Sandeep Ravindran
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Freelance science journalist. PhD @Stanford, @UCSC_SciCom & @Cornell alum. Bylines @TIME, @NYTimesWell, @Nature, @Smithsonian, @NatGeo, @Wired. Twts auto-delete
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Articles by Sandeep Ravindran
Welcome to Our Newest Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalism Mentoring Program Cohort
Welcome to the September 2025 Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalism Mentoring Program cohort! Participants in this cohort are Lyric Aquino, Nina Elkadi, Olivia Ferrari, Allison Johnson, Nehal Johri, Aniket Narawad, Esra Öz, Soujanya Padikkal, Ester Pinheiro, Bec Roldan, Amir Sadiq, Sahana Sitaraman, Fayth Tan, Swati Thapa, Gretchen Uhrinek, and Shivali Verma. Learn more about them here. This program is a pilot test of a new program format.
Sharon Dunwoody Science Journalism Mentoring Program Current Cohort
Lyric Aquino is an award-winning journalist with a passion for writing about all things relating to science, the environment and Indian Country. Originally from Ohio, she is a proud member of Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo with ancestry from Isleta Pueblo and the Jicarilla Apache Nation. She earned two bachelor’s degrees from Kent State University in anthropology and journalism and holds a master’s degree in science, health and environmental journalism from New York University.
When it rains, it pours: my article about the monsoons and floods in India
This article on flooding in India and Pakistan has been a long time coming. I did the bulk of the reporting last year right after the devastating September 2014 floods in Kashmir, only for the article to get delayed until now. Floods occur every year in South Asia, causing widespread damage and loss of life. Unfortunately it turns out that floods in both India and Pakistan are likely to get more frequent and more devastating, due to a combination of climate change and poorly-planned development.
Keeping busy, writing about molecular biology for BioTechniques
I’ve been meaning to update this website for a while, unfortunately I’ve been too busy writing articles to do so. Among other things, I’ve been writing regular articles for the journal BioTechniques. It’s been a nice way for me to keep in touch with the latest in molecular biology, a field that I haven’t extensively written about for a few years.
This Software Makes You Forget You’re Wearing Headphones - My article about 3D audio
I got a chance to write another longer piece, this one about 3D audio and how it can make headphones sound more like real life, particularly important for virtual reality and augmented reality. It’s been a while since I last wrote a tech-focused article, and this was also my first piece for Wired’s Backchannel publication. It was a fun one to report–I got to visit a local startup called VisiSonics based out of the University of Maryland and try out their 3D audio tech demos.
The world’s deepest zoo harbors clues to extraterrestrial life - my first piece for kids
I’m excited about the publication of my first piece for kids, about the World’s Deepest Zoo, written for Science News for Students. It covers the same topic as my Smithsonian piece from last year, i.e. life living deep beneath the Earth and the scientists who venture into underground mines in order to study them. Of course, I had to re-report and re-write this feature for a much younger audience (about middle school level), which was quite challenging but a lot of fun.
Ants, impostorism and a few more updates
It’s been a while since my last update, although this time I have a better reason than usual for being so busy-my wife and I were blessed with a lovely baby girl a few months ago! Between frantically trying to finish up assignments before she was born, and then being busy/sleep-deprived taking care of a newborn, I haven’t had much of a chance to post any updates (and I’m not sure how regularly I’ll be able to update in the near future, so I’ve changed my website’s front page to a static About...
How the gut “tastes” parasites, blood vessels “see,” and kidneys “smell” fatty acids and regulate blood pressure in response
In my latest feature for The Scientist Magazine, I wrote about how sensory receptors — the light, taste, and odor receptors that are primarily present in our eyes, tongues, and nose — are present all over the body, and have all kinds of functions. It turns out taste receptors in the gut and airway influence some of the earliest immune responses to bacteria and parasites, and your ability to taste bitter substances could influence how prone you are to respiratory infections.
How scientists can get credit for peer review: Science Careers article
Thanks to all the time I spent getting my PhD, I’ve maintained an interest in writing about careers in science, especially articles that might be helpful for graduate students and postdocs. I wrote this article for Science Careers about different platforms (such as Publons, Elsevier’s Reviewer Recognition Platform) that allow scientists to get credit for peer review. It was very interesting to learn about these services, and I hope the article is helpful for early career researchers.
How the tiny parasite Toxoplasma alters its host’s behavior
It’s been a while since I received my PhD, but I finally got around to writing an article about the parasite I spent so many years studying in graduate school. That would be Toxoplasma gondii, a tiny intracellular parasite that infects just about any warm-blooded animal, including humans. My PhD thesis focused on how Toxo invades human cells and makes itself at home, but this parasite is probably more famous for its ability to make rats and mice lose their instinctive fear of cats.
An online feature about deep life for Smithsonian
I just got done with a Smithsonian feature on microbes that live in extremely inhospitable environments deep beneath the Earth’s surface, and the researchers who venture 2 kms or more underground in South African gold mines to study them. It’s hard work, but they’ve found a surprising diversity of life living in these deep environments, and it turns out studying these microbes can give us clues about life on other planets. Check out the story here.
TIME100 Health: Suresh Ramalingam Original
Last summer, Dr. Suresh Ramalingam, executive director of Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University, received a standing ovation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. What stirred the audience were the striking results he had just presented for a drug that could become the primary treatment for a type of advanced lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide, with close to 1.8 million people dying from it each year.
Vinod Balachandran
Credit - Courtesy Nick Gardner Despite dramatic advances in cancer therapies over the last two decades, pancreatic cancer remains the third-leading cause of cancer death in the U.S. Even with the best available treatments, about 90% of diagnosed patients die from the disease. Immune therapies that have shown success against other cancers seemed to have little effect.
ScienceAdviser: Mice employ aggressive first aid to resuscitate unresponsive companions
Today’s Deep Dive explores the diversity of venomous life. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including evidence that evolvability is evolvable and some very concerned mice. Animals | News from Science Dogs, like people, may use blinking to bond You don’t even realize you’re doing it: The person you’re talking to blinks and you blink back. This subtle nonverbal exchange apparently helps humans and other primates bond.
What’s tinyML? The Global South’s alternative to power-hungry, pricey AI
The small drone circles the cashew tree, its rotor arms splayed out from its compact body like a water strider’s. As it rises, its camera captures a bird’s-eye view of the foliage, which shades from a dark glossy green at the tree’s bottom to a purplish green at the top. Meanwhile an artificial intelligence (AI) model built into the drone determines whether the leaves are diseased—based on telltale black or brown splotches—or healthy.
First up this week, researchers face impossible decisions as U.S. aid freeze halts clinical trials. Deputy News Editor Martin Enserink joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about how organizers of U.S. Agency for International Development–funded studies are grappling with ethical responsibilities to trial participants and collaborators as funding, supplies, and workers dry up.
‘Not a free-for-all’: Indigenous communities want limits on how their data are shared
This story is part of an ongoing News series about global equity in science. Read more When Leslie “Leke” Hutchins presented his data at a scientific meeting in August 2023, he was met with some consternation. A University of California (UC), Berkeley Ph.D. student in conservation biology and a Kānaka ‘Ōiwi (Native Hawaiian), Hutchins had studied the diversity of invertebrates such as insects and spiders on Native Hawaiian coffee plantations.
見落とされてきた「性差」、 男女の違いは病気や治療にどう影響するか
生物工学／医療 Insider Online限定 The quest to show that biological sex matters in the immune system 男女の免疫応答がどのように異なるか。その違いが病気や治療にどう影響するのか。長年、重要ではないと考えられてきた生物学的な性差をめぐる研究が、注目を浴びるようになってきた。 by Sandeep Ravindran2023.10.17 0 サブラ・クラインは、性別の重要性を深く認識している。ジョンズ・ホプキンス大学での博士研究で、クラインは性ホルモンが脳や行動に与える影響について学んだ。「私は素朴に、こう思っていました。ホルモンが代謝や心臓、骨密度など、多くの生理学的過程に影響を与える可能性があることは誰でも知っている。免疫系にも影響を与えているに違いない」と、クラインは言う。...
Promotion pathways: how scientists can chart their industry career trajectory
Ana María Cárdenas’s first promotion at the medical-technology firm Becton, Dickinson and Company in Sparks, Maryland, came in September 2021, two years after joining as a research and development (R&D) senior manager. Last March, she moved from her associate director role to a position as a senior director in global medical affairs.
[转载]News from Science-198
Weekly Headlines (excerpts) 1. Curry may have landed in Southeast Asia 2000 years ago By Phie Jacobs | Fri, 21 Jul 2023 2. Is a ‘polyepidemic’ humanity’s next big threat? Childhood vaccine crusader shares concerns for future By Jon Cohen | Thu, 20 Jul 2023 3. Killer whale moms protect their sons from fights with other whales By Phie Jacobs | Thu, 20 Jul 2023 4. AI often mangles African languages. Local scientists and volunteers are taking it back to school By Sandeep Ravindran | Thu, 20 Jul 2023 5.
AI often mangles African languages. Local scientists and volunteers are taking it back to school
Share: Imagine joyfully announcing to your Facebook friends that your wife gave birth, and having Facebook automatically translate your words to “my prostitute gave birth.” Shamsuddeen Hassan Muhammad, a computer science Ph.D. student at the University of Porto, says that’s what happened to a friend when Facebook’s English translation mangled the nativity news he shared in his native language, Hausa. Such errors in artificial intelligence (AI) translation are common with African languages.
Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones
Share: Our artificial intelligence summer continues with a look at how to get AIs to understand and translate the thousands of languages that don’t have large online sources of text and audio. Freelance journalist Sandeep Ravindran joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss Masakhane, a volunteer-based project dedicated to spurring growth in machine learning of African languages. See the whole special issue on AI here.
Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones
Share: Our artificial intelligence summer continues with a look at how to get AIs to understand and translate the thousands of languages that don’t have large online sources of text and audio. Freelance journalist Sandeep Ravindran joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss Masakhane, a volunteer-based project dedicated to spurring growth in machine learning of African languages. See the whole special issue on AI here.
Adding thousands of languages to the AI lexicon, and the genes behind our bones
Share: Our artificial intelligence summer continues with a look at how to get AIs to understand and translate the thousands of languages that don’t have large online sources of text and audio. Freelance journalist Sandeep Ravindran joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss Masakhane, a volunteer-based project dedicated to spurring growth in machine learning of African languages. See the whole special issue on AI here.
“We’re glad to have you!” Our new Welcome Coordinators consider conference vibe for SciWri23
By Sandeep Ravindran It’s hard to believe another ScienceWriters annual meeting is just around the corner! Registration for ScienceWriters2023 will open in August, and before you know it, we’ll all be back together — whether you choose to join us just for our virtual program, or also the in-person program in Colorado.
Cohort bias in predictive risk assessments of future criminal justice system involvement | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Get full access to this article Purchase, subscribe or recommend this article to your librarian. Acknowledgments Author contributions J.L., J.K., and S.M. wrote the paper. Competing interests The authors declare no competing interest. References J. Angwin, J. Larson, S. Mattu, L. Kirchner, “Machine bias” Pro Publica, posted May 23 (2016). J. L. Koepke, D. G. Robinson, Danger ahead: Risk assessment and the future of bail reform. Washington Law Rev. 93, 1725 (2018). Z. Obermeyer, B. Powers, C. Vogeli, S.
Profile of Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado: Winner of the 2023 Vilcek Prize in biomedical science | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Skip to main content Get full access to this article Purchase, subscribe or recommend this article to your librarian. References A. Sánchez Alvarado, P. A. Newmark, Double-stranded RNA specifically disrupts gene expression during planarian regeneration. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 96, 5049–5054 (1999). P. A. Newmark, A. Sánchez Alvarado, Bromodeoxyuridine specifically labels the regenerative stem cells of planarians. Dev. Biol. 220, 142–153 (2000). G. T. Eisenhoffer, H. Kang, A.
Medizin: Über die unterschätze Rolle des biologischen Geschlechts
Elektroautos: Tipps zur Schonung der Batterie Keine Batterie hält ewig, doch der Fahrer eines Elektroautos hat erheblichen Einfluss darauf, wie lange sich der Speicher nutzen lässt.
Immunsystem: Medizin hat die Unterschiede bei Frauen und Männern lange ignoriert
Sabra Klein ist sich sehr bewusst, dass es auf das Geschlecht ankommt: Sie erforscht an der Bloomberg School of Public Health der Johns Hopkins University wie das biologische Geschlecht – definiert durch Merkmale wie unsere Geschlechtschromosomen, Sexualhormone und Fortpflanzungsgewebe – die Immunantwort beeinflusst.
Sentirse como un fraude: el fenómeno del impostor en el periodismo científico
Read in English CC0 Public domain Este artículo se publicó originalmente en inglés en The Open Notebook el 15 de noviembre de 2016, y fue traducido por Debbie Ponchner y editado por Rodrigo Pérez Ortega. Sentado en mi escritorio en mi primer trabajo de periodismo científico, no podía evitar pensar que era solo cuestión de tiempo que se descubriera mi engaño. En cualquier momento, pensé, mi editora entraría, me tocaría el hombro y me diría que se había equivocado al contratarme.
The quest to show that biological sex matters in the immune system
Sabra Klein is deeply aware that sex matters. During her PhD research at Johns Hopkins University, Klein learned how sex hormones can influence the brain and behavior. “I naively thought: Everybody knows hormones can affect lots of physiological processes—our metabolism, our heart, our bone density. It must be affecting the immune system,” she says.
Why Detecting High Cholesterol in Kids Is So Important Original
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., but it’s not something we usually associate with kids. In many cases, however, the seeds of heart attacks and strokes may be sown in childhood. That’s because high or abnormal cholesterol levels, which are a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke, are not uncommon in kids.
What the Science Says About the Health Benefits of Vitamins and Supplements
From multivitamins and melatonin to fiber and fish oil, Americans who are trying to boost their health and immunity have a plethora of supplements to choose from. An estimated 58% of U.S. adults ages 20 and over take dietary supplements, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the supplement industry is valued at more than $30 billion a year. Supplement use has been growing rapidly over the past few decades along with the wellness industry.
La alimentación del futuro: los algoritmos definen qué hay que comer
Después de 20 años de vivir con diabetes tipo 2, Tom Idema había perdido la esperanza de controlar su enfermedad. Había probado muchas dietas que resultaron infructuosas e incluso consideró una cirugía para perder peso. Cuando su empleador le ofreció la oportunidad de probar una nueva aplicación dietética que usa inteligencia artificial para controlar el azúcar en la sangre, la tomó.
Is artificial intelligence the future of healthy eating?
The GLP Needs Your Help It is easier than ever for advocacy groups to spread disinformation on pressing science issues, such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. No, vaccines are not harmful. Yes, the use of biotechnology, GMOs or gene editing to develop antigens for treatments including vaccines are part of the solution. To inform the public about what’s really going on, we present the facts and challenge those who don't. We can’t do this work without your help.
¿Te cansan las dietas? la inteligencia artificial podría darte algunos consejos
Las empresas están experimentando con aplicaciones de dietas personalizadas y afirman que el futuro de la alimentación saludable es la inteligencia artificial. CreditCredit...Yoshi Sodeoka 27 de marzo de 2022 a las 08:00 ET Tras 20 años de vivir con diabetes tipo 2, Tom Idema había perdido la esperanza de controlar su enfermedad. Había probado muchas dietas que resultaron infructuosas e incluso consideró la posibilidad de someterse a una cirugía para bajar de peso.
Here Come the Artificial Intelligence Nutritionists
To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android. After 20 years of living with Type 2 diabetes, Tom Idema had given up hope of controlling his condition. He had tried many diets that proved unsuccessful and even considered weight loss surgery. When his employer offered him a chance to try a new dietary app that uses artificial intelligence to control blood sugar, he took it.
The Link Between Type 2 Diabetes and Psychiatric Disorders
Living with mental-health disorders is challenging enough without adding physical ailments to the mix. But recent research suggests that people with psychiatric disorders also have higher rates of Type 2 diabetes, and the combination can be devastating. “When people who have pre-existing mental illnesses develop diabetes, their outcomes are much worse,” says Anne Doherty, an associate professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin.
Nutritional Intervention with Dairy Foods Prevents Falls and Fractures in Older Adults
We change in many ways as we grow old. In addition to external signs of aging such as white hair and wrinkles, our body also experiences less obvious changes, such as loss of muscle and bone mass. These changes to muscle and bone are exacerbated by the fact that older individuals who need institutionalized care are often malnourished and lack adequate protein and calcium. This can in turn contribute to their increased risk of falls and fractures.
Milk and Other Animal-sourced Foods May Be Key Components of a Low-cost Nutritious Diet
From steak and salad to milk and cereal, people enjoy a wide variety of foods from both plant and animal sources. As researchers have studied the environmental sustainability of various diets, there has been much debate about the respective roles of plant- and animal-sourced foods in such diets. Two recent studies approach this question from an economic perspective by taking into account both the nutritional content and monetary cost of foods.
Contents | Science 381, 6655
Science Volume 381| Issue 6655| 21 Jul 2023 COVER This artwork depicts an x-ray of a human skeleton walking. Researchers extracted 23 skeletal proportions from 30,000 individuals using deep learning. Coupled with genetic and biobank data, more than 100 genetic variants associated with these proportions were identified. These analyses shed light on the evolution of the skeletal form, which facilitates bipedalism, and reveal connections to musculoskeletal disorders. See eadf8009.
Profile of John R. Speakman
John Speakman’s interest in science was spurred by his early interest in birds. “I was a very keen birdwatcher, and I used to spend lots of time watching birds in my youth,” he says. At age 16, he would go to the same site every day to count small wading birds and try to work out the factors influencing their numbers. John R. Speakman. Image credit: Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Blog hiatus and where to find my latest clips
The blog part of this website is on hiatus, as a number of life changes (including the birth of my daughter) have meant that I just don’t have time to regularly post here anymore. I have written several more articles since my last post, and you can find all my latest articles in the Clips section of this website or at my Contently Portfolio. Related
The Environmental and Nutritional Impact of Removing Dairy Cattle
The United States dairy industry is a major contributor to the US food and nutrient supply. Dairy products are a major source of protein, calcium, and many essential vitamins not just in the US but all over the world. The US dairy industry also accounts for 16 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions from all of US agriculture, and contributes roughly 1.58 percent of the total US greenhouse gas emissions.
Smartphones help test and track a pandemic
Feature Prevalence, power and portability make the gadgets valuable for pathogen monitoring and citizen science. Sandeep Ravindran doi:10.1038/nindia.2021.70 Published online 13 May 2021 The TOPSE app photographs diagnostic paper strips and uses machine learning to accurately detect the presence of viral RNA. © Manoj Kumar, CSIR-IGIB Debojyoti Chakraborty took just a few months to develop a COVID-19 diagnostic test that worked in his lab; the challenge was to optimize it for the field.
Smartphone science: apps test and track infectious diseases
Debojyoti Chakraborty took just a few months to develop a COVID-19 diagnostic test that worked in his lab; the challenge was to optimize it for the field. Based on the gene-editing technology CRISPR, the test produces a band on a paper strip if viral RNA is present. But Chakraborty, who heads an RNA biology group at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi, says he and his colleagues couldn’t always agree on whether a faint band counted as a positive signal.
Bumblebees Can Fly Higher Than Mount Everest, Scientists Find
A bumblebee takes flight in Deschutes National Forest in Oregon. Photograph by Michael Durham/Minden Pictures/Corbis Talk about a high-altitude buzz. Bumblebees may be capable of scaling Earth’s tallest peaks, flying higher than Mount Everest, according to new research. It’s difficult for most insects and birds to fly at extremely high altitudes where the air is thin and oxygen is scarce.
Effects of Dairy on Metabolic Risk Depend on Type of Product Consumed
Researchers have long been interested in understanding the effects of different types of dairy products on cardiometabolic health. Studies have looked at the effects of consuming different types of dairy on metabolic markers such as body weight, body fat, lean mass, or cholesterol. Although some studies have found that dairy products are associated with lower cardiometabolic disease incidence, other study results have been mixed or inconclusive.
Core curriculum: learning to manage a shared microscopy facility
It’s the long wait for equipment that H. Krishnamurthy remembers from his master’s studies at Bangalore University in India. “I used to stand in line to get my turn to use a rusted hammer to nail [down] a frog for dissection,” he says. Today, Krishnamurthy directs a facility so that other researchers in Bengaluru and throughout India need never experience that lack of access.
Profile of Se-Jin Lee
In the late 1990s, Se-Jin Lee was exploring the effects of regulatory genes in mice when he found a gene with a remarkable phenotype (1). “These mice have a doubling of muscle mass throughout the body,” says Lee. He had been identifying and characterizing new members of the TGF-β family of signaling proteins that he called growth/differentiation factors (GDFs) and had knocked out various GDFs in mice, including GDF8.
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