Emily Costello is a Writer

Current Assignments (10/08/08) -- Polar Bears

Scholastic News 4 has asked me to write about polar bears and global warming. A quick Google search reveals that this is quite a touchy issue -- especially since Sarah Palin joined Senator McCain's ticket. As governor of Alaska, Palin has argued against listing the polar bear as endangered due to the lessening of Artic ice. My goal: find some cool-headed experts.

Polar bears were officially listed as a threatened species on May 22, 2008.  This follows a full three years of legal battles led by the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace, and the Natural Resources Defense Council against the U.S. government. The agreement gave the government two years to identify critical habitat for the bears. Any habitat listed as critical will be off-limits for oil drilling.

I will reach out to Bruce Woods (907-786-3695), spokesman from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Survey in Anchorage. Bruce is mentioned in this even-handed article from the AP.

Five lawsuits requesting a de-listing of the bears were filed in Washington. One, from the state of Alaska, was filed on behalf of Sarah Palin, Alaska's governor.

Current Assignments (1/21/08) -- Monarchs in Mexico

My editors at Science World want me to punch up the Mexico slant in my monarch piece. This will require some additional research, and at least one new interview.

While searching for an expert on butterfly conservation in Mexico, I came across the founder of The Xerces Society, Robert Michael Pyle. I'd love to interview Pyle, but he is off-line for a year-long butterfly-finding mission. He is going to write a book about his attempt to find as many of North America's 800 butterfly species as possible. Sounds fun -- but, if I were to head out for a trip like that, I would definitely pack my laptop. Still, Pyle's handwritten postcards make a beautiful and unusual blog. Maybe I can connect with him in 2009.

NPR reports on the struggle of Mexican villagers' struggle to share the Oyamel forest with the monarchs. Discovery News reports on Felipe Calderon's plan (announced in 11/07) to protect the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve.

There is some news out this month about how monarchs' migrate.  Philadelphia Inquirer reports on Steven Reppert's work on monarch navigation. Reppert is a neurobiologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Assignments (1/9/08) -- (Extremely) Alternative Fuels

A few years, ago I wrote a Science World article called Turkey Power! about an energy-producing plant that burns turkey litter -- a mixture of turkey poop and the wood chips, etc. that is used as bedding on turkey farms. I'm currently working on an update of the story for Super Science. The new article will include a fun sidebar on wacky energy sources -- like buoys, algae, lightning and humanmade tornadoes.

The BusinessWeek article, Energy from Unusual Sources, features interesting new energy sources, many still in the planning stages.

National Geographic News reports on researcher Yuanhui Zhang who is turning pig poop into oil.

Would you like to run your car on recycled French fry oil? First, pick up a kit from GreaseCar, then contact this McDonald's franchisee for some advice (and free oil).

Lots of detail about the viability of growing algae to use as biodiesel from Michael Briggs at UNH. "How Biodiesel Works."

Assignments (11/12/07) -- International Space Station

This week I'm working on an article about the International Space Station (ISS), and astronaut Dan Tani. Dan went to school just down the street at MIT, and he's doing some cool "construction work" in space. My editor is attempting to send some questions that I wrote to Dan via email to the ISS. Did you know that astronauts could get email? Maybe that's not so surprising. Apparently, the astronauts sleep in "wardrobes" aboard the ISS. Each one comes equipped with a sleeping bag attached to the wall, plus room for their personal belongings like a laptop and family photos. The Russian wardrobes have windows -- but not the Americans. Why?

This NASA page has bios and interviews with the entire crew of Expedition 16 which is currently onboard the space station.

Here's an interesting fact I discovered while researching the ISS: NASA makes astronauts' photography available to the public over the Internet at the "Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth”. Go search for your favorite spot on Earth, and see it the way the astronauts do.

This NYT's article Work on International Space Station Continues describes the frenzied pace of activity on the station. Two more spacewalks are scheduled for this month.

Did you know that NASA is planning to retire the space shuttles in 2010. The replacement vechicle is called the Orion Crew Exploration Vechicle.

Assignments (6/5/07) -- Body Bugs

I have a new assignment to write about the "bugs" that make their home on our bodies. My favorite fact from the background reading: the bacteria in your gut weighs more than three pounds. Oh boy. That's a lot of bacteria. Of course, it's the helpful kind, but still.

My editor would like to focus on head lice, follicle mites, Staphylococcus aureus (the bugs that give you stinky feet), and Dermatophytes (the flesh-eating fungi responsible for “athlete’s foot.”) Apparently, teachers want kids to learn how to control these bugs. I guess they're tried of smelly sneakers in math class.

Here are the experts I plan to contact:

• Abigail Salyer, a micro-biologist at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
• Dr. Luis Ostrosky-Zeichner, a fungi expert at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston

If you have any other skin doctor or fungi experts who give a good quote, please speak up. I'm even interested in gross tidbits to spice up the story.

Assignments (6/1/07) -- Nature's Fury

I'm currently working on a series of articles on "nature's fury" -- super tornadoes, global freezing, killer asteroids, and avalanches.

For global freezing, I am using the following sources:

Molly Baringer @NOAA

Dr. Josefino Cosimo @NASA

Jill Fredston (Avalanche expert)

Ed Adams (avalanche expert)