Writing about science is a tightrope walk. You can practice as much as you want, and during preparation you have lifelines in the form of editors and experts you can phone for answers, but in the end it’s just you out there, trying to toe the line suspended between attention and accuracy. Eyes are on you for any misstep, and even a perfect performance comes with an often-unrecognized risk. That’s because science is a process, not a static collection of facts, and in an instant a new discovery or study can make the rope vanish beneath your feet.

A few months back my Phenomena neighbor Robert Krulwich wrote a post titled “The Fantastically Strange Origin of Most Coal on