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Cristine Russell

Cristine Russell

Cristine Russell is an award-winning science, health and environment writer. She is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Follow her on Twitter @russellcris.
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Cristine Russell is an award-winning journalist who has written about science, health, and the environment for more than three decades. She is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She is president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing, a group of distinguished journalists and scientists dedicated to improving science news coverage for the general public, and is a past president of the National Association of Science Writers. She is a Columbia Journalism Review contributing editor on science and the media. Russell was a national science reporter for The Washington Post and The Washington Star and appeared on PBS' Washington Week in Review. She serves on the boards of the USC Annenberg School for Communication, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Commonwealth Fund and Mills College and is on the selection committee for the National Academies of Science Communication Awards. She was a 2006 fellow at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. Russell is an honorary member of Sigma Xi, the scientific research society, and has a biology degree from Mills College.
Quiz Time: How Many Different Species on Earth?

Quiz Time: How Many Different Species on Earth?

As countless creatures remain undocumented, a study offers an answer to a longstanding scientific mystery… More »

Tying the Knot with Newsprint: The Ultimate Newsie Wedding

Tying the Knot with Newsprint: The Ultimate Newsie Wedding

Two journalists find a perfect marriage theme in the trappings of print media, from typewriters to notebook-and-pen party favors… More »

The 'Girl Writer' Behind 'I Love Lucy' Dies

The 'Girl Writer' Behind 'I Love Lucy' Dies

Madelyn Pugh Davis, pioneering television writer, author, and role model for women everywhere, has passed away at the age of 90… More »

10 Critical Questions About Japan's Nuclear Crisis

10 Critical Questions About Japan's Nuclear Crisis

What you need to understand about the situation as it unfolds… More »

What the Media Doesn't Get About Meltdowns

What the Media Doesn't Get About Meltdowns

News reports about the nuclear accidents in Japan are using "meltdown" indiscriminately, creating excessive fear… More »

A Japanese Three Mile Island?

A Japanese Three Mile Island?

The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and the government's clumsy response, both resemble the 1979 U.S. nuclear disaster… More »

Could the Chevy Volt Really Help Reduce Global Warming?

Could the Chevy Volt Really Help Reduce Global Warming?

As the car darling of the 2011 Detroit auto show, can this electric vehicle change American driving habits?… More »

Bill Ruckelshaus on EPA: 'Battered Agency Syndrome?'

Bill Ruckelshaus on EPA: 'Battered Agency Syndrome?'

The founding administrator of the EPA is concerned about the agency's work now that the Republicans have assumed control of the House… More »

Poll Shows Voter Divide on Health Care

Poll Shows Voter Divide on Health Care

A new study reveals the polarization of voters on this issue. How will the coming elections affect the bill?… More »

Of Mad Men, Crusaders and Cigarettes

Of Mad Men, Crusaders and Cigarettes

The man who took on tobacco in the 1960s reflects on how smoking culture has changed since the days of Mad Men… More »

Four Million Test-Tube Babies and Counting

Four Million Test-Tube Babies and Counting

This week the scientific father of the test-tube baby won the Nobel. A look at how in vitro fertilization has affected parenthood.… More »

Earl, We Hardly Knew Ye: A Martha's Vineyard Update

Some grumble that Earl was over-hyped, but it's better to be safe than sorry… More »

Waiting for Earl:  A Report from Martha's Vineyard

Waiting for Earl: A Report from Martha's Vineyard

A dispatch from the island as the community awaits the storm… More »

The Health Bill and the Legacy of Teddy Kennedy

The Health Bill and the Legacy of Teddy Kennedy

What the late lion of the Senate would have thought about health care passing… More »

Greening a River (and the White House) for St. Patrick's Day

Greening a River (and the White House) for St. Patrick's Day

CHICAGO -- The world may wear green on St. Paddy's Day. But Chicago holds the bragging rights for ushering in this global Irish holiday by dyeing its central river green -- bright emerald green -- before the annual St. Patrick's Day parade here.Today, inspired by the presidential occupants' Chicago ties, the White House also jumped into the act by pouring green dye into the South and North lawn fountains for the second year in a row.Watching the river turn green…… More »

Love, Sex and Scandal in New York (Times)

Love, Sex and Scandal in New York (Times)

You've got to love a "local" paper that takes the tabloid staples of love, sex and scandal and runs with them.… More »

Once in a New Year's Eve Blue Moon

As you ring in the New Year, take your glass of champagne and toast the blue moon in the sky above. It's a once in a generation thing, a special astronomical happening that reminds us that while life is highly unpredictable, the heavens are not.Tonight's New Year's Eve blue moon is the first since 1990. Another won't roll around for another 19 years. So the time to celebrate is now. I'll walk outside tonight as the clock strikes twelve, bundled up and looking for…… More »

UPDATE: 'Flopenhagen' & the Small Islands

The small island states that could slowly go underwater from climate change had mixed reactions to the weak international accord that came out of Copenhagen. The US-led political deal hammered out at the end by President Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa fell far short of what the vulnerable islands and other developing countries had pushed for in terms of setting binding commitments to cutting greenhouse gas emissions and holding…… More »

Canaries in the Climate Change Coal Mines?

Like canaries in the coalmines of yore, low-lying islands in the midst of the world's vast oceans face the possibility of extinction. Rising waters from global warming could literally drown many of them in the decades to come. At the climate change conference in Copenhagen, voices from these vulnerable island nations--places like Tuvalu in the Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean--are singing loudly and persistently to be heard at the 12 day United Nations…… More »

A Nobel Prize for the Hokey Pokey?

"Put your right hand in, put your right hand out..." Okey dokey. Before you "wiggle all about," how about a moment of silence for the Hokey Pokey and one of the songwriters credited with coming up with it? Guitar and banjo player Robert Degen, who died recently on his 104th birthday, did not exactly create a cure for cancer, hunger, or war. But amidst all the world's troubles, it's worth considering how much his Hokey Pokey could contribute to global happiness and…… More »

Special Report
Curing What Ails the Health Care System Reuters Curing What Ails the Health Care System
The third installment of America the Fixable—an Atlantic special report Read more ›
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