Deborah Blum: A taste of nature

At age 7, Deborah Blum starts a mystery when she interrupts her parent's dinner party. So their guest, famed biologist E.O. Wilson, investigates. Deborah Blum, a Pulitzer prize-winning science journalist, author and blogger, is the Helen Firstbrook Franklin Professor of Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of five books and a popular guide to science writing, her most recent publication, The Poisoner's Handbook, was a 2011 New York Times best seller and will be the subject of an American Experience documentary on PBS in January. She writes a monthly environmental chemistry column for The New York Times called Poison Pen. She also blogs about toxic compounds at Wired; her blog Elemental was named one of the top 25 blogs of 2013 by Time magazine. She has written for a wide range of other publications including Scientific American , Slate, Tin House, The Atavist, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times and Discover. Before joining the university in 1997, she was a science writer for The Sacramento Bee, where she won the Pulitzer in 1992 for her reporting on ethical issues in primate research. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Science Writing, Best American Nature Writing, and The Open Laboratory: Best Science OnLine. Every week the Story Collider brings you a true, personal story about science. Find more and subscribe to our podcast at our website: http://storycollider.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices