Observations
Masks and Emasculation: Why Some Men Refuse to Take Safety Precautions
They think it makes them look weak, and avoiding that is evidently more important to them than demonstrating responsible behavior
Blogs
Observations
How a Landmark Physics Paper from the 1970s Uncannily Describes the COVID-19 Pandemic
Phil Anderson’s article “More Is Different” describes how different levels of complexity require new ways of thinking. And as the virus multiplies and spreads, that’s just what the human race desperately needs...
Observations
The Fight against COVID-19 Threatens to Cause Collateral Health Damage
The pandemic is no excuse to abandon chronic disease management and prevention
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The Countdown
"Singing Stars" Reveal Their Secrets, and More – The Countdown, Episode 29
More to explore: Curiosity Catches Sight of Mars’ Moon Passing the Other (PsiVid) Latest SpaceX Rocket Test Successfully Goes Sideways (New York Times) Public Naming of Planets and Planetary Satellites: Reaching Out for Worldwide Recognitionwith the Help of the IAU [Pdf] (IAU) Around the World in Four Days: NASA Tracks Chelyabinsk Meteor Plume (NASA) Russian [...]..
The Curious Wavefunction
The Olinguito: A New Species That Looks House Cat Crossed With a Teddy Bear
The Times’s Eduardo Porter has a short piece on nuclear power vs renewables where he makes a plea for supporting the development of new nuclear technologies with improved safety and efficiency...
Observations
Does My BMI Make Me Look Fat?
Not all fat people are metabolically equal. And a simple number like the body mass index (or BMI) does not take that key fact into account.
Symbiartic
We’re All Minorities Compared To These Manhattan Residents
Everyone would agree that a million is a lot and a billion is even more, but these types of numbers are hard to intuitively understand. So while you may nod and say, “wow” approvingly when told that there are more than a billion ants living in Manhattan, I bet you have a slightly more visceral [...]..
Expeditions
Arctic Methane: Flight Friday 16th PM
We followed exactly the same flight path as this morning’s flight. Credit to the amazing (auto) pilots! Like the earlier flight, we also saw gradual changes in the methane concentration as we traversed east to went and north to south...
Running Ponies
Wandering Ponies August: Puffin Census, Monster Pyrosomes, an Unfortunate Crab Moustache and more
An important part of running a blog about weird/new animals is the part where you beat yourself up about all the great stories you miss. Whether it’s because I’m too slow, too busy, or just quietly decided to watch Pretty Little Liars and waste hours winning Shining Force battles in the bath instead, it all [...]..
Guest Blog
Should We Abide by a Suicidal Patient’s Wishes?
It was standing room only in the small pink conference room on the first floor. Doctors, nurses, social workers, medical students and a physical therapist crowded in to meet with Sasha*...
Life, Unbounded
Earth Waves To Saturn: The Pictures
Sometimes a picture really is worth a thousand words, or in this case 1,400 pictures are worth a few words. Here is the collage of images uploaded by people across the planet for NASA’s Cassini ‘Wave at Saturn’ event on July 19th 2013, while Cassini snapped Earth in turn, as a teeny, tiny dot of [...]..
The Moral Universe
Empathy as a choice 3: “Growing” empathy
For the last few weeks, I’ve written about a simple idea: far from being automatic, empathy often requires a choice to engage with others’ emotions. This choice, in turn, depends on would-be empathizers’ desire to connect with others even when doing so is painful or costly. I think a “choice model” can change how we [...]..
Illusion Chasers
Why “Optogenetic” Methods for Manipulating Brains Don’t Light Me Up
Foundation ANAR, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of children at risk, has come up with a clever illusion as part of a campaign against child abuse.
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A Blog About the Weird Wonderfulness of Life on Earth
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