Artful Amoeba: Blogging on Biodiversity

Jennifer Frazer SM ’04, a science writer living in Boulder, CO, set out to be a scientist, “but like many science writers, realized in horror that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life in a windowless lab staring at racks of Eppendorf tubes filled with clear liquids.” You can benefit from her lab exit by reading the newest entry on the Slice of MIT blogroll--the Artful Amoeba, her commentary on the wonders of biological diversity.

A recent post, “How Many Salamanders Can Dance on the Head of a Pin,” describes the 2007 discovery of the tiny patch-nosed salamander (pictured). “What’s a Sea Pig” gives a short description, “a cross between a star-nosed mole, a naked mole rat, and a hallucinogen-induced, Cthulu-themed nightmare” then links the reader on to the real definition.

Read Frazer's profile in Technology Review for her scientific journey, but, in brief, she earned degrees from Cornell in biology and plant pathology, then a master’s in science writing from MIT. She worked on a small newspaper in Wyoming, winning a 2007 AAAS Science Journalism Award for uncovering a poisonous lichen as the cause of mysterious elk deaths. You can hear her four-minute acceptance speech. These days she’s living in Boulder, where she works as a science writer for a large science nonprofit—and roams the countryside discovering amazing bits of life on Earth.

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