Joshua E Brown
I'm a staff writer at the University of Vermont
covering all the natural and physical sciences, astronomy to
zoology. I
also work with reporters and editors
from local and national media outlets to connect them with UVM
experts
and research news. My writing appears in Vermont
Quarterly, the magazine of
the University of Vermont and UVM Today, UVM's weekly on-line
newsmagazine. By moonlight, I
take on a few freelance projects
for publications ranging from the
Boston Globe to Wild
Earth:
sample
my
work
here.
Recent Publications:
Recent Publications:
Joshua Brown
Senior Communications Officer for
Science and Environment
802-656-3039
joshua.e.brown@uvm.edu
-
The
Big Day (Vermont
Quarterly)
Worried
Sick
Take a sharp pencil and poke through your ear into your brain a
few
inches until you hit an almond-shaped region called the
amygdala. Or
read this article instead.
Talking
Extinction
with The New Yorker's Elizabeth
Kolbert Since 1999, Kolbert has covered the
environment
for the world's most prestigious magazine. Her book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe,
won
many prizes. I spoke with her about climate change, the
future of journalism and backyard bees.
A Deadly
Mystery
(Vermont
Quarterly) As bats perish by the millions, Vermont
biologists
are leading the effort to understand the devastation of
white-nose
syndrome. Article
and
slideshow.
The
Beetles
Best Fans
(UVM
Today) For decades, Ross and Joyce Bell have been
hunting for
beetles from the
deserts of
Mexico to the rotting logs of New Guinea. Especially the rotting
logs.
If
You're
Happy,
Then
We
Know
It (UVM Today) Two
researchers have
created a "hedonometer" that shows Election Day was the happiest
day in
four years. Michael Jackson's death, one of the unhappiest.
Talking Cancer and Complexity
with Stuart
Kauffman
(UVM Today)
Stuart Kauffman is
famous for arguing that biology must look beyond Darwin. I spoke
with
him about complex systems, cell biology, religion and the limits
of
human understanding.
When
Good
Maples Go Red pdf
format (Rutland-Herald) What
makes maples go red
one year but yellow the next? Scientists are on the case--and
wondering
whether climate change means the end of leaf-peeping as we know
it.
Talking Carbon
with the Prime
Minister of Norway (the
view)
At forty-one, Gro Harlem Brundtland, a physician and mother of
four,
took on a new job: prime minister of Norway. Now, she's the UN
enoy on
climate change. I spoke with her about carbon levels, Sarah
Palin, and
the global poor.
Drilling
Down (Vermont
Quarterly;
cover article) What can
ice can tell us about heat? The
fate of the world’s sea levels rests largely on the ice of
Antarctica, where scientists such as UVM geologist Thomas
Neumann are
searching for clues to the future in the frozen past.
Plug-in Hybrids Rate Less than $1
per Gallon (Rutland-Herald)
With gas
approaching $4 a gallon, plug-in hybrid
electric cars like this one — donated to the UVM
Transportation
Research Center by Central Vermont Public Service — could
provide
consumers with another alternative to reduce the costs of the
daily
commute. (Click here for pdf format)
Talking Climate with the New York Times'
Andrew Revkin (UVM Homepage) How
far are
humans pushing up Earth's
thermostat? Andrew Revkin, the
prize-winning New York Times
science writer, visited UVM to discuss his more than 20
years
exploring this question. I spoke with him to learn more about
what he
thinks it means to live on a warming planet.
Tracking
in
the Wild, Learning from the Land (Vermont Quarterly) An
animal track
is more than a
mark in mud or snow that says a fox or flock of turkeys passed
by. It’s
a lens into a shadowed world of animal intentions. It’s a
Proustian
naturalist’s cake dipped in tea, the single strike of claw and
toe pad
summoning a vast ecological narrative for those with skill to
read
what’s there.
"The
more
clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and
realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have
for
destruction." --Rachel Carson, 1954
Last modified July 28 2011 03:42 PM

