Bryn Nelson is a former PhD microbiologist who decided he’d much rather write about microbes than mutate them. After seven years at the science desk of Newsday in New York, Nelson relocated to Seattle as a freelancer, where he has consumed far too much coffee and written features and stories for The Hospitalist, The New York Times, Nature, Scientific American, Science News for Students, Mosaic and many other print and online publications. In addition, he contributed a chapter to The Science Writers’ Handbook and edited two chapters for the six-volume Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking.