As part of my reporting workload in recent months, I’ve been navigating the vast, little-known world of antibiotic alternatives. Among the most intriguing are phages, naturally-occurring viruses that have evolved to kill bacteria—and that make mincemeat of even the staunchest antibiotic-resistant species. My piece in the last issue of Popular Science magazine profiled Randy Wolcott, [...]

As an avid gymnastics fan, I’ve been following the He Kexin age scandal closely. A handful of people within the gymnastics community knew about the discrepancies in her official paperwork long before the story broke last month in the New York Times. Even they’re surprised, I think, that it’s blown up into the shemozzle it [...]

A few people I know have blog widgets that let visitors peek at the most recently-played songs in their iTunes queue. For me, installing such a widget would be humiliating, on par with admitting that I occasionally read The Baby-Sitters Club books in my spare time. (Oh, wait…) Still, I’ve decided to come clean and [...]