6/15/01. We're looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow.
6/7/01. Here's a weather link.
6/6/01. I've posted the class list.
6/5/01. I spoke too soon. We're up to 37 -- three more openings.
6/3/01. We seem to have levelled off at about 35 students, a little fewer than last year, so we can accept last-minute applications.
5/15/01. There are about four openings now.
5/10/01. We have about half a dozen openings left.
5/3/01. This year's group dinner will again be at Rancho de Chimayo in the mountain village of Chimayo, N.M. Here is a review.
5/1/01. We are now three-quarters full, leaving 10 openings. This is just where we were in 1999 and 2000, so we expect to again have a full house.
4/27/01. With a little more than six weeks to go, we are now 2/3 full, leaving about a dozen openings. In addition to a large number of free-lancers, we're getting participants from the usual interesting mix of institutions, including Fermilab, the University of New Hampshire, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the University of Arizona, Computerworld, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Arizona State University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Yahoo!, Nature Structural Biology, the University of Maryland, and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
4/26/01. The second press conference, by Thomas Kepler, vice president for academic affairs at the Santa Fe Institute, will be titled "The Galapagos in Your Spleen: Chance, Necessity, and Genetic Plasticity."
Here is his abstract:
"The defining feature of the vertebrate immune system is the presence of adaptive antigen receptors--the immunoglobulins and T-cell receptors. Their genes, uniquely among human genes, are actively and extensively diversified and selected in a Darwinian struggle for existence that continues throughout the life of the individual. There are several remarkable characteristics of this process, including the fact that immunoglobulin genes are so constructed that mutations end up going where they are likely to do the most good, prior to the operation of any selective action. Sounds Lamarckian, but it's not.
"The analyses that lead to these results were carried out on multiple genetic databases, and thus provide one example of how raw DNA sequence data can be converted to knowledge with the aid of mathematics."
4/13/01. The two speakers for Sunday's press conference have been chosen:
Douglas Erwin, a research paleobiologist at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, will talk about a recent study of the mass extinction that occured at the end of the Permian period, when more than 90% of all marine species vanished in less than 500,000 years.
The second speaker will be Thomas Kepler, Vice President for Academic Affairs at the Santa Fe Institute. Topic to be announced shortly.
4/6/01. With about 2 1/2 months to go, the workshop is half full. This is about where we usually are this time of year, so we expect to once again have a full house. There is plenty of time to apply, but please hurry if you particularly want a certain instructor.
3/21/01 We've sent out the first batch of acceptances. There are still plenty of spaces left.
2/28/01. We've posted the schedule.
2/24/01. I'll be going down to Plaza Resolana next week to pick up the initial round of applications.
We hope to post the daily schedule early next week, perhaps as soon as Monday. Meanwhile here is a preliminary list of some of the topics:
"Anatomy of an Investigation." Shannon Brownlee deconstructs her investigation of ethics in cancer clinical trials. She'll tell how to get FOIA requests filled and find sources who will talk and victims who will tell their stories, making sure all the while that the investigation doesn't turn into a witch hunt.
"The Blakeslee Guided Tour of 20th-Century Science Writing." Every science and medical story unfolds within the culture of its times. As society changes and progress marches on, the flaws and biases of science writing become abundantly -- and sometimes humorously -- clear. Sandra Blakeslee will demonstrate this state of affairs with clippings from the files of her grandfather, Howard Blakeslee (AP science editor from the 1920s to the 1950s), her father, Alton Blakeslee (AP science writer and editor from the 1940s to the 1980s), and from her own work as a science writer for the New York Times, beginning in 1968.
"The Story of a Story." Continuing what threatens to become a tradition, George Johnson will hook his laptop to a digital projector and trace the development of one of his stories for the Times, from the initial pitch to the editor and the gathering of information to the writing and final edit.
"How to Pitch a Story." Philip Elmer Dewitt will discuss the top 10 things that make a story newsworthy (impact, proximity, surprise, a good yarn, exclusivity, the boss wants it, etc.) using real examples from Time magazine. Then students (who will be given abstracts of the articles in the coming issues of Nature and Science) will pitch their favorite stories while Elmer Dewitt plays Time Magazine Science Editor, saying what interests him, what bores him, what pisses him off, and why.
"The Politics of Embargo." Dr. Lawrence K. Altman, chief medical correspondent for The New York Times, will talk about the war between science writers and journal editors over the proper time to break an important story.
Freelancing workshop. Deborah Blum and Shannon Brownlee will give advice on pursuing a career as a freelancer, while Elmer Dewitt gives an editor's perspective.