Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, speaks with Science Friday host Ira Flatow about the current state of science journalism and the growing public distrust in science. “Science is a human enterprise,” says Blum. “We need to do full justice to that. And we need to allow people to see that science is people at work trying to understand the world around them.”
Knight Science Journalism Director Deborah Blum writes for The New York Times about Melissa L. Sevigny’s new book “Brave The Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon.” Blum writes: “Unlike those old-time newspaper reporters, Sevigny does not look at her subjects and see women out of place. She sees women doing their job and doing it well.”
Knight Science Journalism Director Deborah Blum speaks with Science Friday host Ira Flatow about the best science books to read this summer.
Knight Science Journalism Director Deborah Blum writes for The New York Times about Frank Close’s book ‘’Elusive: How Peter Higgs Solved the Mystery of Mass,” which highlights Nobel Prize winner Peter Higgs. “Using the known rules of physics, from electromagnetism to quantum mechanics, Higgs raised the possibility of an unstable subatomic particle that, through a series of fizzing interactions, could lend mass to other particles,” writes Blum.
A team of MIT scholars and journalists are underscoring that artificial intelligence could advance colonialism in a three-part series supported by the MIT Knight Science Journalism Fellowship Program and the Pulitzer Center, reports Ellen McGirt for Fortune. “While it would diminish the depth of past traumas to say the A.I. industry is repeating this violence [plunder and slavery] today, it is now using other, more insidious means to enrich the wealth and powerful at the great expense of the poor,” says the team.
Isabella Cueto, a Cuban American journalist who has worked as a newspaper and radio reporter in Florida, South Carolina, and California, has been named the first recipient of the Sharon Begley-STAT Science Reporting Fellowship, reports STAT. “Named in honor of Begley, an award-winning science writer for STAT who died in January from complications of lung cancer, the fellowship combines a paid reporting position at STAT with an educational component provided through the prestigious Knight Science Journalism program.”
Writing for Science, Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, explores the growth of science journalism. Blum notes that in her view the most important contribution for science reporters is “to portray research accurately in both its rights and its wrongs and stand unflinchingly for the integrity of the story.”
Inside Higher Ed reporter Lindsay McKenzie writes that a new AI system developed by MIT researchers to summarize the findings of technical scientific papers could “be used in the near future to tackle a long-standing problem for scientists -- how to keep up with the latest research.”
In an article for NPR, Knight Science Journalism Fellow Elana Gordon explores whether pharmaceutical-grade heroin could serve as a form of treatment for longtime users. Gordon notes that, “prescribing heroin would challenge culture, laws and practice in the U.S.”
Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, speaks with Boston Globe reporter Michael Floreak about her book exploring the origins of food regulation in the U.S. The book, “reminded me why these rules are so important and what a thin line they are between us and the bad old days of the 19th century when cookbook authors had to warn their readers about fake food,” she explains.
A new book by Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, focuses on Harvey Washington Wiley’s “fight for pure food,” explains Joshua Johnson, host of NPR’s 1A. While food safety has improved, Blum believes “it’s not safe enough and that our safety mechanisms have been – as they were in Wiley’s time – weakened over the years.”
Deborah Blum, director of the Knight Science Journalism Program, stresses the importance of citizen participation in science in a book review for The Washington Post. Blum writes that direct participation in gathering data, “makes science more accessible to Americans who, many worry, are becoming alienated from the research process.”
"The Knight Science Journalism program, to me, has always been one of the most exciting programs in science journalism," Blum tells Paul Raeburn of the KSJ Tracker. In his post, Raeburn reveals some of Blum's plans for the future, as described in an interview, and explains the significance of the dual appointments of Blum and Roush.