about-h5n1-bird-flu

#AHCJ #PulicHealth #ScienceJournalism #H5N1 #BirdFlu #KnowableMagazine

Short but sweet bit of #ScienceJournalism.

Magical thinking: it's either all-in or... Poof! The magic vanishes. This is why #MagicalThinking can turn violent, I suppose. All -must- believe lest cognitive dissonance becomes painful.

"In a 2013 paper, Fulcheri suggested some saints, interred in many-layered arrangements (a coffin inside a sarcophagus inside a cold stone tomb), might have been “confined in a particular microclimate” hostile to putrefying microbes."

https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/incorrect-relics-why-some-corpses-dont-decompose/

oh. #RIP #TimRadford, #ScienceWriter extraordinaire. He actually gave me a brief introduction to the job many years ago. I remember I couldn't get a word in edgewise. and he commissioned/edited a few stories I wrote for the grauniad. Back in the days of the ever-changing pullout sections dedicated to science / #technology.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/13/tim-radford-obituary #science #PublicUnderstanding #scienceJournalism

Looks like #iflscience went to a #paywall and #personaldata gathering model. Sad, it had potential.

Any recommendations for good #science #blogs , #websites , and the like. Any topic is fine as long as #rss is available.

#sciencejournalism #sciencecommunication #scicom #scicomm #scicomms #lazyweb #indieweb

GPT-Fabricated Scientific Papers Flood Google Scholar, Scientists Say

https://www.sci.news/othersciences/computerscience/gpt-fabricated-scientific-papers-google-scholar-13580.html

#science #sciencenews #sciencecommunication #sciencecomm #scicomm #scicom #sciencejournalism #google #googlescholar #technology #tech #ai #artificialintelligence #openai #chatgpt #generativeAI #scientificresearch #scientificpublishing #ScientificStudy #misinformation #disinformation

The (slow) thread collecting all my features published in #CurrentBiology in 2025 starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology The old thread for 2024 is here:

https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/111722396242587397

You’re being lied to about “ultra-processed” foods.

“Vegan fake meats linked to heart disease, early death,” the New York Post declared.

There was just one problem: The narrative was totally fake.

Plant-based meats were virtually absent from the study: Just 0.2 percent of calories across the sample came from meat alternatives. People were eating cookies and cake.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/391795/ultra-processed-foods-science-vegan-meat-rfk-maha

#vegan #processedfood #ultraprocessed #food #foodsafety #sciencejournalism #science #badscience

Heads up for budding science writers who want to extend the reach of science journalism into communities where there is currently limited participation:

The AAAS Diverse Voices in Science Journalism Internship is designed for you. Spend 11 weeks at the journal Science contributing bylined news articles with guidance from award-winning reporters and editors.

https://www.aaas.org/programs/diverse-voices-science-journalism-internship/about

#ScienceWriting #ScienceJournalism #internship

#AI #GenerativeAI #Journalism #News #LLMs #RAGs #Science #ScienceJournalism #Media: "Surprisingly, GPT-4 with the abstracts performs a little bit better than GPT-4 with RAG over the article text, both in terms of accuracy (96.6% vs. 93.5%) and win percentage (29.2% vs. 27.8% — the rest were ties). This suggests that more context from the scientific article did not necessarily lead to higher accuracy or better understandability (i.e. our first assumption about using RAG here as described above was not met). A deeper investigation of the retrieved snippets and their actual relevance to the jargon term may help understand if this is an issue with the quality of the context, or if there may be other causes such as the similarity threshold we used. To apply RAG successfully, it’s essential to explore and test different parameters. Without this kind of careful experimentation, RAG on its own might not provide the desired results.

It may also be the case that the large size of GPT-4’s pre-training dataset enables it to draw from other sources to generate definitions. This can be as much a concern as a benefit though — it can make it harder to override irrelevant information from the pre-training data, or eschew its limitations based on cutoff dates for model training.

We also found that the effectiveness of these approaches varied based on the reader’s expertise. For instance, the less experienced annotator found similar value in both methods (higher tie percentage), while the more expert reader noticed more differences. Further evaluation with a larger set of annotators may help to replicate and understand these differences."

https://generative-ai-newsroom.com/making-sense-of-science-llms-for-helping-reporters-understand-complex-research-f1292720a09c

Kelly Government Solutions has an opportunity for a Global Health Writer & Editor to support the Fogarty International Center at the NIH. #globalhealth #sciencewriter #sciencejournalism #sciencewriterjobs

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/susan-schechter-pmp_globalhealth-sciencewriter-sciencejournalism-activity-7186747669795479552-Z1YG?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop

#hiring #sciencejobs

@biology @science

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 9: For the special issue on #EcosystemRestoration I wrote a feature about #rivers being restored.

https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/05/rivers-restored.html

#science #environment #ScienceJournalism #ProseAndPassion #freshwater #rivers #freeflow

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 8: In my features I've warned of the growing #PlasticPollution problem a few times, but does anybody listen? So here's another one on this messy topic. Pegged to the ongoing global negotiations which are at risk of going the way of climate summits, ie nowhere. https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/04/stop-plastic-pollution.html

#science #environment #ScienceJournalism #ProseAndPassion
#plastics #pollution #health

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 7: We now know 5 non-human mammals enjoying a long #PostReproductive lifespan - all of them are toothed #whales. Time for a feature on #menopause. https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/04/menopausal-mammals.html #science #evolution #ScienceJournalism #ProseAndPassion #orca #beluga #narwhal #PilotWhale #pseudoOrca

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 6: #MigratorySpecies are facing multiple threats

#science #ClimateCatastrophe #CurrentBiology #ScienceJournalism #ProseAndPassion #environment #birds #ecology

my features published in #CurrentBiology this year, issue 5: The #NorthAtlantic has several climate tipping elements that may pass their #TippingPoints soon, including #AMOC https://proseandpassion.blogspot.com/2024/03/tipping-over.html #science #ClimateCatastrophe #CurrentBiology #ScienceJournalism #ProseAndPassion #environment #ClimateModels

Do you feel you've done a good job communicating science? Then this #CallforApplications might be for you.

The National Academies Eric and Wendy Schmidt #Awards for Excellence in Science Communications will go to

👉 #scientists, #communicators or #journalists who have developed creative, original work that addresses issues and advances in #science, #engineering, or #medicine for the general public.

Apply till March 31❗

ℹ️ https://www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excellence-in-communication/for-applicants

#SciComm #ScienceJournalism

I'm truly honoured to be elected to the @meaa National Council's media section, and will do all I can to support and protect Australian journalism, especially freelance and science/environment journalism. Thanks to everyone who put their trust in me.
#journalism #ScienceJournalism #ClimateJournalism #reporting #unions

The (slow) thread collecting all my features published in #CurrentBiology in 2024 starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology The old thread for 2023 is here https://mastodon.social/@proseandpassion/109660210547152052

❓Are you a #SciComm practitioner or #researcher, a #scientist interested in scicomm, a #journalist or someone keen for greater citizen engagement with research?

The EU-funded project #COALESCE aims to build a competence center for #ScienceCommunication. They have now opened registrations to join their Community of Practice:

👉 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSef5D8B6eYPO5AybcijkmanNPqxGCOkdWI86mzc829Uwi5SyQ/viewform

More about the project: https://coalesceproject.eu/

#ScienceMastodon #Wisskomm #ScienceJournalism #CitizenScience

🎉 A warm welcome to Céline Lauer (Welt/Welt am Sonntag)! 📝 We're thrilled to have her join us as our first Journalist in Residence. Looking forward to collaborating and sharing our work! #SpatialResearch #ScienceJournalism #Welcome #wisskomm #sfb1265

I had some Thoughts on the weekend, after finally catching up to the start of the pandemic in my Longform podcast listening and hearing the first interview with #ScienceJournalist Ed Yong back in March 2020.
So here are my thoughts about 'what now?' - what do we need to do for ourselves, for our society, for our work, as we shift into this new phase of the #pandemic?
This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness and personal piece of writing, so I'm sharing it with some trepidation! But interested in what others think:
https://biancanogrady.com/2023/03/06/what-now/
#ScienceJournalism #trauma #Storytelling

I had some Thoughts on the weekend, after finally catching up to the start of the pandemic in my Longform podcast listening and hearing the first interview with #ScienceJournalist Ed Yong back in March 2020.
So here are my thoughts about 'what now?' - what do we need to do for ourselves, for our society, for our work, as we shift into this new phase of the #pandemic?
This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness and personal piece of writing, so I'm sharing it with some trepidation! But interested in what others think:
https://biancanogrady.com/2023/03/06/what-now/
#ScienceJournalism #trauma #Storytelling

I had some Thoughts on the weekend, after finally catching up to the start of the pandemic in my Longform podcast listening and hearing the first interview with #ScienceJournalist Ed Yong back in March 2020.
So here are my thoughts about 'what now?' - what do we need to do for ourselves, for our society, for our work, as we shift into this new phase of the #pandemic?
This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness and personal piece of writing, so I'm sharing it with some trepidation! But interested in what others think:
https://biancanogrady.com/2023/03/06/what-now/
#ScienceJournalism #trauma #Storytelling

I had some Thoughts on the weekend, after finally catching up to the start of the pandemic in my Longform podcast listening and hearing the first interview with #ScienceJournalist Ed Yong back in March 2020.
So here are my thoughts about 'what now?' - what do we need to do for ourselves, for our society, for our work, as we shift into this new phase of the #pandemic?
This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness and personal piece of writing, so I'm sharing it with some trepidation! But interested in what others think:
https://biancanogrady.com/2023/03/06/what-now/
#ScienceJournalism #trauma #Storytelling

I had some Thoughts on the weekend, after finally catching up to the start of the pandemic in my Longform podcast listening and hearing the first interview with #ScienceJournalist Ed Yong back in March 2020.
So here are my thoughts about 'what now?' - what do we need to do for ourselves, for our society, for our work, as we shift into this new phase of the #pandemic?
This is a bit of a stream-of-consciousness and personal piece of writing, so I'm sharing it with some trepidation! But interested in what others think:
https://biancanogrady.com/2023/03/06/what-now/
#ScienceJournalism #trauma #Storytelling

How will #ChatGPT and tools like it change education? Read my new story for Science News Explores! (Aimed at teens) https://www.snexplores.org/article/chatgpt-homework-school-help-learning-ai-bot-mistakes

#AI #education #literacy #generativeAI #scienceforkids #ScienceJournalism

TIL about the Finkbeiner test, which requires that an article about a female scientist avoid gender bias by not mentioning several irrelevant aspects of her life, *including* that she is the "first woman to...". An unsharable FB post pointed out that if "..." is winning some award, that says more about the prize committee than about the woman.
#ScienceJournalism #ScienceAwards
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finkbeiner_test

#BylineBrag I wrote about this very cool piece of tech, a multifunctional, lightweight nanobarrier skin for spacecraft exteriors that provides thermal and radiation protection, and can also harvest energy.

#space #spaceTech #nanotechnology #engineering #spaceEngineering

#science #scienceJournalism

https://cen.acs.org/materials/coatings/Multifunctional-material-protects-spacecraft-hostile/101/i6

Can low-flying satellites, lasers and other new tech help bridge the #digitaldivide? And when is tech not enough? This is my latest story for Science News Explores #techequity #internet #ScienceJournalism #scienceforkids #scienceeducation
https://www.snexplores.org/article/digital-divide-global-internet-access

Next Thursday (1/19), join the DC Science Writers Association and the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications for a *free* virtual workshop on more effectively reaching the audience(s) you want. Open to any and all #communicators. More info & registration here 👉 https://dcswa.org/event/hands-on-workshop-the-science-of-what-makes-people-care/ #scicomm #sciencejournalism #communication #communications

The (slow) thread collecting last year's features in #CurrentBiology as they move into the #OpenArchives (one year after publication) starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology #FreeAccess

The (slow) thread collecting all my features published in #CurrentBiology this year starts here. #ProseAndPassion #Science #ScienceWriter #ScienceJournalism #biology #ecology

Internet and some of the power went out at the local cafe because of the recent mini snowstorm, but I’m still able to do my other work without being online. ❄️☃️

This weekend I’m publishing a series on #pelvicpain health among those with a uterus that two writers & I have been working on since October.

And yep, I’m using #Affinity, Designer and Photo, for #medicalillustration. 🧑🏻‍💻#ScienceJournalism #digitalart

Making chemistry a more accessible place. I enjoyed reporting this one for Dell's Perspectives blog: https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/how-visually-impaired-chemists-are-making-the-lab-more-accessible/

#Chemistry #DisabilityInSTEM #BlindLowVision #Science #ScienceJournalism

Making chemistry a more accessible place. I enjoyed reporting this one for Dell's Perspectives blog: https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/how-visually-impaired-chemists-are-making-the-lab-more-accessible/

#Chemistry #DisabilityInSTEM #BlindLowVision #Science #ScienceJournalism

Making chemistry a more accessible place. I enjoyed reporting this one for Dell's Perspectives blog: https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/how-visually-impaired-chemists-are-making-the-lab-more-accessible/

#Chemistry #DisabilityInSTEM #BlindLowVision #Science #ScienceJournalism

Making chemistry a more accessible place. I enjoyed reporting this one for Dell's Perspectives blog: https://www.dell.com/en-us/perspectives/how-visually-impaired-chemists-are-making-the-lab-more-accessible/

#Chemistry #DisabilityInSTEM #BlindLowVision #Science #ScienceJournalism

It's Fernando Calderón-Gutiérrez’s job to dive deep—literally—into the ecology of coastal caves. 🤿 🌊

As told to our journalism fellow, @spoorthyraman!

#CoastalJob #ScienceJournalism #HakaiMagazine #Writing #Marine #Science #Scientist #Cave

https://hakaimagazine.com/article-short/coastal-job-underwater-cave-ecologist/

I've had three new articles for kids come out this month on Science News Explores.

#1 Parasitic worms and health. Totally gross yet fascinating, and has one of my best opening lines ever: "A few years ago, Alex Loukas let 40 hookworms burrow into his skin and live inside his body." https://www.snexplores.org/article/parasitic-worms-alter-body-inflammation-immune-system-treatment

#ScienceJournalism #scienceforkids #STEM #scienceeducation

I had the privilege of being a judge for the #Kavli #sciencejournalism awards this year, and the entries were fantastic.

Want to be amazed and motivated by the science journalism talent out there? Treat yourself to some of these pieces.

https://sjawards.aaas.org/news/2022-aaas-kavli-science-journalism-award-winners-named