Health and Science Explainers
This is a huge category that could include any material written for a general audience. The priority when writing these pieces is to engage. To keep the reader reading to the end. Because it doesn’t matter how skilled the writing or profound the topic, if it is not read.
Humans are wired for stories. A narrative with a beginning, middle, and end, with a meaning that can be taken from it, will “stick” like a list of facts alone never will. I think of myself as a story teller. Even in science writing, the writer must select the details to highlight, and how to string them together. And that determines which articles are read to the end and which are closed mid first-paragraph.
I love science, and I love explaining it. I like to imagine my reader having that “aah” when unfamiliar jargon suddenly makes sense, and imagine that they are experiencing the same “wow” moments that I do. Those “aha” and “wow” moments are the difference between knowing the facts and understanding the science. And it’s infinitely cooler when you understand it.
Writing Samples
The following writing samples are a few short excerpts of my writing. If you click on the “Read More” link at the end, it will take you to a page with a longer excerpt. The original pieces are not here in full.
For samples of technical science writing or topics on Heat:
Fever And Heat Therapy: The Critical Difference
Fever and Body Heat
Clinically, a fever is defined as a core temperature of ≥38°C (100.4°F). With a fever, the body’s thermostat in the hypothalamus is set higher than normal. This is usually in response to an infection, where the immune system is active and releasing pyrogens, which cause this bump in the internal thermostat. The body actively generates heat through shivering, vasoconstriction, and behavioral responses such as huddling up to reduce surface area exposure, and seeking warmth.
This is why, when your fever is rising, regardless of what your actual body temperature is, your hypothalamus thinks you are hypothermic. If the set point is trying to get you to 102ºF, anything below that, 101.5ºF even, you will feel cold and be shivering under blankets. And this is why when the fever “breaks,” and the set point drops back to normal, suddenly you are throwing the 10 blankets off and sweating profusely.
Importantly, thermoregulatory control is preserved. Even when temperatures exceed 40°C (104°F), fever itself rarely causes direct harm because the hypothalamus continues to regulate the process.