I am a writer, editor, producer, and fledgling platform developer.
Some of my latest stories:
Nature July 24, 2014
Cell communication: Stop the microbial chatter
Bacteria are chatterboxes. They communicate with one another, in large groups, and even across species. This exchange helps them survive and also helps them become more resistant to antibiotics. But by undermining all this chatter, scientists hope to treat infections in new ways. To do so, they are developing new ways to eavesdrop on microbial communication.
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Nature Methods September 2014
Structural biology: ‘seeing’ crystals the XFEL way
X-ray free electron lasers vaporize samples. After they put so much work into obtaining them, it seems surprising to destroy the samples, usually proteins they have coxed into crystals, with a blam. Then again, it is a way to capture, which allows researchers to reconstruct protein structure.
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Methagora
Sequencing: Ship-Seq sails the seas
Neurobiologist Leonid Moroz likes being out at sea. He likes having all the amenities there, too. Such as high-throughput sequencers. And his complete team.
Here is how he set up Ship-Seq. (Hint: sequencing quality goes up on the high seas.)
Ship-Seq Protocol
1 x 141-foot boat
1 x generous entrepreneur
1 x ship’s crew
1 x mobile molecular biology lab equipped with lab benches, a sequencer, reagents
1 x manufacturer of a high-throughput sequencer willing to donate an instrument
1 x satellite link to a supercomputer
1 x lab staff and scientist/wife willing to be scientist-sailors
1 x diving equipment
1 x funding National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
3 x support from non-profit organizations: Florida Biodiversity Institute, Florida Museum of Natural History, the International Seakeepers Society
1,000 international units of patience
Several remedies for seasickness
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Nature Sept 13, 2013
Next generation sequencing: The genome jigsaw
High-throughput gene sequencing is fast. But re-assembling the genomes into their original sequence is like shredding 1,000 copies of Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities in a woodchipper and then trying to put the text back to gether in a single book.
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Nature June 13, 2013
Biology: The big challenges of big data
Life scientists have plenty of data and explore ever new ways to throw terabytes around to share, analyze and compare the data wealth. New science can emerge from analyzing existing data sets as well as new ones. That’s not exactly the wet-world of biology.
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Nature Methods, February 2013
Author file: Loren Looger
He likes his shirts and biosensors bright. Loren Looger, who leads a research group at Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Farm Research Campus, lights up message transfer in the brain. And he wants to go even further than tracking excitatory messages.
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Nature Biotechnology
June 2012
My data are your data. Sharing is easy, scientists do it in their sleep. Or do they?
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The Lancet
June 8, 2012
FDA reform plan edges closer to realisation. A bill that gives the US Food and Drug Administration much new heft in addressing drug shortages as well as drug and device approvals has cleared House vote.
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Newsweek/The Daily Beast
May 10, 2012
New Mayan Discovery: The World Isn’t Ending! The Mayans predicted that the world would end in 2012, right? Not according to the fascinating findings from a recent dig.
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My blog: à propos
Latest entry: Study design matters. Statistics are boring, these scientists say, but important, of course. The authors find studies that fall into the WTD and WNTD, the categories of what to do and what not to do.
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Twitter: @metricausa
Contact me: v [dot] marx [at] alum [dot] mit [dot] edu
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A platform in the making: SeeSaw.
SeeSaw weighs news and comments, showing the community of readers the spectrum of reporting and views on a topic.
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My work:
Newspapers: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Boston Globe, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, Die Zeit, Facts, Weltwoche.
Magazines and online-only publications: The Economist, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Methods, Nature, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, The Lancet, New Scientist, Popular Science, Science Magazine,Scientific American.com, Red Herring, Der Spiegel, MIT’s Technology Review, Utah CEO, Chemical & Engineering News, BioInform, Genomics & Proteomics, Drug Discovery & Development.
TV: ARTE, ZDF, WDR, BR, HR, WGBH.
My past topics include:
innovation nuns R&D earnings imaging science policy sperm pain killers Web 2.0 telecommunications MEMS cancer noses RNAi oceanography brain-drain hieroglyphs zoos IPOs microfluidics databases natural catastrophes statistics comets biofilms public health business plans libraries space saliva X-ray free electron lasers markets digital devices space exploration chemistry saints glaciers neurons advertising bridges stem cells Maya culture research policy regeneration microscopy GPUs higher education patents aging RAM medicine public-private partnerships microscopy climate imaging textiles dentistry nanotech relationships malaria particle accelerators male circumcision dogs high energy physics bridges geology algorithms explorers pigeons spectroscopy servants genomics microwaves television computing television the brain vaccines multiferroics invasive species text mining plankton drug development civil engineering animals start-ups proteomics newspapers physics comets patients pharmacogenomics simulation angels wikis philanthropy double lives counterfeiting standardized tests steam film