Top ten picks
Undoubtedly the week’s must-read post: Greg Downey’s opus on the science of breath-holding. He really ought to be paid for this.
A moving list of people who, while studying life, lost theirs, collected by Richard Conniff
Kate Clancy continues her run of busting myths about female bodies. This time: anaemia isn’t something you get just for being a lady.
A brilliant Jonah Lehrer piece about a man who cracked the scratch ticket lottery code. “I’d simply done the math and concluded that beating the game wasn’t worth my time.”
“That experience—the one of initial discovery, of fulfilled curiosity, is what I aim to communicate through my writing.” Andrea Kuszewski on using science stories to rediscover wonder
The Atavist – a fascinating new way of publishing long-form journalism. Edited pieces are published through e-readers, in multiple versions at different costs, with proceeds going to editors and journalists. With a great promo video by John Pavlus.
The incidence of botulism in Alaska is 836 times greater than in rest of US – a clash of culture & disease. Maryn McKenna reports.
“Only a few teachers include hands-on transgenesis in their courses for 15 and 16-year-olds.” Transgenic bacterium sparks row in French schools. Barbara Cassassus reports.
Cyclone Yasi is huge but so’s Australia. Here’s Yasi superimposed on other parts of the world.
Google’s Art Project takes you on a virtual tour of the world’s best galleries. It’s an incredible idea, well-executed but doesn’t even come close to the actual experience
And an extra one: my heartfelt thanks to John Rennie for this post about my timeline experiment.
Science/news/writing
“The authors weren’t completely bonkers/perverted to [look] for tastable compounds in dolphin semen” by Christie Wilcox.
“When the Columbia shuttle tore apart on re-entry on February 1, 2003, I learned of it from a phone call that interrupted a placid Saturday morning.” John Rennie reflects on space shuttle disasters. Meanwhile, Phil Plait reminds us that the 7 astronauts who died on Challenger all have “memorial craters” named after them.
“You can’t just tell people what you know, you have to build a relationship so they trust you enough to listen.” Great post by Alice Bell on science policy.
Frank Swain on how online dating will make slaves of us all
“I had always been afraid of my grandfather and now I was staring at his pale, lifeless hand inches from my face.” Eric Michael Johnson on mourning in primates.
Social science lines up its biggest challenges. And boy, they’re big.
Worried about science funding cuts? Never fear – surrender your uranium in exchange for a swanky new research centre.
On male pregnancy as a case study for the intersection of science and history – great post by Holly Tucker
Incredible pictures of a beautiful ant mimic, by (who else) Alex Wild.
Woodpecker’s head inspires shock absorbers for planes and cars
An amazing project at Google’s Science Fair, by young scientist Tesca Fitzgerald
The full genome of the water flea Daphnia is out, and Holly Bik wonderfully explains why this is important
A vault full of brains in a jar – paradise for neuroscientists and zombies, by Emily Anthes.
Snakebot to operate on heart. Progress to Doctor Octopus: 83% complete.
“Study after study has shown that parents, compared to adults without kids, experience lower emotional well-being.” Is joyful parenting a myth? By Wray Herbert
Lotteries: they target the poor and keep them poor, by Jonah Lehrer
A retractiothon! A retratiopalooza! Retractiofest 2011! Boldt investigation may lead to over 90 retractions
After taking axe to forensics, the UK prepares to lobotomise neuroscience
Meet Titanoceratops. Basically like Triceratops but bigger. And older. Also, the spelling’s different.
“The Vikings may have used the ancient equivalent of polarized glass to navigate in cloudy weather, suggest new reports on a long-hypothesized but never-tested sunstone compass”, by Lisa Grossman.
Does walking improve memory? Not according to a new study, despite the authors’ claims.
A small asteroid passed close to Earth. If the bastard scratched the sides, I bet our insurance goes up.
“Aren’t you supposed to be a clone?” Naseem on life as a fraternal twin
Insects could be vectors for antibiotic-resistant bacteria, from animal dung to our food, says Maryn McKenna (who, incidentally, is interviewed here).
An uncontacted Brazilian tribe has been spotted by plane. These poor, poor people, who know not the wonder of LOLcats
“This is 100% a real issue.” The internet has run out of room.
“All inventions are immortal. Literally, they never die! Or do they?” Robert Krulwich goes on a quest for an invention that isn’t used any more
Another blow for oxytocin, the increasingly inaccurately named “love hormone”
“Jackal” turns out to be the first ever African wolf.
Studying geography can be badass: Two Russian postgrads rescued from drifting ice floe, by Frank Swain
Scientists stage lion-roaring contest, by Marc Abrahams
Whenever someone writes a piece about the limitations of fMRI “mind-reading”, a kitten smiles
Heh/wow/huh
Why in God’s name are you waving?!
Yes, you drank the beer. Now let’s see you fit in the bottle
A satirical meta-infographic
It’s harder to recognise faces in the dark. Possibly because it’s harder to see. Thank you, science.
“The ChumBuddy sleeping bag will snuggle you so sweetly as it gnaws upon your innards.”
Heh. A lovely counter to Greenfield-esque internet doom-mongering.
The text is in Portuguese but this really is the most wonderful infographic of the human microbiome
Oh, that’s where Egypt is. Thanks, FOX News.
See paragraph 5 for the worst experiment ever
Love the picture caption.
The most important article on Wikipedia.
Blogging/internet/journalism
Congratulations to Alok Jha, an excellent science writer from the Guardian, whose book How to Live Forever is out this week.
A literal race between print and digital magazines. Print wins.
Rupert Murdoch launched his new iPad-only newspaper, the Daily. Mashable describes it as a “second-rate” iPad magazine, not an iPad newspaper, but Scott Rosenberg really nails it: “CD-ROM flashback”
PLoS has a new blog on the ethics and economics of drug development, by freelance writer Jessica Wapner.
Amazon is now selling more e-books than paperbacks.
Athene Donald continues the discussions about female science bloggers with a post on unwritten rules. Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that on Wikipedia, which aims to be the “sum of all human knowledge”, only 13% of contributors are women.
I loved this interview by Brian Cox. It’s warm, happy, humble… behold the presenters’ reactions
Why science writers *should* write for women’s magazines, by Katie Fleming.
A good post on using science blogs as a teaching aid
Google accuses Microsoft of copying search results. But why would they bother unless Bing was a total pile of cra… oh.
Jamie Vernon predicts that Science Online will change the world.
An astonishing tale of what happens when you agree to be in a Daily Mail lifestyle story
An interesting interview with Jonah Lehrer on making money from talks & the existential sadness of multiple hotel keys
A statement on the World Conference of Science Journalists in Cairo. It will continue.
February 5th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
From the most important article on wikipedia to “Why in God’s name are you waving?!”, your Heh/wow/huh links are SO good, wonderful medicine for a geek who’s intellectually exhausted after a week largely spent reading/doing science and yet doesn’t want to stop being sci-geeky before 20 pm at the very least (though not geeky enough to try to read the longer, more serious articles). Thank you so much!
February 5th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
I read summaries about studies saying parents are fooling themselves. I even read one (but it wasn’t just about parenting, it was a Kahneman study trying to find good ways to measure how people are feeling, considering that ongoing emotion and remembered emotion are frequently different things)… and I don’t believe them. Something is construed wrong, I’m sure. I just for my life cannot map this onto my experience as both a parent (of pretty young kids still) and the reading/research I do on emotion. It is not that I don’t think they get the data they are getting. I’m sure they are doing well with that. I just think the conclusion is problematic. Something is not conceptualized right. I may just have to actually dig up these studies and see what I can rip apart in them, because I don’t buy it.
What I want to buy though (although it is a pain to consider getting something from the US these days), is the octopi t-shirt.
February 6th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Thanks for the link Ed!