The world’s deepest zoo harbors clues to extraterrestrial life – my first piece for kids
I’m excited about the publication of my first piece for kids, about the World’s Deepest Zoo, written for Science News for Students. It covers the same topic as my Smithsonian piece from last year, i.e. life living deep beneath the Earth and the scientists who venture into underground mines in order to study them. Of […]
Ants, impostorism and a few more updates
It’s been a while since my last update, although this time I have a better reason than usual for being so busy-my wife and I were blessed with a lovely baby girl a few months ago! Between frantically trying to finish up assignments before she was born, and then being busy/sleep-deprived taking care of a […]
An online feature about deep life for Smithsonian
I just got done with a Smithsonian feature on microbes that live in extremely inhospitable environments deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and the researchers who venture 2 kms or more underground in South African gold mines to study them. It’s hard work, but they’ve found a surprising diversity of life living in these deep environments, […]
How scientists can get credit for peer review: Science Careers article
Thanks to all the time I spent getting my PhD, I’ve maintained an interest in writing about careers in science, especially articles that might be helpful for graduate students and postdocs. I wrote this article for Science Careers about different platforms (such as Publons, Elsevier’s Reviewer Recognition Platform) that allow scientists to get credit for […]
Keeping busy, writing about molecular biology for BioTechniques
I’ve been meaning to update this website for a while, unfortunately I’ve been too busy writing articles to do so. Among other things, I’ve been writing regular articles for the journal BioTechniques. It’s been a nice way for me to keep in touch with the latest in molecular biology, a field that I haven’t extensively […]
This Software Makes You Forget You’re Wearing Headphones — My article about 3D audio
I got a chance to write another longer piece, this one about 3D audio and how it can make headphones sound more like real life, particularly important for virtual reality and augmented reality. It’s been a while since I last wrote a tech-focused article, and this was also my first piece for Wired’s Backchannel publication. […]
Article about an insect-sized flying robot for Motherboard
I wrote my first piece for Motherboard, Vice magazine’s online science & technology site. I just happened to find a pitch that worked well for them, and it was fun to write a more technology-related article after a while. The article is about the first bee-sized robot that can fly using feedback only from an […]
A science story from The Hindu that I sent in to the Science Journalism Tracker
The Hindu, the venerable Indian newspaper that I grew up reading (and that first introduced me to science journalism), still continues to publish plenty of science stories both online and in print. I found out about one of their recent stories on turning “light into matter” not from the story itself (which was quite confusing) […]
Curious Bends: a curated weekly list of India-related science and technology
Related to Indian science news, a couple of Indian science journalists (Akshat Rathi and Vasudevan Mukunth) have started Curious Bends, a weekly curated list of stories about India-related science and technology. They’ve been doing a great job so far, and I highly recommend you sign up here if you’re at all interested. I’ve enjoyed Akshat […]
Boring wasp not so boring
I’ve been a little slow to post these past few weeks, just busy with summer activities. I wrote another story for National Geographic’s “Weird & Wild” blog, about the parasitic fig wasp’s metallic ovipositor tip. The wasp uses its ovipositor to pierce the tough skin of unripe figs to lay its eggs, and having a […]