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News & Kudos
Two former MIT Knight fellows, Carey Goldberg (01-02) and Pamela Ferdinand (03-04), along with another Boston area journalist, Beth Jones, have been offered a mid-six-figure advance from publisher Little, Brown for a book they've co-authored about their shared experience of seeking motherhood and romance. Inconceivable Happiness is the amazing, funny and poignant tale of three women, eight vials of sperm, and love found. As the story opens, the three friends and journalists are about to hit 40 and decide that, since they have not found their life mates, they will go it alone and become single mothers. Things, rather happily, don't work out exactly as planned. Inconceivable Happiness captures the challenges and zeitgeist of a generation of professional women who find success at work easier to achieve than success in love and who worry they will not find a mate in time to have children. The book, which is already written, is scheduled to be released in May 2010.
Teresa Firmino (08-09) received an Honorable Mention in Portugal's Fundação Ilídio Pinho Science Journalism Award for her series of articles published in "Público" on the extension of Portugal's continental shelf.
Update 2/9/09: The Costa Rican government is using two of the books in the Los Aventureros de la Ciencia series as a science teaching tool for the public schools. They are designing a whole new pedagogic curriculum based on the two novels and Angela will be teaching a series of seminars to train the public school teachers in the use of those novels, according to the new curriculum. updated on October 12, 2009
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Valeria Román has published her first book for lay people. The book,
Judith Horstman (86-87) has a new book due in September 2009: The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain: A 24 hour Journal of What's Happening in Your Brain as you Sleep, Dream, Wake Up, Eat, Work, Play, Fight, Love, Worry, Compete, Hope, Make Important Decisions, Age and Change. John E. Dowling, Harvard professor of Neurobiology says, "terrific—a fun, most readable book, chock-a-block full of fascinating facts and ideas. Judith Horstman takes us on a romp through the day and night—telling us what our brains are doing on an hourly basis. It also provides some wonderful and solid advice. I learned from it, and you will too!"
The World Federation of Science journalists elected a new board at its General Assembly held during the World Conference of Science Journalists in London. Natasha Mitchell (05-06)was elected to the board, and Valeria Roman (04-05) was promoted to vice-president. Congratulations Valeria and Natasha! 
Ellen Ruppel Shell (84-85) has a new book out, Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture, in which she uncovers the true cost of buying things cheaply.
Christoph Droesser's (93-94) new book Hast du Töne? Warum wir alle musikalisch sind (Why we all are musical) has just come out in Germany. The book deals with the latest insights that brain scientists and musicologists have won about music as a deeply rooted ability that (almost) every human has, and that we are neglecting it if we leave music making to the geniuses, prodigies and superstars. 
The Day We Found the Universe, a new book by Marcia Bartusiak (94-95) was published in April by Pantheon Books. Publisher's Weekly says, "...Bartusiak reveals the vibrant beginnings of modern astronomy, along with all the dreams and fears, rivalries and triumphs, of those involved."
Rachel Zimmerman (08–09) has co-authored The Doula Guide to Birth with senior-level doula Ananda Lowe. Doulas, or professional labor assistants, have led thousands of expectant women through the birthing process in a way that’s safe and meaningful, and that creates the birth and postbirth experience all mothers long for. This comprehensive book draws on the wisdom of these skilled experts, whose experience with doctors, midwives, nurses, and hospitals makes them invaluable advocates before, during, and after birth.
Announcing a new book by Barbara Moran (01-02): The Day We Lost the
H-bomb: Cold
War, Hot Nukes and the Worst Nuclear Weapons Disaster in History (Presidio Press.) The book is getting excellent advance press, and was chosen by Amazon.com as
one of their seven Best Books of April. 
The first four books in a series of young adult science and adventure novels by Angela Posada Swafford (00-01) were published in summer of 2007. The series, Los Aventureros de la Ciencia (The Adventurers of Science), is designed to educate young adults about science. One of the four books within the series, Dinosaurios Sumergidos (Sunken Dinosaurs), was chosen by the Ministry of Education of Mexico to be included in the libraries of its public schools for 2007. See the series blog