Bruce Lieberman
Science & Environment Writer, Editor
Based in the San Diego area, I am an independent writer and journalist with more than 30 years experience working with online media outlets, national magazines, and newspapers. Since 2010 I've also worked as a writer and editor for colleges and universities, metropolitan planning agencies, a private foundation supporting scientific research, and biomedical labs in the San Diego area. My journalism work has been published by the BBC, The Washington Post, Knowable Magazine, Air & Space magazine, Sky & Telescope, Scientific American, Nature, Space.com, Yale Climate Connections, and other media outlets. I've traveled around the world on assignment, including the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile, Brazil, Hawaii, the mountains of Baja California, the Eastern Pacific, and throughout the Sierra Nevada. I love to explore and write about the outdoors and the natural world. I live a few miles from the beaches of North San Diego County, and a short drive to the mountains and deserts of Southern California.
Here is some past journalism work:
2007-2021
Yale Climate Connections
As a regular contributor to Yale Climate Connections between 2007 and 2021, I wrote articles about the science, politics, policy debates, economics, and cultural impact of our changing climate. For a time I hosted a series of webcasts, and I also helped prepare numerous radio segments covering many aspects of this important topic. You can find all this work here.
October 2019
Air & Space Magazine
Credit: NASA
If It Works, This Will Be the First Rocket Launched From Mars
NASA has spent decades sending probes to other planets. Now it's trying to go the other way.
About a dozen years from now, Martians might finally arrive on Earth. If they do, it will be because we brought them here. NASA and the European Space Agency are planning an audacious mission to gather samples of rock and soil from the surface of the red planet and transport them across 34 million miles of space - giving scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study what Mars is made of and to search for evidence that the planet once harbored life. ... Read More
January 29, 2018
Knowable Magazine
Credit: Honey Kochphon Onshawee/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Peering into the meditating mind
Some people swear by it, but studies of mindfulness have a long way to go
In late 1971, Navy veteran Stephen Islas returned from Vietnam, but the war continued to rage in his head. "I came very close to committing suicide when I came home, I was that emotionally and mentally damaged," Islas remembers. At his college campus in Los Angeles, a friend suggested he check out a meditation class. He was skeptical, but he found that before long "there were moments that started shifting, where I was happy. I would experience these glimpses of calmness." ... Read More
Versions of this article have appeared at the BBC online (on May 7) and at The Washington Post (on March 24 online and March 27 in print).
December 1, 2017
Knowable Magazine
Credit: Mil.ru/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Climate Change can set the stage for violence
Worsened by global warming, drought and other environmental stressors play a role in fanning the flames of civil conflicts
The ruin of Aleppo. A desperate flight of refugees across the Mediterranean. Children in battle zones, covered in dust and blood. A handful of images starkly capture the tragedy of the Syrian civil war.
But even before Syria unraveled, other photos showed a slower-moving disaster — one that’s harder to parse, but perhaps more ominous. Parched earth, fallow fields and refugee families huddled near ramshackle tents in the desert told the story of a severe drought that had ravaged the region for three years beginning in the winter of 2006–07. And drought, too often, is a prelude to war. ... Read More
August 29, 2017
Air & Space Magazine
NASA's Saturn explorer Cassini plunged into the planet's atmosphere on Sept. 15 - marking an end to its epic mission to the ringed planet. I wrote a web story for Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine in late August previewing its final moments as it descended into Saturn's atmosphere, and into history. You can read that story here.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
September 2016
Air & Space Magazine
NASA's spacecraft explorer Juno is now orbiting Jupiter in a punishing deep space environment that is cold, dim, and filled with the deadliest radiation in the solar system outside of the sun. How will Juno, dependent on solar panels for power and a titanium vault for radiation shielding, survive during its 16-month science mission? I offer some answers in a 2016 feature story in Air & Space magazine. I review the genesis of the mission, and the engineering feats that Juno's team achieved to get their spacecraft into orbit around Jupiter last July and arm it for "battle" in one of the most dangerous space environments in our solar system.
June 2016
Air & Space Magazine
In July 2016 I covered the arrival of NASA's robotic spacecraft Juno at Jupiter, for Air & Space magazine. "Jupiter Orbit Insertion" was a complicated maneuver that brought the spacecraft within a few thousand miles of Jupiter's cloud tops - and into the giant planet's deadly radiation environment. Here are two stories I filed for Air & Space when Juno arrived at Jupiter:
"Juno's Do-or-Die Moment: What to Watch for on July 4"
"Fran Bagenal's Excellent Year"
Picture Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
January 15, 2016
Science Friday
On Jan. 15, 2016 I was a guest on Science Friday on public radio. I discussed an Air & Space article I wrote the previous September (below), on new ideas for space habitats.
September 2015
Air & Space Magazine
Will future astronauts venturing to Mars, an asteroid, or back to the moon live in inflatable space habitats paired with propulsion systems for the long haul? In the Sept. 2015 issue of Air & Space magazine, I explore this exciting idea for future space travel, and the pioneering aerospace company partnering with NASA to develop this concept.
January 2015
Air & Space Magazine
In the 2013 movie "Gravity," a swarm of orbiting debris destroys the space shuttle. In real life, how might the International Space Station survive a solitary impact from a piece of orbiting debris, or even a small meteor? In this article for the January 2015 issue of Air & Space magazine, I report on current technologies, those under development, and blue sky ideas for confronting a constant and dangerous threat for astronauts on the ISS.
April 11, 2014
Space.com
In late February 2014, physicists from around the world gathered at UCLA to brief one another on their latest progress in the quest to identify dark matter, the unknown stuff that makes up more than a quarter of the universe. I attended the meeting on assignment with The Kavli Foundation and spoke with three researchers in a roundtable interview. My interview was picked up by Space.com for its "Expert Voices" page.