I…I just don’t know where to begin with the opening to this article in the latest issue of Esquire. “Pretty lady”? “The new poor part of town”? A noxious martini of mixed metaphors topped with an olive of ridiculous hype. (Forget it–I can’t compete with this stuff.)

If we science writers want to defend our old-fashioned craft against its critics, how do we defend stuff like this?

Update, January 20: 3quarkdaily just picked up this little rant. They accompanied their post with a picture of  Dr. Chaudhry. That juxtaposition made me a bit queasy–let me just make clear that I was not criticizing Dr. Chaudhry, just the article about her. Dr. Chaudhry is doing what scientists should: