Achieving Immortality
How can we ensure that future students will read our names when, many years from now, they open their science textbooks on their iPad 15s?
Most Likely to Secede
No talented child ever says, “I want to pipette repetitively when I grow up.”
[Commented on in Harvard Undergraduate Research Journal, 3/5/11]
Lies, Damned Lies, and Seminars
For all the naive and gullible graduate students out there, here’s a handy guide to what those speakers are really saying.
Why The Controversy? Vaccines Save Lives
National Public Radio
A few weeks ago, my sister asked a simple yes-no question on her Facebook page: She wrote, “should I get the flu shot?” She might as well have posted, “should I fillet this kitten?”
Electile Dysfunction
Over tea, our columnist considers what the congressional elections might mean for the prospects of science and scientists.
Don’t Worry, I’m (Un)Professional
Our Experimental Error columnist asks,“Who are the people in your fume hood?”
Three Books For Surviving Graduate School
National Public Radio
Graduate students need higher stipends, fewer questions from prying relatives about when they’ll graduate, and more department events with unguarded pastries. You might think the last things grad students need are more books.
All That Glitters Is All We Remember
Why are we most fascinated by the irrelevant aspects of science?
Don’t Try This at Home
Shouldn’t scientists blow more things up? Introducing the first humor column about being, and becoming, a scientist.
Surviving Your Stupid, Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School
31-page excerpt of the full book, available on Scribd. But you should totally buy the book.
Reunited…And It Feels So Awkward
Princeton Alumni Weekly
I’m married. I have no kids. I live in an apartment near the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and work at a biotech company in Rockville, Md. And later this month, for some reason, I will find it very important to share this information with people I have not seen since last May.
iReporters Search for the “Heartland” on Road Trip
Knowing we would attend a wedding in St. Louis, Missouri, one weekend and a bridal shower in Chicago, Illinois, the next, the two of us decided to turn the events into an excuse for a summer road trip through Illinois and parts of neighboring states from June 28 to July 4. [Coauthored with Marina Koestler Ruben.]
More Scenes and Monologs from the Best New Plays: An Anthology of New Dramatic Writing from Professionally Produced Plays
Includes my one-act plays “Out of Character” and “Shot At.”
STAGE THIS! Ten-Minute Plays
Includes my one-act play “New Tricks.”
Soapbox Derby for the Twenty-First Century
This essay shared Princeton University’s Gregory T. Pope ’80 Prize for Science Writing in 2001.