I called myself the Mars bureau chief of Scientific American and joked that logistical problems sadly prevented me from taking up my posting. Space science and fundamental physics were my primary focus at the magazine, but I continually found myself drawn to a subject far more challenging than astrophysics: human society. I wrote or edited articles and special reports across the physical, biological, and social sciences, from sustainable development to gun proliferation, and I edited departments such as “The Amateur Scientist” and the staff editorials. I was a regular contributor to the editors’ collective blog, “Observations,” from its inception in 2006 and later started my own blog about residential solar power, “Solar at Home.”A number of articles I solicited and edited appeared in The Best American Science Writing and The Best American Science & Nature Writing anthologies or won their own awards. I was the originator and one of the lead editors for the single-topic issue “A Matter of Time” (Sept. 2002), which won a National Magazine Award for editorial excellence, and I coordinated the single-topic issue “Crossroads for Planet Earth” (Sept. 2005), which won a Global Media Award from the Population Institute and was a National Magazine Award finalist. With my amazing colleagues I shared the National Magazine Award for general excellence in 2011. My own writing for Scientific American was anthologized in Best American Science & Nature Writing and Best Science Writing Online. I won the AIP Science Writing Award in 2011 and the Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award in 2010.

I co-managed a spinoff magazine, “Cosmos,” that covered astrobiology, cosmology, and the broader implications of these fields. I did the full range of editorial functions: identifying topics, seeking gender and international diversity in authors, working with them on concepts and structure, working with artists and the social-media editor, scheduling, line-editing, and entering text and images into the CMS—all on aggressive deadlines.

Author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to String Theory" (Alpha, 2008, "Spooky Action at a Distance" (FSG, 2015), “Emergence in Condensed Matter and Quantum Gravity” (Springer, 2022), and “Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation” (FSG, 2023). “Spooky Action” was reviewed in the New Yorker, Wall Street Journal, New York Review of Books, and many other wonderful places and was long-listed for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. “Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation” was reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Science, Scientific American, and elsewhere.

With Steve Marino and Ken Niemi, I was the founder of San Francisco transit riders' leading advocacy group, and I served as its first chair. The Bay Guardian selected Rescue Muni as “Best Grassroots Transit Campaign” in 1998, and I received a Certificate of Honor from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on account of the group's fifth anniversary in 2001.

I revitalized the society's magazine, Mercury, broadening its scope, expanding its size, and editing more intensively. I added new departments, including op-ed pieces, book reviews, and descriptions of science in developing countries, including wartime Bosnia. I organized special issues including the first in-depth study of the underrepresentation of American minorities in astronomy and an issue almost entirely written by middle- and high-school students. Keay Davidson of the San Francisco Examiner called Mercury “the most exciting and thought-provoking astronomy magazine for several light-years around.”I also edited The Universe in the Classroom, a series of primers on astronomical topics for K-12 teachers; launched the society's website; organized a panel discussion on science and religion at the society's 1997 meeting in Chicago; visited Bay Area classrooms to give talks and do activities; and was interviewed by local journalists on such stories as the death of Carl Sagan.

Studied nuclear power industry, including an analysis of cost indices