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Nathanael Johnson on Muck Rack

Nathanael Johnson

Berkeley
As seen in: Medium, Bloomberg CityLab, Business Insider, HuffPost, Nature, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, Los Angeles Times, WIRED Magazine and
Covers:  science, gmos, environement, food, politics, health
Doesn't Cover: finance, marketing, gadgets
Ex- @Grist climate wonk, current (eh?) electrical trainee. Writer of books. Father of daughters. Shanker of frisbees. @ me for email.
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Nathanael Johnson’s Journalist Portfolio

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20 GMO questions: Animal, vegetable, controversy?

20 GMO questions: Animal, vegetable, controversy?

Grist — This is a slightly unusual end-of-the-year list. Instead of a selection of the best or worst news over the year, this is simply a bullet-point summation of what I've learned about GMOs in 2013. When I started this series, I proposed to cut through the debate by finding the facts that both sides agree upon. I also proposed to do this ( back in July) "over the next few weeks." Ha. Not only has this taken me much longer, I've also learned that this controversy has turned into something resembling trench warfare, where the two sides refuse to agree on anything, lest they give up an inch of their hard-won position.
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Swine of the Times

Swine of the Times

Harper's Magazine — My interest in pig sex began over drinks at a bar in Burley, Idaho. My friend Becky was telling me that she couldn't stand her job at a big hog farm outside of town. Each day she faced an unending line of sows filing into the room where she worked. Occasionally one of the 200-pound pigs broke ranks, knocking Becky down. "Sometimes they get nervous when you stimulate them," she said. I set down my beer. "Stimulate?" "Yeah, for artificial insemination. Usually if you bring a boar around they'll get in the mood. But if not you just have to ...
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The life and times of Theresa Sparks

The life and times of Theresa Sparks

www.modernluxury.com — As I watched Theresa Sparks during Pride weekend this past June, it was clear to me that something had changed. The soon-to-be-ex-Police Commission president seemed more restrained than when I'd followed her during the same events in 2008. Then, she had shouted through the microphone with an activist's recklessness ("Fuck the Human Rights Campaign!"-a reference to the LGBT group's futile attempt to win congressional votes for a federal antidiscrimination bill by agreeing to cut transgender people out of it). But this year, Sparks kept it short and sunny.
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Healthier Births and Babies---With Midwives

Healthier Births and Babies---With Midwives

Wall Street Journal — American obstetrics is great at reacting to catastrophe-but less skilled at preventing it, writes Nathanael Johnson.
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Forget the Placebo Effect: It's the 'Care Effect' That Matters | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

Forget the Placebo Effect: It's the 'Care Effect' That Matters | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

Wired — Americans spend $34 billion a year on so-called alternative medicine - botanical pills, acupuncture, energy healing, and the like - despite the fact that few of these techniques are backed by any science. Study after study has rejected the ability of such treatments to cure. But the same studies routinely find that treated patients do wind up feeling better. For example, a randomized, controlled trial of Chinese herbs on women with ovarian cancer found no effective difference between the herbs and a dummy pill - because there was some improvement with both. A double-blind trial of saw-palmetto pills for men with enlarged prostates produced similar results.
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His Magical Elixir

His Magical Elixir

New York Magazine — Alex Hughes is standing in an aisle of the Whole Foods on Bowery, staring at a cooler, watching his drinks occupy New York real estate. A handsome 31-year-old with a square jaw and a redhead's complexion, Hughes is co-founder and president of Function Drinks, a newcomer to the health-drinks market. Hughes is also a doctor; in fact, he was recently chief resident of orthopedic surgery at the UCLA Medical Center, and last month he started a yearlong fellowship at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan. He hadn't neglected to mention his medical career to the buyers at Whole Foods when, last year, they agreed to provide Function with national shelf space.
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The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized

The Revolution Will Not Be Pasteurized

Harper's Magazine — The agents arrived before dawn. They concealed the squad car and police van behind trees, and there, on the road that runs past Michael Schmidt's farm in Durham, Ontario, they waited for the dairyman to make his move. A team from the Ministry of Natural Resources had been watching Schmidt for months, shadowing him on his weekly runs to Toronto. Two officers had even infiltrated the farmer's inner circle, obtaining for themselves samples of his product. Lab tests confirmed their suspicions. It was raw milk. The unpasteurized stuff. Now the time had come to take him down.
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