Here are the best things I’ve read all week. The pieces are not necessarily news and could be decades old, and they’re probably longform writing but not always. Maybe there is one link, maybe there are forty. But they all were thought-provoking enough that they hopped around in my brain long past the read. Enjoy. [...]

While some schoolchildren daydream about crushes during class, delicately inscribing their names in paper margins, others instead yearn to one day discover and name their own species for the cute boy at the corner desk. But they know little about the excess work involved in plant discovery. Even after discovering and confirming a new species [...]

The earth revolves around the sun. It’s a true fact, and no conspiracy. Even with such enlightenment, it’s nice to be reminded of why people once thought the opposite — that the universe revolves around the earth — to briefly knock us off our ivory tower of knowledge and be reminded of just how far [...]

When my 18-year old self walked into a tattoo parlor on South Street in Philadelphia, I had no idea I was joining a movement of tattooed scientists, embellishing their bodies with symbols of their passions. My little chickadee, a bird that continues to fascinate me despite its commonness, now inspires jabs of “put a bird [...]

Three months ago, I received an email informing me that a high school friend, Pat, had died. I read his obituary and my body stopped functioning. I froze on the spot, limbs tense but trembling. My mouth went dry, my vision blurred. As I waited for my train in the packed station, I could barely [...]

Stories have the power to take us to other worlds, and no genre more so than science fiction and fantasy. But even the wildest fantasy novel has to have some basis in reality; otherwise, most readers become discouraged. (I mean, have you read the Silmarillion?) Science fiction constantly toes the line between fact and fiction [...]

Republished with scant edits from the previous iteration of Culturing Science on July 20, 2010. A great blog post about fiction inspiring science by Uta Frith reminded me of this old friend. Hat tip to Princess Ojiaku. I didn’t really grow up reading science fiction.  Sure, I was (and am) completely obsessed with some fantasy [...]

When I unwrapped my New York Times on Sunday, I was met with a surprise: A front-page, above-the-fold story about a young adult with autism. The story — a must-read, which you can do here — follows Justin Canha, a 20-year old with autism as he stretches towards adulthood and aspires to an independent life. [...]

Last week, the US Institute of Medicine released a report on the adverse effects of vaccines. And their finding? That vaccinations cause negative reactions in very few people; that vaccines have no connection to autism or type 1 diabetes; overall, that vaccines are safe. The report was commissioned by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, [...]

“I have an idea,” my brother said to me last winter. Jacob is an elementary science teacher at a neighborhood charter school in Northeast Philadelphia and, at the time, I was working as a lab technician in the same city. “How would you like to come into my classroom and talk to my students about [...]