Well I never. My talk on malaria, now streaming on Netflix.

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.

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.

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.

Nearly 1 million people have viewed the video of my TED talk on malaria on the TED.com site, and another nearly 50,000 on YouTube. Imagine a world in which print media had such reach? Wow. If you haven’t seen it, check it out here.