Linda Rodriguez McRobbie is an award-winning American journalist, author, and podcaster living in England. So far, she's never met a subject that wasn't interesting: She's covered everything from surprising and unique conditions of memory to stories of alien abduction, DIY DNA labs to junk science laws, the ethics of pet ownership to whether invasive species are really so bad after all. Her written work regularly appears in the Boston Globe Ideas section, The Guardian, Atlas Obscura, and others. In 2023, she worked with independent journalism studio Long Lead to report and write the multiple award-winning People vs. Rubber Bullets, a six-part interactive series on the devastating effects of the use of kinetic impact projectiles, popularly known as rubber bullets.
As a podcaster, Linda was the host, writer, and researcher of iHeart Media's popular Newton's Law, an eight-episode series on Sir Isaac Newton's surprising second career as Warden of the Royal Mint - and a detective, charged with catching and prosecuting counterfeiters.
Linda is also the author of Princesses Behaving Badly (Quirk Books 2013), a popular history book telling the stories of some of the most fascinating women to bear the title, and the co-author, along with Dr. Margee Kerr, of Ouch! Why Pain Hurts and Why It Doesn't Have To (Bloomsbury Sigma 2021), an exploration of the weird experience we call pain.
Recent work
The People vs. Rubber Bullets
The summer of 2020 saw a staggering rise in the number of injuries resulting from police use of kinetic impact projectiles - but the case against these weapons has been made over and over again in their 50-year history.
See the six-part interactive project here, at Long Lead
Newton's Law, an iHeart Original
Sure, you know Isaac Newton, England's most brilliant natural philosopher and mathematician. But do you know about his second career - as England's most ruthless lawman? An eight-episode series on Newton and his struggle to bring a master counterfeiter to justice.
Listen to the podcast here
The Man in the Iron Lung
When he was 6, Paul Alexander contracted polio and was paralysed for life. At 74, he was one of the last people in the world still using an iron lung. But after surviving one deadly outbreak, he did not expect to find himself threatened by another.
Read more at The Guardian, in The Long Read
Total Recall: The people who never forget
The story of the discovery of Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory, an extremely rare condition of memory that cause some rare people to remember every day as well as most people remember yesterday.
Read more at The Guardian, in The Long Read
Should we stop keeping pets?
For some bioethicists, the answer is yes. A look at the argument against the institution of pet ownership. Notably, this article caused... a bit of controversy and was one of the paper's most popular and most commented.
Read more at The Guardian, G2
When babies didn't feel pain
Up until the 1980s, infants routinely underwent major surgery without anaesthetic. Why that happened, as well as modern neuroscience, has crucial implications for how we understand, how we see the pain of others.
Read more at Boston Globe Ideas
Hawk and the City
Using hawks to control pigeon populations in large cities has a moral neatness - and novelty - that we humans appreciate.
Read more at Boston Globe Ideas
The Great Fire of London Was Blamed on Religious Terrorism
When the first sparks of the most devastating fire in the city's history started, Londoners didn't think it was an accident. How rumour created a Catholic conspiracy and decades of religious resentment
Read more at Smithsonian.com
In Texas, New Law Lets Defendants Fight Bad Science
Scientific evidence can be the most convincing element of a criminal trial. But sometimes it's wrong—and for the first time, a state's justice system has recognized that and adjusted accordingly.
Read more at The Atlantic
The Open-Sorcerers
How some magicians are embracing the open-source ethos – should the Alliance of Magicians care?
Read more at Slate.com
How Junk Science And Anti-Lesbian Prejudice Got Four Women Sent to Prison for a Decade
Four Texas women were sent to prison for more than 15 years for a horrible crime they didn't commit. Why was a jury so convinced they could rape two little girls? They're lesbians.
Read more at Slate.com
The Strange History of the Ouija Board
Harmless fun, tool of the devil – or fascinating link to the non-conscious mind? And if it's not spirits, how does the Ouija Board really work?
Read more at Smithsonian.com
How Did Clowns Get to Be So Scary?
There’s a word— albeit one not recognized by the Oxford English Dictionary or any psychology manual— for the excessive fear of clowns: Coulrophobia.
Read more at Smithsonian.com
The History of Boredom
Why do we get bored? And have we always been doing it?
Read more at Smithsonian.com
An American Beat
in Paris
Bunking in a bookstore, where countless literary hopefuls have slept and dreamed before. Why Paris's famous Shakespeare & Co. can still inspire.
Read more at
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So, every little girl wants to be a princess? Maybe after reading the stories of these real life princesses, she'll think again.