Author: Matthew R. Francis
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How do cells “know” to move without brains?
The linked article is for SIAM News, the magazine for members of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). However, even though the main audience for this magazine is professional mathematicians, I wrote it to be understandable even if you gloss over the math. And it involves the word “tortuosity”, which is just fun…
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Abortion, police brutality, and the responsibility of a journalist
Why am I — science writer who mostly specializes in physics, astronomy, and a bit of math — writing an opinion piece about tear gas and abortion for Scientific American? After all, not only is this not my usual wheelhouse, I’m a cisgender man who will never be pregnant (and who never intends on getting…
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Can scientists speak truth to power when they aren’t in the business of “truth”?
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Can Science Speak Truth to Power? For SIAM News: Since the onset of COVID-19, government messaging has been scattershot at best. In the meantime, epidemiologists, public health experts, and…
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The snake-oil salesmen of “earthquake prediction”
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Earthquake weather Earthquake predictions are going viral online — and spreading dangerous conspiracies along the way. For Inverse: In 1990, an eccentric Texan named Iben Browning appeared on the…
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Measuring the gravity of climate change
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Don’t be turned off by the name of the publication! This article for SPIE Photonics is meant for anyone, and describes a very sophisticated experiment that connects my area…
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Finding the right math for medical problems
The linked article is for SIAM News, the magazine for members of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). However, even though the main audience for this magazine is professional mathematicians, I wrote it to be understandable even if you gloss over the math. And it involves the word “tortuosity”, which is just fun…
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The danger of climate change may be its rate
As with many of my other contributions to SIAM News, the article “It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Rate: Rate-Inducted Tipping’s Relation to Climate Change” includes some mathematical equations, but I’ve tried to write the piece so you can understand it even if you gloss over that part. And this article in particular has some…
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Teaching AI to “Do No Harm”
[ This blog is dedicated to tracking my most recent publications. Subscribe to the feed to keep up with all the science stories I write! ] Is There an Artificial Intelligence in the House? For SIAM News: Medical care routinely involves life-or-death decisions, the allocation of expensive or rare resources, and ongoing management of real…
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