Los Angeles freelance science writer and editor
My PhD advisor only once gave me poor advice. “It’s best not to make career decisions based on geography,” he said. My idea of one of the purposes of a postdoc was in direct conflict with this advice. I thought a postdoc was a free opportunity to go live somewhere I might never have the... Continue Reading →
Last fall in an email to a friend, after COVID cycled through vaccinated, boosted, and sometimes boosted again friends and family, I wondered whether a classic vaccine of attenuated or inactivated virus would have been a better choice to provide long-term immunity against SARS-CoV-2. Then I wrote, “Not sure, as enough people have had the... Continue Reading →
For June gloom in SoCal...A short story romance I wrote with a specific magazine in mind. It didn't go very far, but it was fun to try to write a meet-cute in 800 words or less. by Janice Nigro The sound of the foghorn on the pier roused Ava out of her sleep, signaling the... Continue Reading →
As a scientist, you don’t get much time in the spotlight. It’s late nights and weekends, and you are often alone when you make your discoveries most of which go unnoticed by anyone outside of the niche of other scientists working on similar ideas. The pandemic brought a rare opportunity for a captive audience for... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Early in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a non-scientist, the husband of a cousin of mine, asked, “Does life-threatening COVID-19 have anything to do with your genes?” At the time, he saw Italians and men dominating the list of persons worldwide succumbing to the pathogen. I didn’t know, and truth be told, as a molecular... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Every mystery has a cast of characters that sidetracks you from the culprit. A good one keeps you guessing until the end. Then it surprises you. Is Covid-19 one of those stories? I didn’t think it was, and I may be overthinking the dump truck load of information out there on various... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro If you didn’t know what molecular biologists did before SARS-CoV-2, you might now know that what they do matters. While the rest of us are locked down in our basements, molecular biologists have come out of theirs, forcing people to bone up on their basic biology. “What is a virus?” or What... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Wow, April 2020 is one for the books. Suddenly, it is May and already 06 May 2020. Cinco de Mayo has passed. So has the deadline for lifting lockdown. Funny how 30 April has just sneaked past us. Life is not so different for me, especially as a freelance writer and editor.... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro If you had asked me a month ago what I knew about bats, I would have said, “They are the only flying mammals on Earth.” That’s it. While the world has been spinning out of control in the last two months over the Covid-19 pandemic, I have spent a portion of my... Continue Reading →
by Janice Nigro Nature can still surprise us. One sperm, one egg and you are a whale shark, a red hairy shrimp, or a bat terrorizing humans by showering pandemic disease causing viruses down upon them. I’m as caught up as everyone else in the interruption of life, business and the stock market brought upon... Continue Reading →
Janice Nigro 