Two articles out this week had me writing about research in foreign lands and foreign plants in the wilds of the Adirondacks.

I wrote the annual piece about scientific research careers in Europe for Science. The European Union has recommended that member countries strive to invest 3% of their gross domestic products on research and development. My article focused on two giants, Germany and the UK, an up-and-comer, Spain, and a fading glory, Italy. None are at 3% yet. I reported on new funding initiatives, new research centers, and other strategies to attract and keep researchers -- both homegrown and from abroad.

For Plenty magazine's website, I wrote about a program that trains volunteers in the Adirondacks, residents and summer folk alike, to survey lakes and ponds for invasive plants. Writing from the perspective of a participant (I plan to survey three bodies of water this summer), I described the challenge of positively identifying the bad plants from the good -- most of the problem plants have look-alike native cousins. If I can find them early, before they're well established, it increases the chances of eradication.

I wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times that digs a little deeper into the science of influenza and the flu vaccine. After hearing about the new recommendations for vaccinating all US children for flu every year, as proposed by an advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control, I wondered, who really dies from flu? As a parent, do I have to worry about this for my relatively healthy kids? I was assigned to write A Closer Look, a column that regularly takes a look at the facts and opinions about topics in the news. With epidemiology -- the main science here -- estimates substitute for facts and opinions are mixed.

I have another careers piece in Science, about drug discovery and development called A Complex Team Sport . It's an overview of what kind of skills and mindset are best suited for a job in drug discovery and development, and what's needed to get hired. Typically these careers are in the pharmaceutical industry, but I also included some government and university programs that train and hire scientists.

My favorite article of the week is Nurturing Women Scientists for Science magazine. It's about institutional efforts to increase the numbers of women in science in both academia and industry. What used to be a pipeline problem (fewer women with science degrees) has become a hiring and retention problem. Women in science is a perennial feature for the magazine and I've read many of them over the years. I was pleased to have the opportunity to write it.

I profiled Sir Leszek Borysiewicz a couple weeks ago in Nature. He's the new head of the Medical Research Council in the United Kingdom (analogous to the US National Institutes of Health).

I covered a scientific conference on Inflammation in the Central Nervous System for the New York Academy of Sciences about the double-edge nature of the immune system. With very different examples, the three speakers described how therapies targeting immune function produce problematic effects, secondary consequences of tinkering with a very complex system. (Only the introductory page is accessible to nonmembers.)

I wrote two stories for my local newsweekly, the Spotlight. One piece was about online dating (but it's not available online!). It was part of a package on finding love; the reporter I partnered with, Jennifer Farnsworth, wrote about speed dating and other offline ways to meet people. A second piece profiled a military catholic boys school here in Albany: the Christian Brothers Academy. I spoke to Brother Aloysius who has work at the school for 50 years (talk about perspective).