Independent science journalist
I am a science and technology journalist based in Portland, Oregon. I'm currently working on a book about maps and mapmaking for National Geographic, due out in October, 2018. I also co-author the cartography blog All Over the Map at National Geographic.
Previously I was a senior writer at WIRED and a staff writer at Science. I've written extensively about neuroscience and other areas of biological, behavioral, and social science. I'm especially interested in stories about how emerging science and technology are challenging our social, ethical, and legal conventions.
In 2013, I was part of a team of writers who received the magazine journalism award from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine for a special issue of Science devoted to research on human conflict. My piece examined how unmanned drones are changing the psychology of warfare. As a Rosalynn Carter Fellow for Mental Health Journalism, I traveled to Sri Lanka, India, and China in 2005 to report a series of articles for Science on the challenges of treating mental illness in developing countries. In 2012 I visited Aceh, Indonesia to report on a novel community mental health program in development there.
Before becoming a journalist, I earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience at Stanford University and completed the graduate science writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. You can find out more about me by downloading my CV above, or contacting me at [email protected] Follow me on Twitter @dosmonos.
Portfolio
Scientists Can't Read Your Mind With Brain Scans (Yet)
As a journalist who writes about neuroscience, I've gotten a lot of super enthusiastic press releases touting a new breakthrough in using brain scans to read people's minds....
The Moral Hazards and Legal Conundrums of Our Robot-Filled Future
Whether you find it exhilarating or terrifying (or both), progress in robotics and related fields like AI is raising new ethical quandaries and challenging legal codes that were...
A Wildly Ambitious Quest to Build a Mind-Controlled Exoskeleton
Neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis went on the Daily Show in 2011 and told Jon Stewart that he would develop a robotic body suit that would allow paralyzed people to walk again...
Biologists Create Cells With 6 DNA Letters, Instead of Just 4 | WIRED
One of the first things you learn in Biology 101 is that the genetic code consists of four letters: A, T, C, and G. Each represents a chemical building block of DNA, the...
An Unexpected Discovery in the Brains of Autistic Children
Nobody knows what causes autism, a condition that varies so widely in severity that some people on the spectrum achieve enviable fame and success while others require lifelong...
Why the Plan to Dig a Canal Across Nicaragua Could Be a Very Bad Idea
By the end of this year, digging could begin on a waterway that would stretch roughly 180 miles across Nicaragua to unite the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Giant container ships...
Maps
This Enormous 100-Year-Old Map of Rome is Still the City's Best
A 1901 map of Rome is arguably the best map ever made of the most mapped city in human history. The map, created by archaeologist Rodolfo Lanciani, documents the city in...
A Tactile Atlas Helps the Blind 'See' Maps
Some maps are meant to be felt, not seen. The photograph above shows a page from an atlas commissioned by a Swiss psychologist for a friend who loves geography and maps but is...
How the U.S. Air Force Mapped the World at the Dawn of the Cold War
When Gordon Barnes joined the U.S. Air Force in 1956, he worked as a navigator on the tanker planes that refuel long-range bombers in midair. Coordinating a connection between...
Secret Japanese Military Maps Could Open a New Window on Asia's Past
These maps were captured in the waning days of World War II as the U.S. Army took control of Japan. American soldiers confiscated thousands of secret Japanese military maps and...
He Collected 12,000 Road Maps-Now We're Discovering Their Secrets
Robert Berlo got hooked on maps at an early age. As a kid growing up in San Francisco he'd pore over roadmaps in the backseat of the car on family vacations. Sometime around age...
How Mapmakers Make Mountains Rise Off the Page
Here are a few of the ways cartographers have created the illusion of depth on maps through the centuries.
The Unlikely Story of the Map That Helped Create Our Nation
It's arguably the most important map in our country's history. After the Revolutionary War, British and American representatives met in Paris to negotiate the boundaries of a...
These 15th-Century Maps Show How the Apocalypse Will Go Down
In 15th-century Europe, the Apocalypse weighed heavily on the minds of the people. Plagues were rampant. The once-great capital of the Roman empire, Constantinople, had fallen...
The Huge, Unseen Operation Behind the Accuracy of Google Maps
The maps we use to navigate have come a long way in a short time. Since the '90s we've gone from glove boxes stuffed with paper maps to floorboards littered with Mapquest...
Uncovering Hidden Text on a 500-Year-Old Map That Guided Columbus
Christopher Columbus probably used the map above as he planned his first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492. It represents much of what Europeans knew about geography on the...
Autonomous Cars Will Require a Totally New Kind of Map
As the vehicle navigated the labyrinthine streets of London and headed for the countryside of Surrey with uncommon speed, the passengers must have felt a bit unnerved. Having...
How the U.S. Maps the World's Most Disputed Territories
When the United States decides to recognize a new foreign government, or an existing country decides to change its name, Leo Dillon and his team at the U.S. State Department...
1885 Map Reveals Vice in San Francisco's Chinatown and Racism at City Hall
Sometimes a map can act like a time machine. This one shows San Francisco's Chinatown in 1885, and it shows that it was a pretty wild place. The color coding shows several kinds...