Karen A. Frenkel

Science and Technology Writer

Blogs for the Science Friday Initiative: ScienceFriday.com and TalkingScience.org

A review of the BBC documentary that details the history of mathematicians' quest to understand the seemingly random distribution of these numbers and the agony of this unsolved mystery.

A review of the lush BBC production hosted by Oxford Professor Marcus du Sautoy, who ably walks viewers through the proofs (and failures to find proofs) on the part of the world's greatest mathematicians. We also experience the towns and cities where these thinkers lived and found inspiration.

The second segment of The Sci View, in which hypothetical hosts interview real author Julie Des Jardins about her new, incisive book on the history of women in science and why so few women have succeeded.

Cooper critiques our healthcare system via medical mannequins who "reside" in a fictitious clinic on a website. They blog and croon music videos about medical ethics and dilemmas patients and caregivers face. Pharmaceutical "sponsors" help get the message across.

The neuroscientist and Nobel laureate continues to explore the themes ellucidated in his 2007 book of the same name. Petra Seeger's film also depicts Kandel and his family's visit to Vienna, where he lived until age nine before World War II.

Ken Burns discusses the thrill of learning about science from a park ranger, science education, and what he hopes viewers, especially children, will take away from the series.

Charles Petit of MIT's Knight Science Journalism Tracker reviews my blog.

Magnetic Movie won the Imagine Science Film Festival's Nature Scientific Merit Award. But is the film a documentary about science or artistic expression? Here's what the filmmakers had to say.

The View, reimagined if it covered science. Hypothetical hosts discuss this October's women Nobel Laureates.

The acclaimed filmmaker discusses scientists as activists who cherished America's pristine landscape and fought to preserve it. The first of a two-part interview.

Between the Folds is a new documentary about origami, the Japanese art of paper folding––a gorgeous cinematic experience.

A review of a one-woman show by actress Emily Levine about her recovery from a serious illness––acromegaly.

A discussion of the portrayal of the female scientist in Ron Howard and Tom Hanks' new film, which is based on Dan Brown's novel about anti-matter.

Boys and girls attend Super Science Saturday and Science Cabaret at their New York CIty Upper West Side public school. In their cafeteria they handle organs of a human cadaver, name an Egyptian pigeon, hoola hoop against gravity, and more.

A new documentary invites you into a molecular biology lab and illuminates the risks and triumphs of three grad students and their principal investigator.

Let's Get Bookish About e-Readers and Study Them

Coverage of Alan Kay's speech (12/​9/​08) honoring Doug Engelbart upon the 40th Anniversary of the demo of the computer mouse, hypertext, and other features we take for granted today. Kay also analyzes what might have been, had Engelbart's full vision for computing been realized.

The concluding act of the opera about J. Robert Oppenheimer.

During which Mezzo Soprano Susan Graham Interviews Composer John Adams.

A review of Act One of John Adams' opera about the days just before scientists tested the atomic bomb in the desert in July 1945.

Imagine Science Film Festival
People's Choice Winner Dara Bratt Details In Vivid Detail

An interview with the award-winning Director of The Wormhole, which earned the Imagine Science Film Festival's Nature Science Merit Award.

The holograms of correspondent Jessica Yellin and rapper Will.I.Am were fascinating and spooky. But should the technology be used to glam up reporters?

An account of Awards Night at the Imagine Science Film Festival. I discuss the criteria with Juan Carlos Lopez, Editor-in-Chief of Nature Medicine and a festival sponsor, and Darcy Kelley, Columbia University Professor of Neuroscience and a festival judge and advisor.

My first blog is a review of BLAST!, a documentary by Mark Devlin, in which astrophysicists struggle to launch their telescope from Antarctica.

Selected Works

Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg Businessweek, Businessweek.com
A flexible optical fiber laser enables doctors to perform delicate surgeries more accurately.
A textile company aims for sustainability.
Saving power for supercomputers, laptops, and now data centers.
A new smartphone app that suggests routes to drivers, saving them time and fuel.
Two entrepreneurs buy a bankrupt company that sells a female sexual arousal oil. Then they can't get the networks to put their ads on the air. Why?
"Our fundamental advance allows us to deliver devices that can provide cooling for refrigeration or waste heat recovery and efficiently convert it into power," says Phononic Devices Chief Executive Officer Anthony Atti.
Pressed for time, doctors are less and less amenable to face-to-face meetings with pharma reps. Viscira's biomedical computer animation reach tech-savvy MDs.
Rags to riches profile of chemist Rick McCullough, whose ink could make possible foldable, printable electronics
Tech from Plextronics Could Replace Lightbulbs, ’Do Away With iPads’
A profile of the maritime robot innovator
Interview
A 1989 interview with the late, titanic visionary while he was CEO of NeXT,Inc., in which he discusses the Mach OS, robotic manufacturing, mentoring employees, digital Shakespeare and Webster's...
FastCompany.com
The Murray/Jackson trial showcases iPhone forensics, experts comment on the state of the art.
Researchers find privacy breeches possible.
Science Magazine and Science NOW
Steven Weinberg, who won the 1979 Nobel Prize in physics, called on Americans to support research and big science instead of consumer electronics and gadgets with higher taxes.
Prominent women scientists took to the stage at the World Science Festival to chat about their career paths.
Scientists shoot gigapixel panoramas to make discoveries
Narrative Non-Fiction: MrBellersNeighborhood.com
A true short story from and to Manhattan's Upper West Side.
U. S. News and World Report and InsideScience.org
Robotic camera technology inspires virtual exploration by students around the world.
Blogs
The First Conference on Computational Sustainability
ScientificAmerican.com
Is the Web a Threat to Creativity and Cultural values? One Cyber Pioneer Thinks So.
Troubled teens benefit from role-play in virtual worlds with their therapists.
Resuscitating the Atomic Airplane
Scientific American MIND
A look at gloating and envy
Scientists debate how synapses work
A gene that controls human sleep habits can transform the rodents into "early birds"
A review of the literature shows that developing brains are vulnerable to a host of poisons.
Scientific American
A New Algorithim Could Soon Vanquish Go Pros
The Village Voice
Three neurological studies reveal that traumatic memories of those near the site and bereaved children affect functioning of parts of their brains.
New York's Newest Science Magnet School and its Pioneering Principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera
The New York Times
The making of the first fully computer-generated cartoon feature film.
Why online shoppers abandon their shopping carts.
Book Reviews
Two books look for answers in the lives of a few who succeeded.
Books - Children's
Fourth graders explore what makes rainbows, why there are colors, why lights add up to white and paints add up to black.
Fourth graders learn about sound waves, echoes, and music.
How we capture light and sound so that we can see and hear them any time we want.
Other Magazines
NYSE Magazine
How online merchants gain buyers' trust
Jewerly Etailers and Customer Trust
Technology Review
Book
Communications of the ACM