about
I’m a journalist and editor in California focused on healthcare, medicine, and science.
For many years, I’ve reported on innovations and discoveries in biomedicine, and their social consequences. I still do that. More recently, I also became a caregiver, first for my sister-in-law, and then for my parents. It changed my life, and also showed me that caregiving is a national conversation we need to have. The 53 million American caregivers who look after friends and family are effectively the nation’s largest unpaid healthcare workforce. But what they do is invisible—overlooked in social policy and ignored by the media. With a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, I’m now trying to expand that conversation, tell these stories, and help people recognize caregiving for what it is: An essential social service, a form of medicine, a love story, a burden, an honor, a privilege—and, for many of us, a major chapter of life.
I’ve contributed features to Popular Science, Boston Globe Ideas, Scientific American, and Wired (scroll down for more).
Previously, I organized the Grist 50 list for five years as project editor or project writer. This flagship project celebrates up-and-coming leaders in climate, justice and sustainability. I’ve recently edited for a special package on health equity for Scientific American and news stories for Wired, among other publications (see details on editing page). Features I edited for the autism news website Spectrum in 2016 and 2017 won multiple awards for excellence from the Association of Health Care Journalists and the National Institute for Health Care Management.
In years past, I was a special projects editor at Discover, senior editor at Psychology Today, reporter at GenomeWeb, and senior editor at a scrappy little investigative newsmagazine in New York City. For many years I was also a flower-grower and board member at the best community garden on the lower East Side of NYC. Now I volunteer at Lindsay Wildlife, foster fledgling crows and jays, and spend as much time outside as I possibly can.
recently
'Hospital-at-home' trend means family members must be caregivers — ready or not
NPR, July 18, 2023 Hospitals can now send sick people home to recuperate, monitored by devices, telehealth, and home visits. Will this make life easier for family caregivers—or burden them with yet another new responsibility?
its in our blood
Popular Science, Fall 2021 Scientists know that circulating young blood through an old body restores cognition, boosts organ function, and hastens healing—in mice. What they don't yet know is how to make that fountain of youth flow for people. Saul Villeda is trying to find out.
Agriculture’s Extremely Tiny Saviors
Boston Globe Ideas, July 17, 2020 Like people, plants have microbiomes—zillions of microbes living on and in them. Biotech companies are scrambling to transform these microbes into products to make crops healthier, more sustainable, and better at feeding a growing world.
Dogs: A Love Story
Popular Science, Spring 2020 How did the big bad wolf become the dear little dog? Scientists are finding new answers in dog behavior and brains—along with clues about how we, too, might have domesticated ourselves.
The Social Network
Audubon, Winter 2018 For flocking birds, friends mean survival. A team of Oxford scientists are spying on the social networks of birds, hoovering up data that would make Facebook blush—and discovering the universal rules of friendship.
How Much is Your DNA Worth?
Neo.Life, September 2017 The price of DNA sequencing is falling. The value of the data is increasing. The result: Some new companies will pay you—or give you something good—for access to your data. Can the DNA-for-dollars business model work?
Brain-invading tapeworm that eluded doctors spotted by new dna test
Scientific American, June 2017 For years, the man kept coming back to the hospital with blinding headaches, his face partly paralyzed. Finally, a new DNA-based test caught the culprit: A worm in his brain.
When Pseudosex Is Better Than the Real Thing
Nautilus, November 2016 For a long time, biologists didn’t want to talk about parthenogenesis: Having babies without having sex. It seemed to break all the rules of evolution. Now, a few adventurous researchers are finding that this bizarre form of sex is quite effective.
Our Medical Data Must Become Free
Backchannel, February 2016 Why is it so difficult to get your own health data—and how do so many other people make money off of it? Meet the data dissidents: a young man with cancer who dissected his own brain tumor, then built a web site to host all his data. A mother who unearthed her baby’s mystery illness in his medical files. A security expert who can't trust the code that runs her own pacemaker.
When love is deeper than blood: New recognition for families of choice
Boston Globe Ideas, July 18, 2023 Caregiving reaches far beyond family, whether between friends, neighbors, or the LGBTQ+ “families of choice” that step up when flesh-and-blood relatives refuse. New state laws that protect caregivers’ jobs are starting to recognize these relationships too.
the real breakthrough for dementia: smashing the stigma
Boston Globe Ideas, June 4, 2021 We keep hoping for a medical miracle to cure dementia. Instead of waiting for that magic pill, we can improve the lives of people with dementia right now—by breaking down the fear, shame and isolation.
How Protecting Habitats Could Help Prevent Future Pandemics
Audubon, Summer 2020 Infectious disease experts and ecologists see a new way to prevent diseases from leaping from animals to people—and it involves better, smarter conservation policies that protect ecosystem health.
Meet The Deep-Diving, Ear-Splitting 4,500-Pound Rock Star of Año Nuevo
Bay Nature, Winter 2020 The northern elephant seal is an extreme beast in every way: Biggest, most macho, deepest-diving, farthest-foraging, loudest, best-studied by scientists—and most fun to watch. How will this extra-special most-est-of-all animal deal with the coming era of climate change?
The Clean Meat Industry Has a Dirty Little Secret
Neo.Life, November 2018 Cell-based meat developers promise immaculate food. But the reality so far is not quite so pristine; manufactured meat relies on serum, hormones, even antibiotics. Can these startups clean up the act?
One Test May Spot Cancer, Infections, Diabetes and More
Scientific American, September 2017 Sequencing the short scraps of DNA floating around in your blood could become a stethoscope for the future, detecting mystery infections, tiny tumors, maybe even strokes and autoimmune disease.
A Radically Simple Idea Will Let Us Catch Cancer Before It’s Cancer
Backchannel, December 2016 Some of the greatest minds in cancer research now say the same thing: It's time to stop fighting the war on cancer, and stop the disease before it starts.
welcome back, otters
Bay Nature, Fall 2016 These sneaky little carnivores were wiped out in the San Francisco Bay decades ago. Without any help or protection, they've quietly come back. Will they stay?
Prenatal testing is about to make being pregnant a lot more stressful
Quartz, March 2016 New genomics-based non-invasive pregnancy tests promise peace of mind. But as the tests add more and more extremely rare conditions, their accuracy plummets. Expecting mothers are left baffled and worried about the confusing results they get.
Family caregivers of people with long COVID bear an extra burden
NPR, Feb 6, 2023 Long COVID reveals a deep truth: Caregiving means managing the medical system itself. This new disease requires caregivers to stay on top of a confusing variety of prescriptions, doctors, tests and bills, all while advocating for a patient who might lack the ability to speak for themselves.
One Doctor’s Account of Long-term Care in the COVID Era
Medscape, April 15, 2021 In a nursing home, even ordinary medical care is nothing but routine. In the midst of a devastating pandemic, as staff call in sick and families are forbidden, the days only get longer and more complicated.
When Numbers Fail: Coronavirus is a Crash Course in Uncertainty
Boston Globe Ideas, April 24, 2020 We want the numbers, charts and graphs to answer those most terrifying questions: What is happening to us, and when will this end? Instead, Covid-19 is forcing us to learn to live with uncertainty.
Eight Trailblazers Changing the Climate Conversation
Audubon, Fall 2019 Meet a youth activist, a world-changing negotiator, a lifelong birder who just really loves the woods, and five other people changing the way we think about climate.
Seven creatures with skills that easily beat humans
Popular Science, spring 2018 (cover story): Crows beat kids on puzzles; chimps master tools; bees know what they don’t know. Animal cognition science reveals that no matter what a human can do, there’s probably a critter that can do it better.
A new finding raises an old question: Where and when did life begin?
Popular Science, September 2017 While origins-of-life researchers still fight about how life got started, they now agree upon when: Very very early. The implication: Life is quick and easy—and it just might be everywhere.
More research volunteers are getting their medical test results. Should we cheer — or worry?
Stat News, December 2016 People who volunteer for medical research provide buckets of data, but they can’t access it themselves. An unlikely mix of grassroots activists and big pharma pioneers is changing that equation.
Meet the Bird Brainiacs: American Crow
Audubon, March-April 2016
Urban ecologist John Marzluff is one of the world’s foremost experts on the minds—and brains—of crows. How can these birds remember individual people for so many years? Why do they hold funerals? And what’s with the Cheetos, anyhow?
This Scientist Might End Animal Cruelty—Unless GMO Hardliners Stop Him
Mother Jones, Sept-Oct 2015 Scott Fahrenkrug and his startup Recombinetics are using gene editing to make farm animals’ lives better. He believes biotech can create healthier piglets, more contented cows, and cheerier chickens. Will anti-GMO activists crush his hopes?