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Speaking at TEDMED in September

Screenshot 2014-06-27 07.22.43

Very pleased to report that this September I’ll be speaking at the 2014 TEDMED conference. My talk, on the unexpected origins of new diseases, arises out of four years of research and reporting for my new book, forthcoming from Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux in October 2015. I’ll be the opening speaker! Even better: two of my favorites, physician/novelists Abraham Verghese and comedian Tig Notaro, are also speaking at the conference.

Best of all? My son Z is skipping school to come with me.

On National Geographic Weekend Radio

I’ve had National Geographic magazines sprinkled around my house for years, and several of their amazing photographs are indelibly seared into my brain. So it was an extra fun experience to be interviewed for their weekend radio show, which aired this past Sunday, May 18. Boyd and I chatted about malaria and mosquitoes. You can hear it here.

 

Investigating Lyme disease in New York

Tick Talk: An investigative project on Lyme disease

Tick Talk: An investigative project on Lyme disease

Over the past 14 weeks, I’ve been working with a group of talented young journalism students and writers at SUNY New Paltz, as the 2014 Ottaway Visiting Professor of Journalism. The New Paltz campus lies at the epicenter of the nation’s growing Lyme disease epidemic, which now afflicts 300,000 Americans every year, making it the country’s most common vector-borne disease. New York state accounts for nearly a third of the nation’s Lyme disease cases, and Ulster County, where New Paltz is located, is the eighth most Lyme-infested county in the nation.

We’ve launched a website called Tick Talk that explores the scientific, political, economic, and cultural impact this cryptic disease has had. Check it out here! You can read my article, “Lyme Disease: a Harbinger of the World to Come?,” which gives an overview of our main findings here.

 

Catch zombie movies and a Q&A with me at the Brooklyn Academy of Music

I’ll be hosting a Q&A after a screening of George Romero’s classic zombie film “Night of the Living Dead,” in which a deadly plague unleashes all manner of mayhem, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on May 19 at 7:30. The event is part of the “Science on Screen” program which explores the surprising connections between movies and real-life science.  There’ll be necrophilia! Cannibalism! Incest! Plus of course, a showing of the film itself. Just kidding. But it will be a fun evening–tix are $13, $10 for students. Check it out here.

Radiolab podcast on mosquitoes

The pop science radio show Radiolab features yours truly–as well as science journalist David Quammen and Oxitec’s Hadyn Perry–now available as a fun 20-minute podcast.  Their angle? Can we “kill ’em all.” Check it out here.

Reporting on cholera in Haiti

In Belle-Anse, Haiti, learning about the explosive cholera epidemic

In Belle-Anse, Haiti, learning about the explosive cholera epidemic

Just returned from Haiti, where I was reporting on the ongoing cholera epidemic, including in the remote fishing village of Belle-Anse in the Sud-Est Department. To get there, we rode motorcycles, caught a ride on a packed minivan over the mountains and then chartered a 15-foot skiff with a periodically dysfunctional outboard engine. The story I found, of how cholera came to Belle-Anse and how it currently holds the village in its deadly thrall, was dramatic, absurd, and tragic all at once. I hope I can do it justice. I’ll be writing about it in my forthcoming book.

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