[Sci-tech-public] Knight Science Journalism at MIT Seminars - TOMORROW, Thursday, November 10 and Tuesday, November 15

[Eric Strattman]

 Both seminars are from 4pm to 6pm, in the Knight Science Journalism at MIT seminar room, E19-623, MIT. 

November 10
A planet of viruses.
Carl Zimmer, author, lecturer, Yale University.

Zimmer is the author of ten books about science. His works include Soul Made Flesh, a history of neuroscience, which was named one of the top 100 books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, and dubbed a "tour-de-force" by The Sunday Telegraph. His book, Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea was called "as fine a book as one will find on the subject" by Scientific American. His other books include At the Water's Edge, a book about major transitions in the history of life; The Smithsonian Intimate Guide to Human Origins; and Parasite Rex, which the Los Angeles Times described as "a book capable of changing how we see the world." Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life, published in 2008 was hailed by The Boston Globe as "superb...quietly revolutionary." It was a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Science Book Prize.

In 2009, Zimmer published The Tangled Bank: An Introduction to Evolution, the first textbook about evolution intended for non-majors. Edward O. Wilson of Harvard called it “excellent for students, the general public, and even other biologists.” Choice named it an academic title of the year. Zimmer is currently working on a majors version, called Evolution: Making Sense of Life, with his co-author, the biologist Douglas Emlen, and is preparing a second edition of The Tangled Bank.

In addition to writing books, Zimmer has written hundreds of articles for the New York Times and magazines including National Geographic, Time, Scientific American, Science, and Popular Science. From 1994 to 1998 Zimmer was a senior editor at Discover, where he remains a contributing editor and writes a monthly column about the brain.

Zimmer is a lecturer at Yale University, where he teaches writing about science and the environment. He was also the first Visiting Scholar at the Science, Health, and Environment Reporting Program at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.


November 15
Why we get fat: Adiposity 101 and the alternative hypothesis of obesity. 
Gary Taubes, author, former Knight Fellow.

Gary Taubes (born April 30, 1956) is an American science writer. He is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), and Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), which is titled The Diet Delusion in the UK. He has won the Science in Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers three times and was awarded an MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship for 1996-97.

Born in Rochester, New York, Taubes studied applied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978). After receiving a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.

Taubes’ books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989.


** Please note: there is no seminar on Thursday, November 17. **



    web.mit.edu/knight-science      knight-info at mit.edu
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