Nahant native scores big win for NOVA project

NAHANT – Not many people outside the circus get blindfolded as part of their job, but former Nahant resident Julia Cort is one of them.A science writer, director and senior producer at NOVA ScienceNOW – the award-winning WGBH television show – Cort recently agreed to have her vision blocked en route to a secret laboratory where scientists are creating synthetic diamonds that one day may replace silicon chips as the primary conductors in micro-electric circuitry. She got the story, which will be broadcast over the summer as part of a 10-week NOVA ScienceNOW series.”We had to meet at a parking lot and be driven to the place where they make the diamonds,” she said. “We had to wear blindfolds because the people involved don’t want anyone to know where it’s happening.”It wasn’t the first time her extraordinary efforts paid off. Her asteroid-tracking research raised plenty of eyebrows.On Thursday, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) honored Cort for her work on the NOVA production “Asteroid,” which poses the question: Will a doomsday rock the size of the Rose Bowl hit Earth in 2036?The show, which aired on public broadcasting stations nationwide in 2006-2007, earned Cort the AIP’s Science Writing Award in the broadcast category. The award was presented Thursday during a ceremony in Pittsburgh and was accompanied by a $3,000 prize, an engraved Windsor chair and a certificate of recognition.During the production of “Asteroid,” NASA was continually adjusting the odds of a collision with Apophis – the threatening astral body named for an Egyptian god – and downgrading the risk of its impact. “I’m embarrassed to admit I was sort of hoping the odds wouldn’t be reduced too far,” Cort confessed. “At least not before the airdate.”The latest NASA estimate, computed in May 2008, suggests the odds of a collision between Earth and Apophis are scant. Nonetheless, Cort points out that astronomers still estimate there are thousands – perhaps tens of thousands – of large objects flying through space, one of which might cross paths with Earth and result in tragic consequences.”One of them could easily be headed our way,” she said, noting last month’s scare involving an asteroid named 2009DD45. That house-sized asteroid passed Earth at a distance of 45,000 miles, which is only twice as far away as some orbiting satellites – relatively close. “2009DD54 is roughly the size of one they think exploded above Russia on June 30, 1908. It exploded at 20,000 feet with the force of 185 Hiroshima bombs, leveling 800 square miles of forest. It was called the Tunguska Event.”The asteroid fortunately exploded over Siberia and not over France or the northeast United States, she said, noting with relief that most of Earth is not heavily populated.”This is a scary thing. It’s sensational, but the truth is, what’s really scary is what they don’t know. And the rate at which they have found these large objects is telling them there are a lot more out there.”Cort began her career at WGBH 18 years ago. She was born in the Philippines where her late father, John, was stationed in the Peace Corps. The Cort family – she is the youngest of 10 siblings – moved to Nahant when she was 7. The peninsula became her home, a place where she could explore the rocks and beaches. She attended Nahant schools, graduated from St. Mary’s High School in Lynn and entered Harvard University. Seized by a passion for filmmaking, Cort temporarily left college to experience the movie-making worlds of New York and Los Angeles. Eventually she returned to complete her undergraduate degree and found a niche at NOVA.”I love my job. It’s a lot of fun,” said Cort, who occasionally visits her mother, Helen, and two sisters, all of whom live in Nahant. “These days I work primarily on the (television) magazine series.”Recollecting her childhood, Cort credits Nahant’s summer oceanography program for youth with piquing her interest in science. Cort now lives in Milton where she takes her own two children o