About Me
I’m a freelance science journalist living in Brooklyn, New York. I mostly write about connections -- between people, technology, and the environment -- and how those connections evolve over time. I like to know how things work, whether they're astronomical or gastronomical. I also have an unhealthy obsession with the future of waste management.
My work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Scientific American, Popular Science, Forbes, Popular Mechanics and The New York Times. Check out my resume here. To get in touch, email me at sfecht1[at]gmail[dot]com or tweet at me: @sarahefecht
My work has appeared in a variety of publications, including Scientific American, Popular Science, Forbes, Popular Mechanics and The New York Times. Check out my resume here. To get in touch, email me at sfecht1[at]gmail[dot]com or tweet at me: @sarahefecht
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Most Recent Clips
How Gators Will Teach Us to Regrow Teeth
The stem cells that allow alligators to regenerate their teeth may one day help humans to replace broken and lost teeth.
Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2013
Coming Soon to the Arctic Circle: High-Speed Internet
A company says it’ll bring fiber optics to the isolated communities in the Canadian Arctic by late 2014. Can it also help protect Inuit culture?
The Connectivist, 18 April 2013
Monsanto v. Monarch butterflies
Monarch butterflies have been on a downward spiral for decades, and the most recent news stories report that monarch numbers have reached an all-time low this year. Searching for someone or something to blame, a few environmentally-minded publications are claiming that “GMO Crops Are Killing Butterflies”. The GLP investigates the science behind the sensational headlines.
Genetic Literacy Project, 25 March 2013
Antarctica's "New Life": Expected, or Extraordinary?
Russian scientists are defending their claim to have discovered new life in an Antarctic lake buried beneath a glacier. If confirmed, the bacteria will join a menagerie of bizarre microbes that are redefining what it means for an environment to be habitable.
Popular Mechanics, 13 March 2013
Science Can Now Create Telepathic Rats
Rats with electrodes implanted in their heads can send information directly from brain to brain, even from different continents. Could this discovery herald the beginning of mind reading and an Internet of brains?
Popular Mechanics, 28 February 2013
The Science of a Better Burger
By tweaking ingredients at the molecular level, researchers around the world are building a better hamburger one ingredient at a time.
Popular Mechanics magazine, March 2013
Celltex v. the FDA: Do Patients have a Right to Use Their Own Stem Cells for Unproven Treatments?
By classifying stem cells as drugs, regulations from the FDA have prompted Celltex, a Texas-based company that stores and multiplies stem cells, to move to Mexico. Is this FDA being appropriately cautious or strangling a potential U.S.-based industry before it even gets off the ground?
Genetic Literacy Project, 18 February 2013
Should we ban genetically engineered babies?
In a recent debate hosted by Intelligence Squared, an intellectual forum whose periodic events are broadcast on the web, scientists and bioethicists battled over a hypothetical question: Should we ban technologies that would allow us to create genetically engineered babies?
Genetic Literacy Project, 14 February 2013
Behold the 900-MPH Supersonic Ping-Pong Bazooka
Purdue University professor Mark French tweaks his ping-pong-ball cannon to let the projectiles exceed the speed of sound.
Popular Mechanics, 13 February 2013
Crash-Testing Helmets to Make Super Bowls Safer
At Virginia Tech, engineers are crushing football helmets with powerful pistons to simulate the force of 250-pound linebacker—and, hopefully, to show how helmets could be made a little safer.
Popular Mechanics magazine, February 2013
How Surgeons Performed a Double Arm Transplant
Six weeks ago, Iraqi veteran and quadruple amputee Brendan Marrocco underwent surgery to get a new pair of arms. The 13-hour operation, during which surgeons transplanted the arms of an organ donor onto Marrocco's limbs, was the most complicated double hand transplant ever performed in the U.S. On Tuesday, after several weeks of recovery, the surgeons officially declared the operation successful. PM talked to Jaime Shores, one of the head surgeons at Johns Hopkins.
Popular Mechanics, 4 February 2013
The “GM genocide”: A case of misplaced blame
Approximately 16,000 farmers in India have committed suicide every year since 1995. A theory that blamed GM crops for the suicides was debunked in 2008, but the myth still circulates among anti-GMO factions and major news outlets
Genetic Literacy Project, 4 February 2013
Nano-Sponge Cleans Up Water Runoff
We’ve all seen the oily rainbow sheen in parking lot puddles after a storm. But it’s easy to forget what happens next: That oil finds its way to a storm drainage system, where it’s likely to be flushed untreated into local waterways, and could carry with it pesticides, household chemicals, PCBs, and nutrients that cause algae blooms.
Popular Mechanics blog, 24 January 2013
Storing Shakespeare and "I Have a Dream" in DNA
Hard drives wear out. Libraries burn down. Insects chew up the delicate paper or papyrus upon which priceless documents are written. So what’s the best way to store information for 5000 years? According to a new study in Nature, it might be the same way our genetic code has survived for so long: DNA.
Popular Mechanics, 23 January 2013
Can biotechnology be open-source?
On January 16, the agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto filed an appellate brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold its patent rights on its genetically modified soybean seeds. The case, Bowman v. Monsanto, will be heard in February and will decide whether Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman violated Monsanto’s patents by planting its seeds without paying royalties to the company...
Genetic Literacy Project, 21 January 2013
Healing Knees With Light-Activated Gel
When the knee’s vital cartilage erodes or tears, there isn’t much that doctors can do to save it. Researchers are exploring a new kind of hydrogel that may lead to more optimistic odds of recovery.
Popular Mechanics, 9 January 2013
Genetic testing of Newtown shooter will provide few answers
It’s difficult to contemplate what could drive a young man to kill 20 schoolchildren, six teachers, his own mother, and himself. Adam Lanza, the Newtown killer, left few clues as to why he committed these unspeakable acts. Perhaps out of desperation to find an answer—any answer—scientists at the University of Connecticut will search for clues within Lanza’s genome. New York Times reporter Gina Kolata points out that this is the first time researchers will attempt a detailed study of a mass killer’s DNA, and it’s likely to ignite a storm of scientific and ethical controversy.
Genetic Literacy Project, 31 December 2012
6 Ways to Expand Your Mind at the Math Museum
Please don't touch the exhibit! Just kidding. The Museum of Mathematics, which opens Dec. 15 in New York City, encourages kids and adults to experiment with the installations on display. PM got an early look inside. Here are some of our favorites.
Popular Mechanics, 14 December 2012
Urban Legend: Can City Planning Shed Its Pseudoscientific Stigma?
Without a strong scientific foundation, urban design theory may find itself extinct within the coming decades
Scientific American, 07 November 2012
Feedback System Lets Amputees "Feel" Prosthetic Leg
A sensorized shoe insole translates pressure into tactile feedback, helping amputees learn to walk on a prosthetic limb with a normal, healthy gait.
Popular Mechanics, 05 November 2012
Gattaca Alert? Or Should We Welcome the New Age of Eugenics?
Dramatic developments in genetics, including the ability to tinker with our inheritance, has thrust the issue of eugenics back into the headlines.
Forbes, 26 November 2012 -- Coauthored with Jon Entine
The stem cells that allow alligators to regenerate their teeth may one day help humans to replace broken and lost teeth.
Popular Mechanics, 13 May 2013
Coming Soon to the Arctic Circle: High-Speed Internet
A company says it’ll bring fiber optics to the isolated communities in the Canadian Arctic by late 2014. Can it also help protect Inuit culture?
The Connectivist, 18 April 2013
Monsanto v. Monarch butterflies
Monarch butterflies have been on a downward spiral for decades, and the most recent news stories report that monarch numbers have reached an all-time low this year. Searching for someone or something to blame, a few environmentally-minded publications are claiming that “GMO Crops Are Killing Butterflies”. The GLP investigates the science behind the sensational headlines.
Genetic Literacy Project, 25 March 2013
Antarctica's "New Life": Expected, or Extraordinary?
Russian scientists are defending their claim to have discovered new life in an Antarctic lake buried beneath a glacier. If confirmed, the bacteria will join a menagerie of bizarre microbes that are redefining what it means for an environment to be habitable.
Popular Mechanics, 13 March 2013
Science Can Now Create Telepathic Rats
Rats with electrodes implanted in their heads can send information directly from brain to brain, even from different continents. Could this discovery herald the beginning of mind reading and an Internet of brains?
Popular Mechanics, 28 February 2013
The Science of a Better Burger
By tweaking ingredients at the molecular level, researchers around the world are building a better hamburger one ingredient at a time.
Popular Mechanics magazine, March 2013
Celltex v. the FDA: Do Patients have a Right to Use Their Own Stem Cells for Unproven Treatments?
By classifying stem cells as drugs, regulations from the FDA have prompted Celltex, a Texas-based company that stores and multiplies stem cells, to move to Mexico. Is this FDA being appropriately cautious or strangling a potential U.S.-based industry before it even gets off the ground?
Genetic Literacy Project, 18 February 2013
Should we ban genetically engineered babies?
In a recent debate hosted by Intelligence Squared, an intellectual forum whose periodic events are broadcast on the web, scientists and bioethicists battled over a hypothetical question: Should we ban technologies that would allow us to create genetically engineered babies?
Genetic Literacy Project, 14 February 2013
Behold the 900-MPH Supersonic Ping-Pong Bazooka
Purdue University professor Mark French tweaks his ping-pong-ball cannon to let the projectiles exceed the speed of sound.
Popular Mechanics, 13 February 2013
Crash-Testing Helmets to Make Super Bowls Safer
At Virginia Tech, engineers are crushing football helmets with powerful pistons to simulate the force of 250-pound linebacker—and, hopefully, to show how helmets could be made a little safer.
Popular Mechanics magazine, February 2013
How Surgeons Performed a Double Arm Transplant
Six weeks ago, Iraqi veteran and quadruple amputee Brendan Marrocco underwent surgery to get a new pair of arms. The 13-hour operation, during which surgeons transplanted the arms of an organ donor onto Marrocco's limbs, was the most complicated double hand transplant ever performed in the U.S. On Tuesday, after several weeks of recovery, the surgeons officially declared the operation successful. PM talked to Jaime Shores, one of the head surgeons at Johns Hopkins.
Popular Mechanics, 4 February 2013
The “GM genocide”: A case of misplaced blame
Approximately 16,000 farmers in India have committed suicide every year since 1995. A theory that blamed GM crops for the suicides was debunked in 2008, but the myth still circulates among anti-GMO factions and major news outlets
Genetic Literacy Project, 4 February 2013
Nano-Sponge Cleans Up Water Runoff
We’ve all seen the oily rainbow sheen in parking lot puddles after a storm. But it’s easy to forget what happens next: That oil finds its way to a storm drainage system, where it’s likely to be flushed untreated into local waterways, and could carry with it pesticides, household chemicals, PCBs, and nutrients that cause algae blooms.
Popular Mechanics blog, 24 January 2013
Storing Shakespeare and "I Have a Dream" in DNA
Hard drives wear out. Libraries burn down. Insects chew up the delicate paper or papyrus upon which priceless documents are written. So what’s the best way to store information for 5000 years? According to a new study in Nature, it might be the same way our genetic code has survived for so long: DNA.
Popular Mechanics, 23 January 2013
Can biotechnology be open-source?
On January 16, the agricultural biotechnology giant Monsanto filed an appellate brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold its patent rights on its genetically modified soybean seeds. The case, Bowman v. Monsanto, will be heard in February and will decide whether Indiana farmer Vernon Hugh Bowman violated Monsanto’s patents by planting its seeds without paying royalties to the company...
Genetic Literacy Project, 21 January 2013
Healing Knees With Light-Activated Gel
When the knee’s vital cartilage erodes or tears, there isn’t much that doctors can do to save it. Researchers are exploring a new kind of hydrogel that may lead to more optimistic odds of recovery.
Popular Mechanics, 9 January 2013
Genetic testing of Newtown shooter will provide few answers
It’s difficult to contemplate what could drive a young man to kill 20 schoolchildren, six teachers, his own mother, and himself. Adam Lanza, the Newtown killer, left few clues as to why he committed these unspeakable acts. Perhaps out of desperation to find an answer—any answer—scientists at the University of Connecticut will search for clues within Lanza’s genome. New York Times reporter Gina Kolata points out that this is the first time researchers will attempt a detailed study of a mass killer’s DNA, and it’s likely to ignite a storm of scientific and ethical controversy.
Genetic Literacy Project, 31 December 2012
6 Ways to Expand Your Mind at the Math Museum
Please don't touch the exhibit! Just kidding. The Museum of Mathematics, which opens Dec. 15 in New York City, encourages kids and adults to experiment with the installations on display. PM got an early look inside. Here are some of our favorites.
Popular Mechanics, 14 December 2012
Urban Legend: Can City Planning Shed Its Pseudoscientific Stigma?
Without a strong scientific foundation, urban design theory may find itself extinct within the coming decades
Scientific American, 07 November 2012
Feedback System Lets Amputees "Feel" Prosthetic Leg
A sensorized shoe insole translates pressure into tactile feedback, helping amputees learn to walk on a prosthetic limb with a normal, healthy gait.
Popular Mechanics, 05 November 2012
Gattaca Alert? Or Should We Welcome the New Age of Eugenics?
Dramatic developments in genetics, including the ability to tinker with our inheritance, has thrust the issue of eugenics back into the headlines.
Forbes, 26 November 2012 -- Coauthored with Jon Entine
