Technorolling

I'm going to leave my laptop computer at home for the conference—my first work-related trip since the mid-1990s without one. But I'm bringing my (work-assigned) iPad, and stuffing my ongoing work into the cloud of Google Docs and Dropbox in an attempt to keep up. I' m surprised at how nervous this strategy is making me.

But it also made me wonder: How are you all planning to work, stay connected, take notes, follow social media, and so on during ScienceWriters 2010? Anyone have any good plans—software or hardware?

Image: ExplorePAhistory and Corbis Bettman

Profitable Freelancing

Hi all. I'm Sara LaJeunesse, a freelance writer/editor and a NASW travel fellow this year. I'll be reporting on the "Profitable freelancing: Starting a business and keeping it productive" session. The goal of the session is to teach participants how to wear the many hats of a freelancer: writer and editor; CEO and employee; and treasurer and accountant. As a newbie to the freelancing world, I look forward to receiving this advice and to sharing it with you.

I say I'm new to freelancing, but I actually have freelanced on the side for many years. This year, however, is the first time I have devoted myself completely to freelancing, as I have decided to spend some time at home with my 14-month-old daughter. It's quite a juggling act, as many of you likely know, but it also is incredibly fulfilling.

My former jobs have included staff science writer/editor at Penn State, assistant director of communications at the University of Miami, and science writer at Everglades National Park. I earned a master's degree in biology at the University of Georgia and a bachelor's degree in environmental studies at the University of Tennessee.

Making the most of a medical conference

I, too, received one of the graduate student travel fellowships to attend Science Writers 2010 at Yale in New Haven.

As a graduate student in Arizona State University's School of Life Sciences (SOLS), I study the interwoven fabrics of neuroscience, genetics and behavior. The journey from basic research at the lab bench to treatment at the bedside fascinates me.

I will be blogging about How to cover a medical conference: Tips from the pros at this year's convention. This session is slated to help one make the most of attending a medical conference by sharing details on sussing out the most newsworthy stories, knowing which sessions you can skip and the little known gems of medical conferences you don't want to miss.

I am keen to learn more about navigating my way through a medical conference successfully. As a honey bee researcher, I feel confident mingling with the 50,000 insects in a single hive. Studying social insects provides an interesting perspective on the mass interactions of individuals at a large conference.

ASU is home to one of the world's largest social insect departments. Just like the honey bees I study, I am hard at work. But instead of foraging for nectar or pollen, I am pursuing a PhD in biology, examining how pheromones effect bee behavior. At the same time, I am the Teaching Assistant for SOLS' Ask a Biologist, a nationally recognized site devoted to helping "K through Gray" explore the mysterious world of biology.

As a German Chancellor Scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, I traveled over 50,000 miles by car throughout western Europe in 2006-2007 investigating the differences between European and American beekeeping. For a peek at pollinator photos from my travels, visit FlowersLoveBees.com.

A honey connoisseur, I also delved into the historic use of nature's first sweetener for wound healing. Hippocrates and Aristotle, amongst other great minds and medical practitioners, recognized the therapeutic potential of honey and applied it liberally to speed the healing process. During my stay in Germany, I coauthored an article with Dr. Arne Simon of the Pediatric Oncology Dept. of the Children's Hospital in Bonn about the resurgence of honey to treat superbug infected wounds.

In this month's issue of Scientific American Mind you will find my story Old & Wise on how honey bees help to explain the link between intelligence and long life.

Intro Post: Ferris Jabr

Hi! I'm one of the graduate travel fellows. I will be attending ScienceWriters2010 with many of my classmates from New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program (SHERP) - a 16-month MA in science journalism. Most of us have never attended an NASW conference and we are excited for all the great events, familiar faces and new acquaintances.

I am slated to blog about Saturday's discussion entitled "Data visualization for reporting and storytelling," which attracts me because it is a field about which I am relatively naive and would like to better understand. Data, particularly statistics and hard numbers, are often missing from what are otherwise excellent stories. The craft of translating data into a visually appealing and informative component of a story is not a "neat" skill to be showcased once in a while - it is as vital as narrative, fact-checking and structure. A single effective graphic can transform both the story itself and the readers' interaction with that story.

About me: I am a writer and science journalist based in NYC. In 2009 I graduated from Tufts University, where I double majored in psychology and English and studied a lot of biology. I moved to NYC in September 2009 and this December I will graduate from SHERP. I have been interning with Scientific American MIND since May and I have published articles with Scientific American, Psychology Today, Popular Mechanics and SHERP's webzine Scienceline.org. You can visit my personal website and follow me on Twitter.

The slump in science journalism

I'm Kara Rogers, another of this year's NASW travel fellows and a newbie to the SW conference scene. As a science writer and editor devoted to clear and accurate science reporting, I'm interested in hearing some insider perspectives on the future of science literacy and journalism. Saturday, I'll be tuning into "Civics of Science: Literacy and the Collapse of Science Journalism," a discussion led by Carolyn L. Funk, Jon Miller, Chris Mooney, and NASW's own Nancy Shute.

At the center of Saturday's discussion is the current state of crisis in science literacy and journalism—a weighty topic for aspiring science writers and a relevant one for those who have spent the greater part of their careers in the trenches of science journalism.

Has science literacy been dragged down by magazines and television? Will science literacy sink or swim in a world dominated by social media? These questions and more will be fielded by Saturday's intrepid Civics-in-Science speakers.

A little about myself: I'm the senior editor of biomedical sciences at Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., in Chicago. I am also a freelance science writer and a contributor on the Britannica Blog, where I run a series called Science Up Front. Prior to moving to Chicago, I completed a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Arizona, where I also had the opportunity to freelance for the university's news service, covering a wide range of topics in science.

Literary science writing

I'm Roberta Kwok, one of the NASW travel fellows. I'll be blogging on Saturday about the session "Great science writing part II: Building the big book," which features science-writing superstars K.C. Cole, Jennifer Ouellette, Charles Seife, Jonathan Weiner, and Carl Zimmer. As a former creative-writing student, I'm excited to hear their insights about how literary devices can be used to communicate science. I remember reading Weiner's book The Beak of the Finch in graduate school and trying to deconstruct how he told such a compelling story; maybe he'll share some tips during the panel!

A little about me: I'm a freelancer in the San Francisco Bay Area, writing for clients such as Nature, Conservation, and Science News for Kids. Before freelancing, I worked at a start-up in Silicon Valley, completed an MFA in fiction writing, and attended the science communication program at UC Santa Cruz. You can check out clips at my website and a recent interview about one of my features at the new science-writing blog The Open Notebook.

Basics

The posts on this blog will mostly come from travel fellows, who've agreed to cover specific events at the meeting as they happen. Good stuff in case you have to miss a concurrent session, or if the early morning ones defeat your best intentions to get up, go for a run, and be the first one to crack the valve on the coffee urn.

To the right, you'll see two Twitter widgets. The one at the top covers those travel fellows' tweets—and we've asked them to live-tweet throughout the weekend. The one at the bottom does a realtime search for the hashtag "#sciwri10."

(Newbies: hashtags are the way Twitter keeps track of topics across individual tweets.)

So if you tweet about the meeting, add the word "#sciwri10" (with the pound sign but without the quotation marks). And it'll show up here.