Greetings! It's been a pretty busy week.
Last Saturday night, the Online News Association held their annual award ceremony in Washington. My "Game of Genomes" series for Stat won an award for explanatory reporting.
I couldn't be there to accept it, but if I had been, I would have done so on behalf of the talented team who turned my obsession into a stylish piece of online journalism: my editor Jason Ukman; Stat's multimedia guru Jeff Delviscio; Alissa Ambrose for visual editing; Molly Ferguson for the delightful illustrations; Dom Smith for the smart animations; the web masters Corey Taylor, Ryan DeBeasi, and Jim Reevior; Tony Guzman, the project manager; copy editor Sarah Mupo; and Stat's fearless leader, Rick Berke.
On Thursday, I went to Stony Brook University to give a lecture entitled "Science Reporting in the Age of Fake News." Bat Boy figured prominently in it. The talk was recorded, and you can watch it here.
Also on Thursday, I reported for the New York Times about a surprising new study on how skin gets its color. An investigation of the genes behind light and dark skin reveals how variants for different colors were present in our pre-human ancestors--and are now spread around the world.
Finally, if you live in San Francisco (or are coming to this year's World Conference of Science Journalists in that fine city), I hope you can join me at the Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses on October 27. Here's how the organizers describe it:
The Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses (BAH!) is a celebration of well-argued and thoroughly researched but completely incorrect evolutionary theory. Six brave speakers will present their bad theories in front of a live audience and a panel of judges with real science credentials, who together will determine which speaker takes home the coveted sculpture of Darwin shrugging skeptically. And eternal glory, of course.
Adam Savage, former Mythbuster, will give the keynote. The evening will be hosted by Dr. Kelly Weinersmith. I'll be one of the judges, along with Maggie Koerth-Baker (senior science writer, FiveThirtyEight), ecologist Gail Patricelli, and astrophysicist Katie Mack.
You can order tickets here.
October 20: New York: Imagine Science Film Festival Closing Night. Details.
October 27, San Francisco. The Festival of Bad Ad Hoc Hypotheses. Details.
October 28 & 29, San Francisco. World Conference of Science Journalists. I'll be speaking at two sessions. Details.
November 1, New York. "What Is Life?" Night 2: How did life start?
November 8, University of Oxford. "The Philosophical Virus." The Twelfth Annual Baruch Blumberg Lecture:
December 6, New York. "What Is Life?" Night 3: Is life inevitable?
December 20, New York. "What Is Life?" Night 4: What did the first life look like?
January 3-7, 2018 San Francisco: Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology Annual Meeting, Plenary Lecture
February 15, 2018, Rochester, NY: Neilly Series Lecture. Details to come.
You can also follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads. LinkedIn, and Google+. And there's always carlzimmer.com.
Best wishes, Carl
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