Workshop summaries
Can extremophiles save the cat? Using “story grid”
Structuring stories Telling science stories can take the basic form of a “why / how / what” presentation, or the more ambitious form of a “story grid”, like the kind that bestselling writers use in nonfiction books, thrillers, and Hollywood films—one popular version is the “Save the Cat” technique of gridding out a story from…
Read MoreScientific genius—or not?
How do we as a society figure out if scientific genius is the real thing? What role should science writers play in celebrating or critiquing apparent scientific brilliance? What happens if we get it wrong? One of the most celebrated polymath geniuses of 20th-century America was the cosmologist/physicist/environmentalist/architect Buckminster Fuller. Yet doubts remain whether Fuller…
Read MoreBioracism reborn?
Many science bloggers and writers put their thoughts into the form of essays that discuss a new book, or several new books where the writer sees a theme. We studied an example of this kind of book-review essay this month to see how such essays can work, especially in terms of structure and argument. The…
Read MoreThe intersection of science and literature
We had a special treat at our dinner salon and workshop meeting this month: Iida Turpeinen, one of Finland’s leading thinkers and practitioners in the transdisciplinary space between science and literature, joined us to discuss a section of the forthcoming English translation of her 2023 natural-history book Beasts of the Sea (Fin. Elolliset), which won…
Read MoreThe bioethics of the brain-machine interface
Direct electrical/digital interfaces between human brains and machines are advancing rapidly while AI is suddenly infiltrating the process of human thinking at mass scale. Where are we headed? At our September meeting, we discussed a recent selection from the Best Science & Nature Writing about the cutting-edge technology of humans interacting with computers using only…
Read MoreWhat are zoos? Do we live in one?
Does visiting a zoo ever give you a strange feeling—not just about our relationship with nature, but maybe even about your own life? What kind of science and ideas lie behind zoos, and could they tell us something about human existence and our future? This month we workshopped a draft treatment for a fictional story,…
Read MoreRethinking the secret life of plants
With the long-awaited greenery of the Nordic summer finally upon us, it was the perfect time to consider the secret life of plants. They’re not what we think they are: the science is changing and the potential for plants to think, communicate, and engage in chemicals-weapons combat gave us plenty to ponder, while we, um,…
Read MoreSex, fads, and math
Scientists might use a term like “computed statistics of social synchrony” to refer to what normal people might call sex, fads, and math. Our two texts this month brought us together around these questions: Can mathematical models describe the mating rituals of fireflies, the love life of secret agents, and treatment trends in hospitals? Firefly…
Read MoreWould you want to live longer but get younger?
We had a fun challenge this month from Hanna Västinsalo, our celebrity filmmaker, who leverages her PhD in genetics to entertain audiences with unexpected science stories with a human perspective. We workshopped Hanna’s marketing strategy for her powerful new science-fiction film depicting the psychological experience of reverse aging, Palimpsest. To help with that task, we…
Read MoreOn using metaphors and irony—carefully
The metaphor of modern medicine as a tower anchored a draft piece of fiction that we workshopped this month. In the story another tower appeared through the mist, too: alternative medicine. This text used concrete visual drama to take an idea and, as the screenwriting teacher Robert McKee puts it, wrap that idea in an…
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