Christie Aschwanden

Brian Vastag is a science reporter at The Washington Post, where he covers general science, the environment, climate change, and space. Vastag covered the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown for the Post, penning six front-page stories during the height of the crisis and more than a dozen stories overall on the disaster and its political fallout.

Before landing at the Post in January 2011, Vastag spent nearly six years freelancing for some 40 publications, including U.S. News & World Report, New Scientist, Health, Nature, Science, Scientific American, Science News and National Geographic News. From 2000 to 2004, Vastag served as Washington news editor for the Journal of the American Medical Association, operating as a one-man bureau while covering biomedical research and policy from Capitol Hill to the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. Vastag has made live radio appearances on BBC World Service, WNYC, and Public Radio International’s The World, with television appearances on MSNBC and CNN.

Vastag is a member of the panel, Covering Scientific Controversies, that will take place Saturday, October 15th, from 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm at the Wettaw Auditorium at the University of Northern Arizona. The panel is part of the annual National Association of Science Writers meeting.

I interviewed Vastag prior to the NASW panel. In our interview, we discussed his Fukushima reporting as well as an investigative piece about offshore stem cell treatments that he wrote for the Post in 2008, Injections of Hope: Doctors promote offshore stem cell treatments, but some patients cry foul.

Click the following link to listen to the interview. (Or right click the link to download the .mp3 so you can listen on your audio device.)

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-Christie Aschwanden

Gary Taubes  is the author of Nobel Dreams (1987), Bad Science: The Short Life and Weird Times of Cold Fusion (1993), Good Calories, Bad Calories (2007), and Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It (2010). He studied applied physics at Harvard and aerospace engineering at Stanford (MS, 1978). After receiving a master’s degree in journalism at Columbia University in 1981, Taubes joined Discover magazine as a staff reporter in 1982. Since then he has written numerous articles for Discover, Science and other magazines. Originally focusing on physics issues, his interests have more recently turned to medicine and nutrition.

Taubes’ books have all dealt with scientific controversies. Nobel Dreams takes a critical look at the politics and experimental techniques behind the Nobel Prize-winning work of physicist Carlo Rubbia. Bad Science is a chronicle of the short-lived media frenzy surrounding the Pons-Fleischmann cold fusion experiments of 1989.

Taubes is a member of the panel, Covering Scientific Controversies, that will take place Saturday, October 15th, from 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm at the Wettaw Auditorium at the University of Northern Arizona. The panel is part of the annual National Association of Science Writers meeting.

I spoke with Taubes about his controversial New York Times Magazine story, Is Sugar Toxic?

Click the following link to listen to the interview. (Or right click the link to download the .mp3 so you can listen on your audio device.)

TaubesOnBias

I am thrilled and honored to be joining an esteemed group of science writers on the Last Word on Nothing blog. The blog features a new post every week day.

Cassandra Willyard was kind enough to write an introduction. I’ll be blogging about every other week (give or take).

You can read my posts via this link: www.lastwordonnothing.com/category/christie/