by Danielle Venton | Apr 28, 2011 | Posts
Our collective ears have swiveled downward, from the sounds of the sky, to the jingling of our coin purse. The SETI Institute halted operations of the radio telescopes in the Allen Telescope Array, the San Jose Mercury News reported Monday. Until a few days ago, these...
by Danielle Venton | Apr 18, 2011 | Posts
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a freelance writer, embarking on her career, must be in want of health insurance. -Jane Austen Danielle Venton The first time someone tells you that marrying well is key to successful freelancing – by that read “marrying...
by Danielle Venton | Mar 31, 2011 | Posts
The effects of Japan’s Honshu earthquake reached as far as Santa Cruz on the Californian coast. On March 11 the waves came and left tens of millions of dollars in damage to the harbor. On spring break, I wandered down to take a look. This is what I found . . ....
by Danielle Venton | Feb 10, 2011 | Posts
If any masthead defines the culture of tech-geek-cool, it’s Wired. For the savvy, info-hungry reader, Wired gives a smart, incisive take on everything . . . with an extra fleck of awesomeness. Last week the folks behind Student Voices, one of the Nature blogs,...
by Danielle Venton | Feb 6, 2011 | Posts
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBN4o_3Nkfk] A couple of good lemon recipes One of my favorite cakes to make, containing a few of my favorite things: zucchini, olive oil and lemons. Zucchini Cake with Crunchy Lemon Glaze With eggs, almonds, cream and lemons,...
by Danielle Venton | Jan 2, 2011 | Posts
I’ve been reading Cronin in Santa Cruz. It’s less exotic than Lolita in Tehran, but more personal. My grandmother, Dinah Cronin, died 15 years ago. During my childhood I visited her a few times in Arizona, but she passed before I got to know her well. So,...
by Danielle Venton | Dec 28, 2010 | Posts
“I know that piece of paper is around here somewhere . . .” Getting the newspaper out is sometimes called the “daily miracle.” And while it might not be exactly comparable to walking on water, the daily cycle leaves me ever-awed. The week after...
by Danielle Venton | Nov 29, 2010 | Posts
Among the lush pickings of memorable lines from the 2004 movie Napoleon Dynamite, one of the best is Kip’s to his brother: “Napoleon, don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting online with babes all day. Besides, we both know that I’m training to be a...
by Danielle Venton | Nov 23, 2010 | Posts
My mother gave me this wonderful old slip of paper hand typed by my grandmother many decades ago. It is a set of guidelines for “Writing Stories that Sell.” The advice proffered is still valid, so I wanted to share. The charming exception is the section detailing how...
by Danielle Venton | Nov 17, 2010 | Posts
Not much is off limits. In research, if you can quantify it, you can study it. In journalism, if you can justify it, you can do it. Our class stories appeared on mongabay.com this week. I wrote about researchers who study cheetah fertility with ultra-sonography....
by Danielle Venton | Nov 9, 2010 | Posts
I and six other scribbling slugs rolled back home again after attending ScienceWriters2010. We’ve been basking in the light of the field’s luminaries, gathering advice and business cards and doing what we could to introduce ourselves as up-and-coming colleagues. It...
by Danielle Venton | Oct 31, 2010 | Posts
Since I’m sure we’re all friends here, I’ll admit something to you. I’m a tidier person when I’m living with someone. I’m looking at my kitchen table as I type. It is a kind of wounded battlefield of Post-its, notebooks and slips of paper covered in a familiar hand. I...
