There was probably no way for Deborah Blum to grow up as anything but a science writer. Her father, an exuberant entomologist, liked to bring his research home – “Check out this black widow. I’m going to keep its cage on the dining room table so we can watch it while we eat.” Her mother, a freelance writer, published a family newspaper and drafted her four daughters as staff reporters. “This seems to be a very whiny story about the black widow.”