A Sunken Egyptian City is Rediscovered, Stunning Researchers and Enthusiasts Alike by Khalil A. Cassimally: Named Thonis by the Egyptians who built it but known as Heracleion to the Greeks of the time, this great city was once a central part of ancient Egypt. Older than Alexandria, Thonis was probably founded during the eighth century [...]

Tips is a series that aims to provide early-career science writers with, well, tips to aid them in their budding careers. The series will attempt to link out to existing resources available online. In a blog post published on 31 December 2012, PLOS BLOGS Network’s community manager Victoria Costello lists ten qualities she deems essential [...]

This is a series of Q&As with new, young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They – at least some of them – have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices [...]

Eating insects has been the new craze for science writers ever since the UN released a report that advocates the rearing of insects potentially for human consumption and animal feed last month. In this week’s picks, Kyle Hill tells us that there’s no reason to freak out about eating insects because, well, we already eat [...]

This is a series of Q&As with new, young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They – at least some of them – have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices [...]

Is Nature Unnatural? by Natalie Wolchover: On an overcast afternoon in late April, physics professors and students crowded into a wood-paneled lecture hall at Columbia University for a talk by Nima Arkani-Hamed, a high-profile theorist visiting from the Institute for Advanced Study in nearby Princeton, N.J. With his dark, shoulder-length hair shoved behind his ears, [...]

The Oklahoma tornado disaster was chilling in terms of sheer power and devastation caused. In this week’s picks, I highlight two articles about tornadoes. The first one, by Douglas Main, examines the underlying causes of such destructive tornadoes and the second one, by Adam Kucharski, looks at the challenge in forecasting seemingly unpredictable tornadoes. On [...]

This is a series of Q&As with young and up-and-coming science, health and environmental writers and reporters. They have recently hatched in the Incubators (science writing programs at schools of journalism), have even more recently fledged (graduated), and are now making their mark as wonderful new voices explaining science to the public. Today we introduce [...]

Protecting South America’s Crown of Biodiversity by Anne-Marie Hodge: Visiting a rainforest can be an exercise in challenged expectations. Everyone knows that rainforests are full of life: they teem with species, act as stages for unimaginably intricate food webs, and provide refuge for rare and even undiscovered organisms that exist nowhere else in the world. [...]

As usual, it’s been a great week on the writing front from up-and-coming science writers. This week’s selection has the horrifying, the less horrifying, the beautiful and the wow and important. From wasps that sorta kinda impregnate cockroaches after controlling their minds to Killer Whale attacks to the notorious politics in the “green energy” sector. [...]