Los Angeles freelance science writer and editor
by Janice Nigro A highly successful scientist friend joked recently that he still doesn’t recognize much in his original drafts of manuscripts, even after thirty years of working consistently with a certain collaborator. Together they can boast of hundreds of articles reporting cutting edge science and hundreds of thousands of citations. After so much time, experience, and... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro As scientists, we are in the business of solving puzzles. We think of the puzzle and then work sometimes over a life time to find a solution. Most puzzles we simply do not have the time to answer. Then there are those puzzles that intrigue us, but the technology to answer them simply does not exist.... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro I went to a work interview by metro rail this week. In most big cities around the world, even in the USA, no one would bother to make such a statement. Maybe you wouldn’t want anyone to know! More likely, everyone, or most everyone, uses public transportation there. In Los Angeles, not so... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro We travel to escape. To escape our work, to escape our lives, and maybe to escape who we are. I would be the first to admit to trying things on holidays that I would never attempt back home. There is ample opportunity; real gelato can only be eaten in Italy. But also no one is there... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Scientists just gave us yet another reason to love octopuses: RNA editing. Normally we are stuck with genes the way they are delivered to us when sperm and egg unite. RNA editing is a cellular tool enabling genetic diversity but without changing the DNA. Scientists have recently discovered that octopuses, along with other cephalopods, the cuttlefish and... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro You have been there. Done that. Just maybe not in Norwegian. Norwegian is not one of those languages you can expect to use much outside of Norway. Unless your Norwegian teacher and her young son show up in Los Angeles for a visit. I was the guide more or less for the past... Continue Reading →
We picture Los Angeles as a place where summer never ends. Sunshine is what we come west for. The truth is that gray days are as characteristic of the coast as sunny days. If you didn't know, we often wake up to a marine layer in Southern California, especially in summer. June gloom it's called.... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro We can probably all agree that there are different types of vacations. For me, there are dive vacations, work related vacations, weekend vacations, European vacations, and family reunion types of vacations. Some require a lot of planning and suitcases filled with ridiculous amounts of stuff to get me there (or sometimes to get me back). But if... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro I was shocked once when my PhD advisor ran into the lab to read out loud the first sentence of my first draft of a manuscript. A nightmare moment-hearing your own words read in front of a group of extraordinarily talented and accomplished people. He read it and then said why he read it. "It is... Continue Reading →
#Pitmad for scientists by Janice Nigro Scientific grants are an incredible high...when we get them. Otherwise they can feel like another form of torture. Applications are information overload supplied sometimes in hundreds of pages for program projects. A grant of any size though is a huge effort requiring the input of many people of different backgrounds. All their... Continue Reading →
Janice Nigro 