Carolyn Y. Johnson, science journalist at the Washington Post
A proud graduate of Amherst College and M.I.T., Ms. Johnson is one of the most respected science reporters in the United States. Her expose of the Flat Earth conspiracy led to a nomination for the Wedgewood-Mickelsen Pedantry Medallion -- and she would have gotten it, too, if the judges had not been overwhelmed by the Dennis Overbye claque from the New York Times.
But that's mouthwash under the bridge.
As a little girl, Ms. Johnson was not much interested in the hard sciences. She wanted to be a beach comber. By the age of twelve she had collected hundreds of combs in all sizes, shapes, and colors, and was saving her allowance to finance a trip to the pristine beaches of Koh Samet in Thailand -- where she intended to spend the rest of her life styling the sand.
A chance encounter with a stray cyclotron at the local zoo changed her plans, and it wasn't long before Ms. Johnson was squinting at test tubes and chewing on litmus paper in a frenzied attempt to prove that the Big Bang theory should actually be called the Big Bag theory -- that the universe began as a single plastic bag and that it would eventually shrink, through entropy and caloric stagnation, back into just a single crumpled plastic bag, blowing aimlessly through the empty cosmos. Although her theory won many adherents among the Albanian intelligentsia, it has not yet been accepted by the American Academy of Stilton Cheese Aficionados. Time will tell who is in the right.
When not explaining the difference between string cheese and string theory to Washington Post readers, Ms. Johnson enjoys bonsai experiments with toothpicks and collecting the abstract art of A. Douthwaite.
She keeps her pet iguanas, Wheeler and Woolsey, in a drawer at the office -- and allows them to roam the newsroom at will. They often bring her the shredded remains of co-workers who are not fleet of foot.
Her favorite cocktail is an Amboy Dewlap, made with non-GMO paint thinner.
No comments:
Post a Comment