I’ve done a lot of work over a long career, from local news to business journalism to writing about science and technology. I’ve also produced a fair number of magazines, annual reports, op-eds and speeches. This page includes some of my favorites.
Writing
Knowable Magazine
Could high-flying kites power your home?
Any kid who’s ever flown a kite has learned the lesson: Once you can get the kite off the ground and high into the air, you’re more likely to find a steady breeze to keep it aloft.
A fledgling wind power industry is taking that lesson to heart. Flying massive kites 200 meters or more above the ground, companies are using the wind they find there to generate electricity.
Knowable Magazine
A new look at our linguistic roots
Linguists and archaeologists have argued for decades about where, and when, the first Indo-European languages were spoken, and what kind of lives those first speakers led. A controversial new analytic technique offers a fresh answer.
The Economist
A curious survivor from the age of the dinosaurs
A LOT HAS happened in the past 165m years. Dinosaurs populated Earth and then died off. The ancestors of whales gave up the land and went back into the oceans. The ancestors of humans gave up the trees and came down to the plains. And all the while, a species of bacterium which lives deep underground and feeds on chemicals extracted from rocks continued merrily along without any apparent change at all.
University of Toronto Magazine
Can Electric Vehicles Save the Planet?
Eliminating gas-powered cars and trucks may help avert a climate catastrophe. But they are only part of the solution.
Reach magazine
Decades ago, Geoff Hinton knew that other AI researchers were “just obviously and utterly wrong.” Today, the deep learning approach he developed has changed our world. A relatively early profile of this AI pioneer.
Reach magazine
More sunlight hits the Earth in an hour than humans use in a year. These scientists are looking to trees, bacteria, and other photosynthesizers for lessons in how we can make the most of it.
New Scientist magazine
A century before all-meat diets became a fad, Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson swore by them, having learned to eat that way from the Inuit. High fat was key, and fermented whale oil didn’t hurt.
Toronto Star
It makes some people giggle. But the search for other intelligent life in the universe is real science, and it could fundamentally change our understanding of the universe and our place in it.
Publications
Reach magazine
Here’s the Spring 2018 issue of CIFAR’s Reach magazine, which I edited and produced with a very talented team of writers and designers.
CIFAR Annual Report 2017-2018
Here’s an issue I edited of the CIFAR annual report, an accountability document that also tells the organization’s story in an interesting and compelling way.