Los Angeles freelance science writer and editor
“Are you carrying a lot of money?” the customs officer asked at the airport in Bari, Italy. “Ummm, no,” I said, not sure how to answer that question out loud in front of strangers as I was about to board a local train, with luggage, to a city I didn’t know. I was on the... Continue Reading →
I didn’t go to Norway to learn Norwegian, but almost everything good that happened to me in Norway was somehow connected to Norwegian class. A German colleague once said, “Where else do you meet people in this country but in Norwegian class?” I think my life is still driven by what happened to me in... Continue Reading →
The funnest person I get to talk to right now is my three-year old niece. Conversations are about eating, playing and sleeping. We don’t always agree, but she’s a grand diversion from the junk that comes out of the mouths of adults today who get paid millions to say it. When she speaks – she’s... Continue Reading →
You never know how Christmas is going to fall out. Even with the simplest of plans. A few days before Christmas, my brother’s wife panicked about the prosciutto crudo, the cured ham sliced from, depending on the source, a special breed of pig legs. The Bristol Farms in the area had closed, and it was... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Irrational thoughts take over right before international travel. Of the “leaving your cocoon” sort. The kind that compel you to clean your home thoroughly before you leave. Such thoughts were unavoidable as the pandemic surges on around the world before my trip to Italy last month. Weird ideas, like did I get the... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro I always wondered what good I would be to society as a cancer biologist if the apocalypse happened. Now I know. Not very much. Most of us are waking up to the sobering reality at how less than fundamental our jobs are to basic human survival. We’re fluff. Even a scientist, after... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Being a nomad is great. Until you realize that your closest friends live nowhere close. So when the last minute opportunity came up a few weekends ago to travel to Seattle to see some friends from the USA who I met in Norway and now live in Tasmania, I took it (yes,... Continue Reading →
You can often recall the precise moment you fall in love. Sometimes the match looks good on paper and the connection is immediate. And sometimes it comes out of nowhere and hits you like a ton of bricks. There are no birds singing or harps playing, but your basic chemistry changes from a blip for... Continue Reading →
I didn’t think too hard when the taxi driver in Sorrento (Italy) asked me what I had for dinner. The words just rolled off my tongue. “Pasta ai frutti di mare.” I don’t remember how my travel companions responded. All I remember is what Bartolo the taxi driver said next. “Buon italiano!” “Good Italian!” I... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro A plane is that modern vehicle of irony, speeding you through the air at times to areas of the Earth that might still be in the stone age. Or at least into another apparent universe where we don’t understand the language, we don’t look like anyone else, and we don't have the... Continue Reading →
Janice Nigro 