David Despain

Science and Health Communicator

Long Island, New York

I'm a science and health writer based on Long Island, New York.

David Despain

Science and Health Communicator

Long Island, New York

I'm a science and health writer based on Long Island, New York.

Featured
Should You Swap Your Coffee for Yerba Mate?
The herb offers a caffeine fix similar to that of coffee, plus vitamins and other beneficial plant compounds. But you have to get over the hay-like smell, wood chip taste—and potential health pitfalls. Mate has had a long history of use among athletes—including runners, triathletes, rugby players, and footballers—in Argentina, Uruguay, and southern parts of Brazil.
Outside
Featured
The New Science Behind Low-Carb Training
Runners who do intense workouts on no carbs tend to experience weakness, fatigue, and poor performance. But a new strategy called “sleeping low” might give athletes the same edge—without the suffering. University of Copenhagen sports physiologists first developed the “train low, compete high” protocol in 2005 for athletes looking for a performance edge.
Outside
Featured
The Unintended Consequences of Noise
For more than a decade, National Park Service scientists Kurt Fristrup and Dan Mennit, along with Colorado State University researchers, have been monitoring background noise levels at around 600 sites across more than 90 national U.S. parks. The researchers feared that human-made noise—like the doubling and tripling of cars and airplanes in the U.S. since the ‘70s—was spoiling the parks’ natural soundscapes and disturbing wildlife.
Outside
Featured
Hummingbirds Tracked During U.S. Southwest's "Second Spring" [Slide Show]
Paradise, Ariz. The Chiricahua Mountains here in far southeastern Arizona boast some of the most spectacular birding in the country; at no other time is this truer than in the early fall during the peak of hummingbird migration. The tiny travelers, which play crucial roles in pollination and ecological stability, make their way down the Rocky Mountains to the Sierra Madres.
Scientific American
Featured
Early Humans Used Brain Power, Innovation and Teamwork to Dominate the Planet
As a species of seeming feeble, naked apes, we humans are unlikely candidates for power in a natural world where dominant adaptations can boil down to speed, agility, jaws and claws. Why we rose to rule, while our hominin relatives died out, has long been a curiosity for scientists. The study of our human nature encompasses a variety of fields ranging from anthropology, primatology, cognitive science and psychology to paleontology, archaeology, evolutionary biology and genetics.
Scientific American
The Rise of Food Renegades
With financial support from Silicon Valley and a growing distrust of ‘Big Food’ by Millennials, entrepreneurial companies are disrupting the food chain through product innovation, storytelling, and home delivery services. For Zach Grannis, who leads business development for crowdfunding platform CircleUp Network Inc., San Francisco, a clue into a valuable investment strategy came in the form of a special report in Fortune.
Journal of Food Science
A Recovery Ice Bath Isn't (Always) Such a Good Idea
You exercise you feel sore. Eight-to-24 hours later, when soreness lessens, you exercise some more. For any athlete in training, delayed onset muscle soreness is a familiar companion. It happens because micro-trauma in the muscle causes an inflammatory response that’s sometimes maddeningly painful.
Outside
Everything You Know About Breakfast Is Wrong
Think breakfast helps kick-start metabolism and boosts weight loss? These are widely believed myths not supported by evidence, scientists say. But breakfast does deserve high marks for increasing physical activity. You’re wrong about breakfast. And so is everyone else. Despite years of hype, two new studies point to a startling conclusion: skipping breakfast doesn’t necessarily lead to weight gain.
Outside
The Really Weird Trend of Breast Milk as Energy Beverage
Some full-grown athletes are turning to breast milk—yeah, you heard us—for an energy boost and protein push. If you're thinking there's something wrong with that, you're right. There are grown men who drink breast milk. For some, it’s undoubtedly a kink. But for others, it’s something else: a “God-given” performance-enhancing elixir—and believers are paying top dollar for it online.
Outside
The Surprising Reason Gluten-Free Diets Actually Work
You’ve been told that gluten-free diets are a fraud, that the science is settled, and that it’s all just the placebo effect. If so, how can the anecdotes be explained? Enter FODMAPs, the underappreciated forms of sugar that may just underpin your wheat, rye, and barley intolerance—and unlock your fitness potential.
Outside
Sugar Is Not the Enemy
The hit documentary Fed Up is the latest in a litany of articles and documentaries to portray sugar as dietary villain number one. But what if sugar isn't the enemy—and by focusing on its effects, we've ignored the biggest causes of our health crisis and even subverted athletic performance? Since its release in theaters on May 2, the anti-“Big Food” documentary Fed Up has received plenty of media attention and praise.
Outside
Farming the Future: GM Crops Recommended as Key Part of Obama's "Evergreen Revolution"
Agricultural innovation has long sustained the world's masses with an abundance of low-cost food, thanks to the success of the mid-20th century's Green Revolution, which brought industrialization and high-yield grains to India, Mexico and many other developing countries. A prosperous global population however, has blazed the way for burgeoning new mouths to feed that, by 2050, will nearly double food demand.
Scientific American
Cross-discipline Effort Tracks Evolution of Human Uniqueness and Modern Behavior
Based on our capacity for thought, social learning and cooperation, humans often hold our own species in high regard compared to all other living things. It is certainly true that the human species is a statistical outlier along several dimensions, so scientists have recently been working out a sequence of the anatomical and behavioral adaptations that were necessary across evolutionary time for our ancestors to become fully human.
Scientific American

About

David Despain

Health and Fitness

Nutrition

Nature and Biology

English Fluency

Editing

Food Science

Spanish Fluency

Exercise Science

David Despain is a science communicator based on Long Island, New York. He holds dual master's degrees, one in Science Communication from Stony Brook University and one in human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport. He has written on topics related to food, health, and nature for publications including Scientific American, Outside, Food Technology, and the journal Clinical Geriatrics. He was also the official blogger for the American Society for Nutrition’s Scientific Sessions for three consecutive years and had two of his blog posts featured by NPR. Nowadays, David is a R&D nutritionist at Nestlé Health Science and you can feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn.