Student science writers from around the world have created a set of 52 stories from the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017, spanning most of the meeting’s sessions and creating a valuable reference archive for journalists in the U.S. and abroad. The reports, along with bios of the authors, are online at the WCSJ2017 Student... Read More
By Amelia Jaycen SAN FRANCISCO—Saul Perlmutter, a Nobel Prize–winning astrophysicist and cosmologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, has spent a lot of his time ascertaining how quickly the universe is expanding. But he is also concerned with some down-to-earth issues, like the state of human interactions. As he watched public discussions unfold in the last... Read More
By Carolyn M. Wilke SAN FRANCISCO—Is fact-checking the future of journalism? That question, at once disturbing for our society and promising for the increased role science journalists might play in combating fake news, drove a panel discussion among four experts on 30 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017. The panelists, all experienced... Read More
SAN FRANCISCO—Science podcasts are more popular than ever. Producing them takes time, technical savvy, and a deep passion to engage listeners with material that is both informative and fun. How does one start a science podcast and build a dedicated audience? Those topics drew an enthusiastic crowd on 27 October at the World Conference of... Read More
By Liz Kimbrough SAN FRANCISCO—When South African student journalist Sibusiso Biyela sat down to write about the launch of the MeerKAT telescope in both English and Zulu, he thought it would be simple. The English version rolled out smoothly. But when he began to translate into Zulu, his native language, he found he would have... Read More
By Laura G. Shields SAN FRANCISCO—Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate. That’s one core piece of advice echoed by all speakers in a session about cross-border journalism on 28 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017. “Science itself is really international, and science journalists should reflect this as much as they can,” said Helen Briggs, a... Read More
By Setsen Altan-Ochir SAN FRANCISCO—You might be 97% human and 3%… tapeworm. At least that’s what researchers at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub learned when they sequenced one man’s DNA. Biochemist Joe DeRisi of the University of California, San Francisco, co-president of the Biohub, recounted this parasitic tale during a conversation with New York Times columnist... Read More
By Rithy Odom To help science journalists better navigate the morass of statistics that supposedly hold discrete findings to some standard of reliability or truth, organizers of a World Conference of Science Journalists 2017 panel on separating statistical fact from fiction played to a full house of science communicators on 28 October. In the session,... Read More
By Jillian Clemente SAN FRANCISCO—Behind every scientific discovery is a scientist with a story. Getting to the root of how and why researchers do what they do brings light to the human side of science—and there is an art to telling those stories. Four panelists, each accomplished science profilers, discussed tactics and tips for getting... Read More
By Anna Katrina Hunter BERKELEY, California—The more places we look, the more microbes we find. These tiny organisms—bacteria, Archaea, protozoa and fungi, to name a few—are essentially everywhere. Using recent advances in gene sequencing, scientists can now sample microorganisms directly in their natural environments to reveal their identities, rapidly and without targeting any particular type... Read More
By Setsen Altan-Ochir SAN FRANCISCO—With little overlap in their approaches, the writers agreed on one thing: If you have a subject you are passionate about and would love to spend several years delving into that subject regardless of the outcome, write that book. On 28 October at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017, three... Read More
Thank you for attending WCSJ2017! We’re excited to have welcomed 1,364 registered attendees—from more than 70 countries—to San Francisco for WCSJ2017.
