The Artful Amoeba is Back

An Irreverent Guide to Earth's Underloved Life

For nine years, I wrote a blog called The Artful Amoeba for Scientific American. It’s back at Substack.

Credit: Protist Design

In 2011, I lucked into my dream job at Scientific American, writing in my own voice about Earth’s obscure or overlooked life. I am still grateful to all editors past and present at SA for the opportunity. Then, in early June 2020, the SA blog network closed.

Now I’m bringing The Artful Amoeba back on Substack. For those of you who are new to my work, think of it as a Mary Roach-style approach to natural history, biodiversity and biology, particularly of things without fur, feathers, skin, or scales. When I’m doing it right, my work combines wonder and humor in equal measure.

Here are some highlights of my past and most recent work:

• My two guest appearances on RadioLab, From Tree to Shining Tree and Smarty Plants.

• My most recent opinion piece for Scientific American, published in September, on the crazy world of bacterial predators.

• My most recent print publication in Scientific American magazine on bacteria that are effectively immortal, and its 15 seconds of fame on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”.

• My post-blog essays for the Opinion section at SA.

• The old Artful Amoeba blog at Scientific American (2011-2020)

• My Twitter account.

And I have more news: I am working on my first book. Since that consumes a fair amout of time, work here will be irregular for a while, and this Substack will be free for the time being.

Why relaunch? Because there are still so many other wonderful, funny, interesting and/or overlooked short biology stories to write about, and I want to continue sharing my take on them with you. I have also found there is a dearth of media outlets that publish columns or essays like mine, and Substack seeems like a good place to fill that void. Finally, unlike the last incarnation of TAA, I plan to capitalize on the Substack format to link to others’ work I think may be of interest to readers here (so you can go read it), and also to give you my two cents.

Who do I want in this community? Anyone who is interested in a humorous, vivid take on the planet’s abundant, unsung life is welcome here. If you ever want to reach out to chat or ask a question, make a request, or give me an idea, you can reach me at frazer@nasw.org, or on Twitter @JenniferFrazer. And please subscribe and tell a friend if you think they may be interested!

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