Robert Frederick
Verified
(He/Him)
- Science Journalist and Producer, Freelance
- Editor-in-Chief and Chief Content Officer, Global Virus Network
North Carolina
As seen in:
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Nature,
NPR,
PNAS,
Substack,
Science Magazine,
Science News,
ProQuest,
Greensboro News & Record,
American Scientist,
KWMU-FM (St. Louis, MO)
and
Covers:
science, sustainability, environment, climate, policy, education, business
Journalist. Teach science- climate- & podcasting journalism. @NiemanFdn ('21). Now at bsky.app/profile/sustainlab.bsky.social
Articles by Robert Frederick
Sustainable Dissent
This week, the Society of Environmental Journalists gathers in Chicago for its annual meeting bringing together “journalists, scientists, government officials, advocacy leaders and others to explore the many facets of environmental stories in order to improve the quality and accuracy of environmental reporting.” The business of environmental reporting, however, is often incompatible with environmental stories about “structural” or “slow violence” over time.
Why Climate Change Stories Need More Context | Nieman Reports
On the very first day of my “Reporting on Climate Change” class at the Harvard Extension School last August, a student asked if I had any strategies for responding to editors who say there’s not enough room for in-depth climate change stories, “which, they say, are too depressing, anyway?” This was one of the questions I designed the curriculum to help students answer.
Why Climate Change Stories Need More Context
On the very first day of my “Reporting on Climate Change” class at the Harvard Extension School last August, a student asked if I had any strategies for responding to editors who say there’s not enough room for in-depth climate change stories, “which, they say, are too depressing, anyway?” This was one of the questions I designed the curriculum to help students answer.
Why Every Science Story Needs The Right Kind of Caveats | Nieman Reports
Robert Boyle made every effort to repeat his experiment successfully. It meant killing yet another bird. But to convince his colleagues that animals need air to live, Boyle had to show them. “Take no one’s word for it” — Nullius in verba — was the motto they all followed in their scientific pursuits. Placing a bird inside a glass vessel, Boyle then sealed the vessel and pumped out the air. Eventually the bird “dyed with her breast upward, her head downwards, and her neck awry,” Boyle wrote.
Why Every Science Story Needs The Right Kind of Caveats
Robert Boyle made every effort to repeat his experiment successfully. It meant killing yet another bird. But to convince his colleagues that animals need air to live, Boyle had to show them. “Take no one’s word for it” — Nullius in verba — was the motto they all followed in their scientific pursuits. Placing a bird inside a glass vessel, Boyle then sealed the vessel and pumped out the air. Eventually the bird “dyed with her breast upward, her head downwards, and her neck awry,” Boyle wrote.
First Person: Ariana Sutton-Grier
As the Earth’s climate continues to warm, scientists are searching for ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Ecosystem ecologist and biogeochemist Ariana Sutton-Grier says that it will take every tool at our disposal to combat climate change, including capitalizing on natural ecosystems that absorb carbon. These environments are known as carbon sinks, and Sutton-Grier says that coastal wetlands are the best carbon sink you’ve never heard of.
Like an Afterburner
It took four years before the scientific community accepted Gene Parker's mathematical description of the solar wind, the flow of charged particles emanating from our Sun that spread throughout our Solar System. That's when the world’s first interplanetary mission (NASA’s Mariner 2) gathered the necessary data to prove Parker right. Some 60 years later, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe—its first mission named after a living person—to study what accelerates the solar wind.
A More Universal Language
There are many visualization tools for displaying output from data-intensive calculations, but this tool may be the first one that incorporates rice noodles: The collaborative effort between artists and researchers to build the tool also uses shaved wax, ink, clay, and found objects that are scanned into digital form and then used within supercomputer simulations.
First Person: Peter Jay Hotez
This Article From Issue September-October 2020 Volume 108, Number 5 Virologist Peter Hotez is internationally recognized as a pediatrician-scientist in vaccine development and neglected tropical diseases. As codirector of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and professor and dean at the Baylor College of Medicine, he also regularly consults on the coronavirus pandemic—how to quantify it and ways to mitigate its spread, including the development of vaccines.
Stewardship of Earth
In the midst of a pandemic, perhaps we look even harder to make meaning of our shared human experience. Today, what seems to resonate widely with people is that the Earth is somehow taking revenge: "Is the Covid-19 Pandemic Mother Nature’s Response to Human Transgression?" asks one writer (in a widely distributed post), as if we humans are somehow separate from the world.
First Person: Ben Santer
Atmospheric scientist Ben Santer is internationally recognized for his contributions to climate science, including the historic conclusion of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 1995 of the “discernible human influence on global climate.” His research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory focuses on evaluating climate models, using statistical methods in climate science, and identifying “fingerprints”—both natural and anthropogenic—in observed climate records.
Channeling Lasers
When viewing light that is changing in intensity, molecules in the human eye called chromophores undergo transformations that, in turn, prompt nerve impulses to the iris, which then physically opens or closes in response to the changing light intensity. Such feedback loops are common in biological systems, but are rare in synthetic materials because it is a challenge to give synthetic materials those transformational capabilities.
Detecting Gerrymandering
The mathematical task of deciding what is provably fair can be a daunting one, and even just a few years ago mathematician Theodore P. Hill wrote that for gerrymandering, "there is still no widely accepted fair solution" (also see Hill's article for an explanation of where the term "gerrymander" came from).
Blue Whirl: A New Form of Combustion
It seems surprising to discover a new kind of combustion today. Humankind has harnessed fire for millennia, so we’ve had plenty of time to burn things up, or burn things down. But the discovery of the blue whirl—an intense form of fire whirl, or “firenado” (below) as they're known colloquially—only came about recently. No one before had ever seen or, in the lab, let a fire whirl burn so intensely (which makes sense because they're really dangerous).
Using Computing to Advance Toxicology
Chemicals have changed our lives, providing new products and capabilities, but sometimes causing harm to ourselves and the environment. Reducing exposure to toxic substances is in everyone’s interest, but most chemicals’ toxicity is unknown: Testing toxicity is expensive, takes time, and has often involved animal testing.
First Person: Esther Takeuchi
Recognized internationally for her work on the development of batteries that power hundreds of thousands of life- saving cardiac defibrillators implanted in patients each year, Esther Takeuchi has joint appointments at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory and is a prolific inventor with more than 150 patents. She is the recipient of the 2019 Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, an annual award established in 2006.
Brain Support
An early sign of neurodegenerative disease at the cellular level is often the loss of integrity in axons, the threadlike part of neurons that conduct impulses. To find out what causes that loss of integrity, researchers have been trying to better understand the axon’s lining, called the membrane-associated periodic scaffold (MPS).
The Hardest Tissue
The pressures our teeth endure when we bite and chew are measured using the same scale that geologists use to measure the pressures under the Earth’s crust. In addition to those enormous pressures, we subject our teeth to wide temperature variations over short time periods with hot and cold food and drink. The enamel covering of our teeth also withstands extreme acid-base fluctuations, some of which come from various populations of bacteria that grow in our mouths.
Working with editors
By Robert Frederick What makes the writer-editor relationship work? In a frank discussion between freelance writers, staff editors and a highly participatory audience, the “Working with Editors” session at the annual NASW meeting focused on the relationship forged after an assignment commission. Panelists fielded audience questions that ranged from whether to handle writers with kid gloves to asking for just 15 more minutes from an editor to if editors cared about small details such as fonts.
Using Pop Culture to Teach Science
Typical science-classroom materials, such as the periodic table, are interspersed among pop culture posters in Matt Brady's classroom, prompting connections. During a tour, he discussed how the original Spider-Man concocted his own web formula and engineered his own web shooters whereas today's Spidey can shoot webs because of a genetic change.
Harder-Than-Diamond Carbon
The invention of Q-carbon—widely reported about a year ago—is out of the lab. One of its first real-world tests: a go-kart race in North Carolina. As an oil additive, Q-carbon acts as a nano-lubricant, significantly reducing friction in the engine. As a result, more of the engine's power is transmitted to the wheels instead of being wasted as heat. The go-kart driver testing the Q-carbon additive was in last place after the first two laps, but ended up winning by more than a lap.
Testing Well Water for Contamination
After the 2014 coal ash spill into North Carolina's Dan River, the state required water testing around each of the Duke Energy coal ash storage facilities. The tests showed groundwater contamination, but testing wasn't expanded beyond those sites. So people in surrounding communities started to ask questions about their groundwater. But when researchers went to test groundwater in those communities, they had to figure out a way to engage the private well owners to participate.
Microsized Architecture
No known structures in the human body look like this swirling set of tubes (below). But the capacity to create them with an inner diameter smaller than 10 micrometers is critical to making better models of the body’s structures. Researchers use such models for a wide variety of biomedical purposes, including pharmaceutical testing. But modeling capillaries, for example, which vary between 5 and 10 micrometers and withstand significant fluidic pressures, is a challenge.
Air Quality Trade-Offs
Solomon Bililign in his lab at North Carolina A&T State University. Photograph by Robert Frederick. A recent visit to the lab of an chemical physicist prompted a combination of wonder, awe, and shock. The research Solomon Bililign is conducting in his lab at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro is in atmospheric chemistry, which requires expertise in an array of scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, computer programming, and electronics.
Computing the Moment of Totality
Whether apocryphal or purposefully fictional, doubtful stories about the timing of solar eclipses are sprinkled throughout history, such as in the story of "Ho and Hi, The Drunk Astronomers." Here lie the bodies of Ho and Hi Whose fate though sad was visible, Being hanged because they could not spy Th'eclipse which was invisible.
Self-Education in Science Communication
My first consciously conducted science experiment was to gauge my parents' reaction to my playing in the mud. They sighed and brushed me off when I played in the dirt but encouraged me with toys and special clothing to play in the water, so I wondered 'How will they react when I combine dirt and water and play in that?' That kind of self-directed learning is encouraged by certain educational institutions.
First Person: Tim Davis
Recognized internationally for his innovative algorithms and software, Tim Davis’s research has been applied in a vast range of real- world technological and social applications, from MATLAB to Google Street View, from aiding the FBI to creating original art. He is the recipient of the 2018 Sigma Xi Walston Chubb Award for Innovation, an annual award established in 2006. Previous awardees include engineer Akhlesh Lakhtakia, computer scientist Rosalind W.
Seeing the "Sixth Sense"
It takes a special set of nerve cells for us to know where our body parts are without looking at them. This propioceptive system is sometimes referred to as our “sixth sense,” and researchers had been limited in their understanding of how it works because they couldn’t see those sets of body-sensing neurons in action.
Light Conversions
We only see about half of our Sun’s light. Most of the other half shines down in the infrared spectrum, warming things up. That radiation makes so-called multijunction solar cells—which can convert the energy from both the visible and infrared spectra into electricity—about twice as efficient as most of the commercially available solar cells that only convert the visible spectrum of light.
Having Faith in Science, Equivocally
“Politics aside, you can't unequivocally deny scientific results,” I argued. We were discussing anthropogenic climate change. “Go take a long walk down a short pier,” came the reply. When taking someone’s suggestion to go for a long walk down a short pier, it’s worth considering the location and time of year. I chose Minnesota in wintertime. Turns out, a person can walk on water, and like I’d been taught in elementary school, I tested my hypothesis three times before making that conclusion.
Perinatal Depression and Precision Psychiatry
When physician-scientist Samantha Meltzer-Brody began collaborating with a small biotech startup, Sage Pharmaceuticals, it was with modest expectations. She was curious if the pharmaceutical the biotech company was developing would have any effect at all on perinatal depression. "I don’t think any of us thought we would see the robust response that we did.
Beyond Genetics
It didn't take long for the meaning of the two different discoveries to sink in. Shortly after Denise Barlow identified the first imprinted gene—meaning only the mother's or the father's copy of a gene works in the offspring—Randy L. Jirtle and his colleagues found that same gene was a tumor suppressor.
Drains on the Heart
There’s a second vascular system on the surface of our hearts. It doesn’t carry blood. Instead, its function is to drain away interstitial fluid—the fluid in between our cells, made from the stuff that leaks out of our capillaries—and transport it back into the circulatory system. These drains on the heart are part of the lymphatic system. A dysfunctional system leads to edema, or swelling, which could reduce cardiac function or result in poorer healing after a heart attack.
Letter should’ve run ... with clearer labeling
I was shocked to see Clyde Hunt Jr.’s letter (“Blacks’ conduct can stem white skepticism,” Dec. 31) show up in my social-media feed without a label clearly saying that it was a Letter to the Editor.
First Person: Anna Marie Skalka
Recognized internationally for her contributions to the field of virology, Anna Marie Skalka has conducted research to understand viruses’ many functions—both harmful and helpful—and has described their evolutionary role in our species. She is recipient of the 2018 Sigma Xi William Procter Prize for Scientific Achievement, an annual lifetime achievement award established in 1950 by an heir of one of the founders of the Procter and Gamble Company.
Heart Waves
Sending a single shock to the heart to restore its regular rhythm is one of the most common procedures in modern medicine, and is used in emergency, non-emergency, and elective situations. But that shock, with as many as 360 joules of energy (the maximum setting of most external defibrillators), comes with risks, including damage to the heart.
Eliminating Sex Bias in Biomedical and Clinical Research
After Melina Kibbe discovered that the cardiovascular therapy she was researching was promising, she told a colleague about it. "That's interesting," her colleague responded, "What are the similarities or differences between males and females?" Kibbe had no answer. As was common practice in her field, she had conducted her research only on male rats.
Nerves of an Escape Artist
If only hydrae weren’t so fragile: They are ageless, have a nervous system that is constantly in flux, and so other-wise would be excellent model organisms for neuroscientists to study for the relationship between neural activity and behavior. But even the gentle microfluidic devices developed to immobilize tiny, transparent roundworms C. elegans beneath a microscope rip hydrae apart.
Parker, Meet Parker
In 1958, astrophysicist Gene Parker mathematically described the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles from our Sun that accelerates to supersonic speeds and permeates our Solar System. But 4 years passed before the scientific community accepted that there was anything other than dust between planets. Then in 1962, the world’s first interplanetary mission (NASA’s Mariner 2) gathered the necessary data to prove Parker right.
A Slow Split
Soon after cartographers in the 19th century accurately captured the relative locations of Hawai'i's volcanoes, they observed that the volcanoes lie on separate, roughly parallel tracks. For more than a century, the question of how those tracks occurred has intrigued geologists, who have since learned much more about double-tracked volcanoes, which have formed at several other places in the Pacific, too.
Now In Color
This Article From Issue January-February 2017 Volume 105, Number 1 Recalling the moment he and his colleagues composed their first two-color image of the structures inside an endosome (a compartment attached to the cell membrane that helps sort incoming substances), Stephen Adams says his initial response was, “Wow, this is a really pretty picture. I wonder what it means?” Adams, a biochemist at the University of California, San Diego, had been working on the project for 13 years.
A Big Cover for "Big Data Takes On The Universe"
On the front cover of American Scientist there's an image that usually represents a particular feature article. That changed with our first special issue in over two generations: Dedicated to big data and astrophysics, the September–October 2018 special issue presented a unique artistic challenge of representing the whole magazine with one image. Our art director, Barbara Aulicino, has previously written about the voodoo involved in creating a cover.
Hungry Little Beasts
This Article From Issue November-December 2016 Volume 104, Number 6 With the power of both tornadoes and fire, few things are more destructive than a fire whirl. Even in the safe, controlled environment of the lab, fire whirls can cause mishaps: “We burned down our equipment and were set back six months in the experiments,” says Elaine Oran about the one—and only one—time her colleagues and students added a little too much fuel to their fire-whirl experiment.
Gendered Communication
If your computer, smartphone, smartspeaker, or GPS ever talks to you, does it do so in a male or female voice? It's a computer, so how do you know whether the voice is male or female? Was that the "default" voice of the gadget, or did you change it? If you changed it, do you know why you did? In the United States, computer programmers typically set (or create) the default voice for talking gadgets to be perceived as female. In other countries, it differs.
Cyber-Enabled Bionic Organisms
The future of search-and-rescue missions may be in the form of insect-sized robots. Researchers are creating such robots because of insects’ unmatched ability to navigate through a wide variety of environments, including the rubble of collapsed buildings. So far, though, the technology suffers from mechanical challenges. Tiny robots have a hard time carrying a sufficient power supply, for example, or bending their “legs” thousands of times without breaking the material they’re made from.
Gutsy Engineering
It's mind-boggling how many places there still are to explore. I don't mean in space, the Solar System, or even on our planet. Just within the human body, many mysteries remain. As you might imagine, one reason for this dearth of information is that postmortem studies contribute very little to our understanding of how healthy living tissues work, particularly with how those tissues interact with all the other organisms—bacteria, mostly—living in and on us.
Lactose Intolerance and the Gut's Microbiome
Despite screaming into the night, babies’ discomfort rarely includes problems digesting lactose, the sugar in milk. But globally, around 75% percent of adults have some amount of lactose intolerance, also called lactose malabsorption. That’s because as we grow and start eating other foods, most people’s bodies decrease production of lactase, the enzyme that breaks down lactose.
Dirty Rainbows
There are plenty of places around the Earth that have become cooler, even though average global temperatures have been rising. One of those places is the southeastern United States. The reason, says Mike Bergin, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University, is "a blanket of haze," which prevents some of the Sun's energy from reaching our planet's surface. This data plot overlaid on a map of the United States shows the distance (kilometers) that one can see.
Creating a Soundtrack for a Scientific Talk
There are lots of ways to give a scientific talk, but this was the first one I'd seen with live accompaniment. This idea—to create a soundtrack for a scientific talk—started with zoologist Roland Kays, head of the biodiversity research lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. "I knew Eban [Crawford] as a composer ... so we got together over coffee one day at the museum and cooked up this idea," says Kays.
Evolution of Sleep and Sleep Disorders
We spend a third of our lives sleeping, but our sleep compared to other mammals stands out: We sleep for shorter periods of time, our sleep schedules are more flexible, and they include a higher proportion of REM sleep. In this podcast episode, American Scientist’s Robert Frederick spoke with Charles Nunn of Duke University about the factors that may have influenced the evolution of both our unusual sleep and our sleep disorders.
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