Category Archives: In the News

On June 23, SWINY held its third annual exclusive evening tour of  Central Park. All 16 attendees — including two potential future members under age 8 — were enthusiastic and appreciative.  Normally, Central Park’s popular tours, led by well-trained volunteers, are  offered only in the daytime, so a private customized program is a rare opportunity.

Tour leader Michael Graff, accompanied by noted geologist Dr. Sidney Horenstein (formerly of American Museum of Natural History), were our guides for two hours.  During “The Essential Central Park,” we got an in-depth look at its history, geology, flora and fauna, as well as some unsuspected factoids.

After hearing how the Park’s designers conceived, planned, and created its Lake and iconic Bethesda Terrace, we explored the shoreline, inlets, Cherry Hill, Bow Bridge and a little-known cave. Michael shared inside info about an ornithological celebrity, Pale Male, as we glimpsed his nest overlooking Central Park from an exclusive Fifth Avenue apartment building. By the tour’s end, attendees were already asking about the 2015 outing!

Science Writers in New York (SWINY) held two events this Spring. The ABCs of SEO: How to be Search-Engine Friendly and An evening with Gretchen Rubin, were held in conjunction with the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Both events were streamed live over the internet.

The SEO event, held on  March 5th, was moderated by SWINY Board member Amiad Finkelthal. The attendees were provided with an overview of how online pages are structured, including such concepts as title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags. The panel consisted of Amin Tehrani, managing director of Revunami, a digital strategic consulting firm, Lisa Chase, associate director of marketing for the Mount Sinai Medical Center and Joshua Okun, associate director, web services & online marketing for the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.

On April 9th, SWINY held a joint meeting with the New York Chapter of the Association of Healthcare Journalists titledGenetically Modified Foods—The Sense, Science, & Nonsense.SWINY Board member Rita Baron-Faust and AHCJ’s chapter president Trudy Lieberman. presented panelists Doug Gurian-Sherman, PhD, Senior Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists, Washington, DC, John Ruff, MA, Past President, Institute of Food Technologists, Michael Boms, MA, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology, State University of New York, New Paltz and Jean Halloran, Director of Food Policy Initiatives, Consumers Union.

On May 14th, SWINY co-chair David Levine interviewed Gretchen Rubin, author of the NY Times bestseller, The Happiness Project, about her work on happiness and the blog she writes six times a week. Her book sold more than 1.5 million copies in North America alone, has been published in more than thirty languages, and spent more than two years on the NY Times bestseller list. Ms. Rubin has also been named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Health and Fitness.”

SWINY co-chair David Levine published a summary of the November 29 SWINY-AHCJ event, Scientific Studies: All You Need to Know—About What You’re Really Reading, on elsevierconnect. Thanks to SWINY Board member Rita Baron-Faust for recognizing this need and putting the panel together.

We’ve posted the PowerPoint presentations from Ivan Oransky and Bonnie D. Kerker and Cari Olsen on the event announcement page and under the Audio and Video link in the menu bar at the top of the page.