AGU Fall Meeting: David Perlman and Andrew Grant

David Perlman (left), the legendary science editor at the San Francisco Chronicle, speaks with Science News' Andrew Grant, in the press room during the American Geophysical Union's Fall Meeting last month.

Grant received the David Perlman Award for Excellence in Science Journalism–News Award in 2014, accepting his award during the meeting.

The award "recognizes excellence in science news reporting," for stories "prepared with a deadline of one week or less," and comes with a $5,000 prize.

At Andrew's request, I snapped a few photos of him standing with the man for whom the award is named.

Late October Sunset

Tonight's autumn sunset as beautiful. Someone else was taking photos from my sunset-peeping spot. The secret is out!

ArtJamz: My Painting

We had a big turnout for our ArtJamz event a couple of weeks ago. (I am slow to post.) Almost 30 percent of the staff came, which is awesome. Many of them hung their completed paintings in their cubes, and I have to say, we have many talented artists on staff!

After much deliberation, I chose to recreate this image below of a beach on the Adriatic Sea for my ArtJamz painting.

[Photo of the Cinque Terre (Italy) from vivaboo.com, via Pinterest]

On the day of, I watched as another colleague went to town making an amazing painting of a giraffe using a palette knife and decided to try using one too. She offered me some basic words of wisdom and then I went for it, using the knife to create the sky and clouds in my painting. I'm not in love with how it turned out -- I mixed the colors together too much, I think -- but it sure was fun! I did the rest of the painting with a boring old paintbrush. If you squint, it looks really nice.

I ran out of time before I was able to add the beach goers and little houses, but maybe I'll take it home some day and finish it. Til then, it's a little window into another world on my desk.