Maryn McKenna

Journalist and Author

Gone. (Again.) And it’s really exciting. (And some NDM-1, too.)

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers, cast your minds back to early summer, when SUPERBUG briefly bugged out of here to Scienceblogs. Scienceblogs was a great community, but not quite the right fit, and so I ended up happily back here, doing my own thing, and you very kindly followed me. And it’s been an exciting few months back here, with lots of news on NDM-1 (look here for the archive), and flu and C. diff and HAIs.

And now, some real news. SUPERBUG is moving again. And this is going to be great.

I’m thrilled to be one of seven launch bloggers in a new network set up at Wired.com: Wired Science. It’s an amazing, diverse group, high-performance and hyper-cool: Frontal Cortex, Neuron Culture, Laelaps, Dot Physics, Clastic Detritus, Genetic Future, and me. I’m beyond flattered to be among them.

Our launch announcement is here. My new page is here. (The complete addy, which may change in a few weeks after a tweak, but keep it for now:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/superbug/)

My inaugural post is the latest news, from the ICAAC meeting, on NDM-1.

We’re having some issues with the archives, so I’ll be leaving this site up as a resource. But I’d love to see you there as well as here. Please come check us out. And thank you, so much, for your loyalty, interest and attention over these years.

Every once in a while: Some stuff about me

By Leave a Comment

Drowning in work here, folks, which is a pity because there’s lots of news to talk about. Back soon. Meanwhile: I try not to do this very often, because most of what we have to talk about is so much more interesting than me — but my week at UGA, which is capped by an appearance at the Decatur Book Festival, has generated some ink. So here’s some amusements for your morning coffee:

  • A very kind Q&A with me, done by excellent pal Barth Anderson, operator of the feisty food-policy site Fair Food Fight
  • Another Q&A by my former colleague Phil Kloer, for the great arts blog Arts Critic ATL
  • And a video about one of my speeches at UGa, done by student TV station WNEG-TV. (The last line of the report? I didn’t say that. But otherwise, well done.)

On the road this week, and a reading rec

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers, I’m teaching this week at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and New Media Institute, so blogging will be light. If you’re in the Athens or Atlanta area, please come say hello, I’ll also be speaking publicly:

  • Tuesday: 4 p.m., Room 175 of the University of Georgia’s Coverdell Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, Athens.
  • Wednesday: 6 p.m., the Vaccine Dinner Club of Emory University (Whitehead Health Science Center Administration Building), Atlanta.
  • Thursday: 4:15 p.m., Athens-Clarke County Library, Baxter Street, Athens.

Here’s a press release that UGa kindly put out about the events.

Meanwhile, some reading: When we’re talking about MRSA control, we often talk, somewhat lightly, about isolating people within a hospital or nursing home in order to control MRSA’s spread. For instance, isolation is the key technique on which “search and destroy” hinges.

In today’s New York Times, Dr. Abigail Zuger writes a thoughtful column on the historic roots and present-day challenges of putting patients into isolation. It’s very much worth reading, particularly for understanding why tending to patients in isolation is such a time-burden for health care staff. Also, her description of how C. diff spreads will make you want to wash your hands immediately.

More soon.

Must-read: Scientopia, a new science-blog collective

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers will remember that Superbug exited this space in early June to go hang out at Scienceblogs, and returned in late July after an ethical dilemma there wasn’t solved to my comfort level. Nothing special about me; a number of bloggers there left, about 20 or one-quarter of the roster if the numbers I’ve heard are correct.

Scienceblogs was a great blog community, and its implosion is a pity. But the unintended consequences turn out to be good news, which is the seeding of that concentrated array of talent back throughout the blogosphere. All kinds of exciting new arrangements are being rumored and chatted up.

And today, one makes its debut: Scientopia!

It’s a very cool-looking new network — employee-owned, as it were — that turns out to be hosting a number of my former Sciblings, including Book of Trogool, Christina’s LIS Rant, The Questionable Authority, Good Math/Bad Math, and excellent physician-blogger PAL MD of White Coat Underground.

There’s a Twitter addy and an RSS feed and all kinds of shiny newness. Check them out, please.

Advice for science writers, from science writers

By Leave a Comment

Ed Yong, an incisive and prolific science blogger-writer-communications officer, opened up his blog to the science-writing community earlier today, with this invitation:

Every now and then, I get an email from someone who’s keen to get into science writing and wants to know how I started. Whenever I reply, and I always try to, I’m always left with the nagging feeling that my experience is but one of a multitude of routes that people have taken. Science writing (whether you want to call it journalism, blogging, communication and so on) is a diverse field, as are the people working in it. It would be far more illuminating for a newbie to see a variety of stories rather than just one.
…I will be asking science writers around the world to do what they do best – tell a story – about the thing they know best – themselves. This will be a perpetual thread that I hope will act as a lasting resource for the writers of tomorrow to take inspiration from.

That was about 18 hours ago. So far there are 59 comment/stories posted, from some of the brightest and sharpest writers working today, with more to come tomorrow, I am sure. (Also, umm, me. I didn’t get in til #51, because I was trying to catch a plane.) Collectively, the comment string is both a peek behind the curtain of how science writers and authors work and think — and think about their work — as well as a trove of advice for anyone else who wants to try this odd and taxing profession.

A selection:

Mark Henderson (#2), science editor of the Times of London: “If you can’t find great stories from everything that’s pouring out of the world’s laboratories, you’re not much of a journalist.”

Jonah Lehrer (#4), author of How We Decide and Proust Was a Neuroscientist: “Writing is a craft. There are no born writers. One has to practice and practice and practice.”

Maggie Koerth-Baker (#5), BoingBoing.com: “Think of yourself as a business, ask to be paid what you’re worth and stick to your guns, always turn things in on time, learn that editing is not your enemy, and work really, really hard at writing nuanced, factual stories that are still fun to read. Luck helps those who help themselves.”

Raima Larter (#16), writer and former chemistry professor: ” I don’t think you can go wrong when you make your choices based on what most excites you. Passion can go a long way in carrying you forward in any career.”

John Pavlus (#21), writer/filmmaker: “BE curious and ACT curious. Everything else will work itself out from there.”

TR Gregory (#29), an evolutionary biologist who has started a companion thread on his own blog: ” There is a lot of frustration among scientists and educators with the way new studies are portrayed in the media, but when someone is recognized as an honest and skilled communicator, he or she will be among the ones that scientists hope will discuss their research.”

Brendan Maher (#34), features editor, Nature: “Humility and self-assured enthusiasm can coexist.”

Eric Michael Johnson (#41), blogger at The Primate Diaries: ” Take risks. Make mistakes. Fall flat on your face. The difference between wanting to be a writer and actually being one is in how often you pick yourself back up.”

(Stripped of the biographical material, here’s my contribution: “Work nights and weekends. Seek mentors. Stay alert to serendipity. When someone wants to tell you a story, listen. Develop expertise. Distrust everyone’s motives, including your own. Always ask another question. Talk to people face to face. Rejoice in complexity, in systems and in persons, and accept that it takes its time revealing its intricacies. Try to tell the truth.”)

Hi, I’m back.

By Leave a Comment

Hello again, constant readers. If you’ve been following the ongoing implosion at my briefly-new-and-now-former home at Scienceblogs, you’ll know why we’re back here blowing the dust off things. If not, never mind: There’s way too much news to talk about, anyway.

To maintain some continuity, I’ve changed the URL for this site to Superbugtheblog.com, though the former address, drugresistantstaph.blogspot.com, will also now redirect here. RSS feed buttons are in the sidebar.

I’ll be cleaning things up in the next day or so and updating the archives. But in the meantime, I’m back and I hope you are too.

News: SUPERBUG is moving

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers, I have an exciting announcement. After 3 years here on Blogger, SUPERBUG has been invited to join the thoughtful, knowledgeable, chatty and sometimes raucous community over at Scienceblogs. From today, I’ll be posting instead at a new page:
http://scienceblogs.com/superbug.

I will keep this site up as a resource, at least until we can work out the mechanics of transferring this blog’s archives over to the new page.

You’ve been such great readers, so thoughtful and thorough. I really hope you’ll follow me over to the new location. I would love to engage with you there too.

Sincere thanks to all of you for all your attention, and warmest wishes.

A great blog leaves the ‘sphere

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers: Well, the bug finally got me, or one of its close cousins did. I’ve been on the road almost nonstop, and after a book event at University of Wisconsin last week, was felled by a violent bout of foodborne illness that was almost certainly staph — not MRSA, but the related strain of staph that causes very rapid food poisoning. (And, umm, thorough. Ick.) So I’ve been out of commission both physically and mentally. And on a plane again tonight. Back soon in both ways, promise.

But there’s important sad news today that I want you all to know about. Revere, the peerless author of the marvelous public health blog Effect Measure, is bowing out of the blogosphere. For more than 5 years now, Revere (a collective voice of an unknown number of public health experts —for simplicity, let’s say “he”) has been a reliable, thoughtful, expert, humorous and deeply knowledgeable guide to the intricacies of public health and public health politics. He has taken a particular interest in the possibility of pandemic flu and has been the unofficial leader of the loosely knit but fiercely loyal group of bloggers and crowdsourcers who call themselves Flublogia. And though few would admit it, Revere’s posts have been consistent agenda-setters in newsrooms all across the planet; insiders knew that, if Revere said something, it would start showing up in newspapers and on wires about 12 hours later.

If you are a Revere reader and missed this news, get over there and leave a note in the quickly lengthening comment string. If you never made the blog’s acquaintance, now would not be too soon.

SUPERBUG website coming – what would you like to see?

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers, with publication of SUPERBUG the book coming closer, I’m starting to put together the pieces for a website. It will have stuff about the book, of course: details, excerpts, behind-the-scenes goodies, news on the key characters, and more. But my hope would be for the site to go beyond that, and to be a resource for people who want information about MRSA, or who want to network with other patient and family members, or find like-minded activists to talk with about the dangers of antibiotic resistance in agriculture.

But any site is not just going to be about me: We’ve become a community here over the past few years. So please tell me in the comments or by email: What would be most useful to you? Let me know what your wish-list is for SUPERBUG, and I’ll take it to the designers when we plan the new site.

I’d really like to know.

Holiday gratitude, and a brief blogging break

By Leave a Comment

Constant readers, my warmest greetings for Christmas or whatever winter holiday you celebrate! You are high on the list of the many gifts in my life. Thank you for gathering here and contributing to this truly international community of concern about antibiotic resistance.

I’ll be back early next week with news of two fascinating new studies. Snow-dusted (12″ and rising here) holiday wishes ’til then.