freelance – Rebecca Boyle

Shooting the moon

Posted on October 8, 2009August 13, 2013 by Rebecca Boyle in Blog, Freelance Work

Tonight, NASA will crash a rocket into the moon — on purpose, of course. You can watch online and read all about it in my latest story:

The harvest moon–which came a couple weeks late this year, on Oct. 4–has long allowed farmers to gather their crops late into the night, using moonlight as a beacon.

Someday, the moon might yield a harvest of its own, thanks to a natural supply of water. A NASA probe is set to crash into the moon this week in search of that potential bounty. Here’s how you can watch it from here on Earth.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-10/tomorrow-nasa-will-smash-rocket-lunar-crater#

Salad with a side of danger

Posted on October 6, 2009August 13, 2013 by Rebecca Boyle in Blog, Freelance Work

<cross-posted on dscriber.com>

Neither blowfish nor butter are as dangerous to your health as your salad Nicoise, according to a new report authored by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Health foods like leafy greens, eggs and tuna top the list of the 10 riskiest foods regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

So does that mean we can ditch health food and start feeling good about ground beef? Probably not. But you should take extra caution when washing your produce, which, along with eggs and fish, are responsible for about 40 percent of all food-borne disease outbreaks, the CSPI says in a new study announced Tuesday.

“Outbreaks give the best evidence of where and when the food safety system is failing to protect the public,” said CSPI staff attorney Sarah Klein, the lead author of the report.

The study does not include beef, pork or poultry, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and which present plenty of peril on their own. But the FDA regulates 80 percent of the food supply, including produce, seafood, dairy products and most packaged goods like peanut butter.

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