In the eighties and nineties I was partly a freelance writer and
partly a film writer and editor, writing for science magazines such
as Discover and working for TV network providers such as Colossal Pictures and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos.
Late in the nineties I joined Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (where l soon learned that duct tape can do almost anything except seal ducts.) The job kept me busy working on numerous topics and making short films. I followed the discovery of dark energy and was honored to write about Saul Perlmutter; the most fun was immediately writing about Saul in the middle of the night, when he won the Nobel Prize.
I worked with UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering after leaving the Lab
in the 2010s, covering science that had a direct impact on people’s lives.
Here is a handful of my favorite articles and releases from those years.
Roman Seawater Concrete: the properties of ancient Roman concrete
that made port facilities that are still solid today.
In the Domain of Design: “Everyone designs
who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations
into preferred ones.”
Atom by Atom, Bond by Bond: highest-resolution images of a
molecule breaking and reforming chemical bonds.
A Dent in the Iron Hypothesis: plankton blooms do not send
atmospheric carbon to the deep ocean.
What Keeps the Earth Cooking: measuring the radioactive sources
of Earth’s heat flow.
Here are a few short essays on other scientific topics:
Humans, Robots, and the Ultimate Turing Test
The Nonexistent Paradoxes of Time Travel
And for those who want to know more about dark energy, here’s a history of its discovery:
Dark Energy’s Tenth Anniversary, Part I, announcing the accelerating universe.
Dark Energy’s Tenth Anniversary, Part II, success breeds competition.
Dark Energy’s Tenth Anniversary, Part III, the aftermath: confirmation and exploration.