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 Nicoletta Lanese SAN FRANCISCO—Twenty years ago, Susan Desmond-Hellmann was giddy to share Herceptin, the breakthrough breast cancer treatment, with the world. Not once did she worry if the world would believe her. Were Desmond-Hellmann to introduce Herceptin today, she would confront the challenges of conducting and reporting science in a post-truth world. “The scientific... 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 Carolyn M. Wilke MOSS LANDING, California—Forget Mars. The next frontier in the search for undiscovered life forms may lie deep in the oceans of our own planet. Thousands of meters below the ocean’s surface, hulking underwater rovers probe the remote depths looking for mysterious creatures. “It really is like an alien landscape, but just... 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
Extensive news coverage of scientific sessions, journalism panels, and field trips at the World Conference of Science Journalists 2017 will appear on this page within the next two weeks, thanks to reporting from an international group of science writing students attending the meeting on full fellowships. The reports, both news stories and multimedia presentations, will... Read More
By Alex Fox BERKELEY, California—Too often, the most pressing environmental issues faced by humankind fade away when the news cycle ends. Without breaking news to inject them back into coverage, these stories can dwindle even as their impacts intensify. But there are reliable ways for journalists to forge compelling stories at any time from ongoing... Read More
