- For now and the future. Fifty years of wilderness protection in northern Minnesota.
- Not feeling the fucking love. A soft-pedal profile of I Fucking Love Science, and its emphatic counterpoint.
- Visibility! A new site devoted to the personal stories of LGBTQ scientists.
- Maybe a bit? Is ecology explaining less than it used to?
- Maybe not different “species,” though. How one bacterial symbiont split into two without ever leaving its host.
- C’est vrai. On immersion-learning a foreign language, and the meaning of learning.
- Government bureaucrats over corporate bureaucrats. Make government smaller and more efficient by hiring more workers instead of out-sourcing.
- And he ought to feel like one, by now. Hope Jahren sure has an asshole for a colleague.
- Best unintended consequence ever. A socialist utopia is no place for pickup artists.
- Robert Moses versus humanity. The man behind the worst public planning choices of the 20th century.
- As in everything else. American inequality applies to diet quality, too.
- Antonin Scalia is a horrible, horrible person. Exhibit A.
Stuff online: Missing links and vital webs edition
- This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense: Have you taken the Iced Budget Challenge yet?
- Eat your heart out, Tiktaalik. A semi-amphibious fish demonstrates a possible origin of four-legged vertebrates when it’s raised on land.
- With some 400 new ones! A huge new illustrated list of every bird species on Earth.
- Be nice to spiders. If you like not starving, that is.
- Because, let’s face it: friends are scary. No one wants to talk about controversial stuff on social media.
- Brilliant. The Oxford don who takes on Internet assholes.
- Losing ground indeed. ProPublica visualizes the disappearing Louisiana coast
- And, the other flood: The HIV crisis in New Orleans.
- Qui custodiet … A cop beaten by other cops finds out what happens to innocent people beaten by cops.
- Cliches are the things we say without thinking about them. On Michael Brown’s humanity.
The #IceBucketChallenge, with a twist
I was nominated in this viral fundraising scheme you may have heard about, and I did it my way.
Requiescat: Richard Attenborough
Richard Attenborough died Sunday, aged 90. Most of my generation probably know him best for Jurassic Park, but I’ve always favored his role as the mastermind of the Great Escape:
Stuff online, rare genetics and bees edition
- Essential reading on Ferguson: Jamelle Bouie’s detailed recounting of the events following Michael Brown’s killing, and just how much it would take to make things right; Ta-Nehisi Coates on the historical historical context; Dahlia Lithwick on the laundry list of constitutional violations in law enforcement responses to the protests.
- And, if you want to help: Chip in to provide classroom supplies for teachers in and around Ferguson.
- Self-diagnosis works, with enough research. How an extreme athlete found the single genetic variant responsible for her two rare genetic disorders.
- Evo-bollocks of the week. No, PMS isn’t an adaptation to prompt women to find more fertile partners.
- Innovation! South Africa’s new surveillance drone will be piloted by humans.
- Yep. On hunting for a faculty job while not straight.
- Steve Rogers isn’t your grandfather. Or, turning to the history books to understand Captain America.
- Less-bad news on bees. They’re doing better in cities.
- All in the game. The democratic melodrama of The Wire.
- No word on how many of them would pay to never again hear from ResearchGate. Nature surveys scientists’ social media habits.
Neither rain
Fresh summer rain. Marathon in six weeks. Gotta do the miles. Running shoes squish and suck all the way down the empty trail to the lakes. The few other runners wave in solidarity. One reaches out for a high-five, shouts “Fuck the weather!” with a grin. But the rain patters on the trail, on the leaves of the ash trees, on Lake Calhoun, like a thousand running feet.
Stuff online, leftovers and lactation edition
- This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The natural history of Ebola.
- Guess I need a “sunrise lamp.” How to make yourself a morning person.
- Search me. When everyone can have a blog, why does anyone need a comments section?
- Cuisine des perdus. The worldwide phenomenon of recipes that use up food scraps.
- Timing is … well, a lot of things, anyway. When you nurse determines what you get.
- As in, contains actual falsehoods. The Discovery Channel’s Shark Week has abandoned any pretense of education.
- No cable subscription necessary! Build a better Shark Week on YouTube.
- It’s not getting better. The current state of efforts to contain the white-nose syndrome devastating bat colonies.
- Good job, folks! After some 23 million rides, there still hasn’t been even one deadly accident on a bike-share bike.
Stuff online, funny five fingers edition
- This week, at The Molecular Ecologist: The many loci of stickleback speciation.
- Your weekly grammatical rabbit hole. Sussing out the rules of adjective order.
- High five! The molecular development of fingers.
- Taking natural history back to the future. By publishing field reports as preprints.
- Against the Great Man theory of science spokespersons. Or, what comes after Richard Dawkins?
- But the EPA is just an anti-buisness red tape machine. Drinking water bans in Toledo due to a nutrient-pollution-enhanced algae bloom
- Don’t panic. A rundown on why not to worry about Ebola, from an expert in actually-scary microbes.
- Not bad, eh? How Ontario gave coal the boot.
- And sends back photos. A European probe establishes orbit around a comet.
- Hmm. On making the jump from academics to private-sector data science.
- Wow. Genetic chimerism might (might!) promote cooperation in marmosets.
- Almost 300,000. The number of people on the U.S. Government’s “terrorist watch list” with no recognized affiiliation with terrorists.
Stuff online, LED at the end of the tunnel edition
- This week, at Nothing in Biology Makes Sense! The vital importance (to a grass) of fungal infection, and the results of a quick poll about that unfortunate Science cover.
- In the form of a “satire” about scientists on Twitter. Your weekly reminder that the failure mode of “clever” is “asshole.”
- Nifty! A cleverly made sponge generates steam in a glass of water.
- Turning the corner? Improvements in energy efficiency and distributed solar panels are starting to substantially impact power demand.
- Mazel tov! Natural Current Events celebrates 200 arthropods identified.
- Sounds familiar. People work harder when they have someone to compete against.
- And it’s not the furry livestock. Why the desert planet in Star Wars doesn’t make ecological sense.
- Sure, why the hell not? Could beaked whales have internal antlers that are only visible to sonar?
- First, do no harm. Why the Tuskegee syphilis study still matters.
Stuff online, untrammeled woodrat guts edition
- Uncharted territory. How medical research tackles a never-before-seen disorder.
- Muir lives! Evaluating the value of wilderness, ahead of the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Wilderness Act.
- Take note, Science. The Lancet’s infographic on sex work and HIV risk.
- Worst indigestion ever? If you give a desert woodrat antibiotics, it’s going to want something to eat instead of creosote.
- How are we just getting to this? Accounting for genetic drift in microbial experimental evolution.
- The page is mightier. How the promises of speed reading never quite materialize.