Want to keep up with my stories? Subscribe to my Substack for occasional updates.

I’ve written investigative and feature stories about things like...

scientific misconduct
+ a behind-the-scenes look at how Brian Wansink’s Cornell Food and Brand Lab turned shoddy data into viral studies (anthologized in The Best American Food Writing) … and how it sought to do damage control when its errors started getting discovered … and the saga of a twice-retracted study about Elmo, apples, and cookies … and a $10,000 Kickstarter for a weight-loss program that never materialized … and more
+ the rise and fall of CrossFit’s science crusader
+ a fraudulent study about, of all things, honesty …
+ … that turned out, of all things, to be doubly fraudulent (more on that here, here, and here)
+ an experiment in paying science watchdogs

research controversies and society
+ a little museum’s big problem with looted antiquities
+ a Stanford professor’s divisive role in the math education wars
+ a new direction for climate-change research at Stanford, shaped with Big Oil input

the covid pandemic
+ a very controversial antibody study in California (noted in The Best American Science and Nature Writing) … and an email claiming it would reveal if participants could “return to work without fear” … and a whistleblower complaint alleging that the study was partly funded by the founder of JetBlue … and an elite group of scientists who tried to warn President Trump against lockdowns in March 2020 … and a controversial “herd immunity” plan
+ preprints in the era of viral outbreaks and viral misinformation
+ an ivermectin trial in Argentina that doesn’t add up (with Ken Bensinger)
+ a feud between a data sleuth and a powerful COVID scientist
+ studies that say it’s safe to fly during COVID (funded by airlines that would really like you to fly during COVID)

inequalities in health & science
+ an anatomy of a racial reckoning in medicine
+ hundreds of uncounted deaths caused by Texas’s winter storm (with Peter Aldhous and Zahra Hirji)
+ scholars boycotting a prestigious medical journal that said “no physician is racist”
+ Yale astronomers skeptical of systemic racism because they hired one Black employee 35 years ago

food
+ a never-browning apple and what it means for the future of food
+ an alleged giant avocado heist
+ the all-meat, all the time diet that supposedly cured Jordan Peterson and his daughter
+ a bogus food intolerance test plugged by B-list celebrities
+ apricot seeds can poison you — but are peddled online as a cancer cure
+ the salt industry’s secret involvement with a controversial prison study
+ pro-pasta science bankrolled by Big Pasta
+ a former dentist on a quest to excavate the secrets of Big Sugar

vaping
+ leaked Juul documents that undermine a former executive’s claim of “contaminated” pods
+ leaked audio and chats showing Juul staff morale to be at “an all-time low”
+ scoops on Juul executive moves and departures, and withdrawals from international markets
+ a Stanford professor who says Juul stole her anti-vaping PowerPoint slides

tech, health care & culture
+ real-life scientists who got to play scientists in Oppenheimer
+ a biotech startup CEO who didn’t actually have a PhD
+ the anti-science forces seeding doubt about climate change and vaccines online
+ dozens of people who went in for routine cataract surgery and left nearly blind
+ Silicon Valley’s obsession with sleep
+ secret DNA-analysis software sending people to prison
+ surrogacy in India

All my Chronicle of Higher Education stories can be found here (a limited number of articles are free to read with an account). All my BuzzFeed News articles can be found here.