This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Blog of the Week:
Life is short, but snakes are long is written by Andrew Durso who is a PhD student at Utah State University, where he studies the behavior, physiology, and ecology of toad-eating snakes. So, everything on his blog is about snakes. And every post on his blog has something about snakes that you have not known before.
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Top 10:
Global Warming's Terrifying New Math by Bill McKibben:
If the pictures of those towering wildfires in Colorado haven't convinced you, or the size of your AC bill this summer, here are some hard numbers about climate change: June broke or tied 3,215 high-temperature records across the United States. That followed the warmest May on record for the Northern Hemisphere – the 327th consecutive month in which the temperature of the entire globe exceeded the 20th-century average, the odds of which occurring by simple chance were 3.7 x 10-99, a number considerably larger than the number of stars in the universe...
The Mystery of the Missing Chromosome (With A Special Guest Appearance from Facebook Creationists) by Carl Zimmer:
There’s something fascinating about our chromosomes. We have 23 pairs. Chimpanzees and gorillas, our closest living relatives, have 24. If you come to these facts cold, you might think this represented an existential crisis for evolutionary biologists. If we do indeed descend from a common ancestor with great apes, then our ancestors must have lost a pair after our lineage branched off, some six million years ago. How on Earth could we just give up an entire chromosome....
Are Warnings About the Side Effects of Drugs Making Us Sick? by Steve Silberman
Your doctor doesn’t like what’s going on with your blood pressure. You’ve been taking medication for it, but he wants to put you on a new drug, and you’re fine with that. Then he leans in close and says in his most reassuring, man-to-man voice, “I should tell you that a small number of my patients have experienced some minor sexual dysfunction on this drug. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, and the good news is that this side effect is totally reversible. If you have any ‘issues’ in the bedroom, don’t hesitate to call, and we’ll switch you to another type of drug called an ACE inhibitor.” OK, you say, you’ll keep that in mind.....
Battling antivaccinationists at FreedomFest by Orac:
Like so many other skeptics, I just returned from TAM, which, despite all the conflict and drama surrounding it this year, actually turned out to be a highly enjoyable experience for myself and most people I talked to. As I’ve been doing the last few years, I joined up with Steve Novella and other proponents of science-based medicine to do a workshop about how difficult it is to find decent health information on the Internet, and how the “University of Google” all too frequently puts quackery on the same level as reliable sources of medical information because all that matters for most search engines when it comes to ranking search results is the number and kinds of sites that link to a given site.....
Epic fraud: How to succeed in science (without doing any) by John Timmer:
Running scientific experiments is, frankly, a pain in the ass. Sure, it's incredibly satisfying when days or weeks of hard work produce a clean-looking result that's easy to interpret. But often as not, experiments simply fail for no obvious reason. Even when they work, the results often leave you scratching your head, wondering "what in the world is that supposed to tell me?" The simplest solution to these problems is obvious: don't do experiments....
One Molecule for Love, Morality, and Prosperity? by Ed Yong:
Imagine a molecule that underlies the virtues that glue societies together. Imagine that it brought out the better angels of our nature with just a sniff and could “rebond our troubled world.” Imagine that it was the “source of love and prosperity” and explained “what makes us good and evil.” Well, carry on imagining. This is a story about oxytocin, and oxytocin is not that molecule....
How We Changed Penguins Just by Watching by Elizabeth Preston:
If a penguin falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, I don't know what kind of forest that is—but everyone who's interested in penguins is probably hanging out a lot closer to the South Pole. The charismatic birds let scientists and tourists alike get a close look without too much trouble. And all that familiarity has the potential to change penguins, and other closely watched animals, for good....
What Would Happen If a Lion Fought a Tiger? by Natalie Wolchover:
This ultimate cat fight has happened more times than you might expect. The Romans pitted African lions against Asian tigers in the Coliseum, to the rip-roaring pleasure of the Plebeians. A few fights were also staged in the early decades of the 20th century, and on several modern occasions, accidental cross-species encounters at zoos have quickly developed into gruesome scenes guaranteed to scar any nearby schoolchildren for life. But how do these lion versus tiger showdowns go down?...
In Search of Grote Reber by Matthew Francis:
Unlike most sites where the business of cosmology is done, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory—known colloquially as Fermilab—isn’t in a remote spot. The facility is in Batavia, Illinois, part of the sprawling metroplex of Chicago, and it’s just a short drive from two major tollways. The Standard Model describes a plethora of particles, but it has nothing on the number of fast-food joints and auto shops within ten minutes’ drive of the Fermilab gates. My friend hosting me during my stay in Illinois wasn’t even aware of the lab’s location, despite having friends living close by—the area around it is that dense...
Dancing in digital immortality: The evolution of Merce Cunningham's "Loops" by Ashley Taylor:
The modern dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham died in 2009, and his company gave its final performance at the end of last year. Many of his dances will live on in the memories of former company members who go on to restage them. But there’s one solo, “Loops,” that Cunningham never taught to another dancer. This piece lives on through a different medium: digital motion capture...
Special topic: Science of Superheros
Batman and Gotham: A Deeply Dysfunctional Love Story by Adam Rogers
The horrifying physiological and psychological consequences of being Aquaman by Southern Fried Scientist
Dear Science, leave Aquaman alone! by AmasianV
Why Aquaman is the best damn superhero in comic history by Cyriaque Lamar
Physics Shows Batman’s Cape Is Suicide Machine by Liat Clark
The Fall and Rise of the Dark Knight-the Difficulties of Batman’s Life While He Exists by E. Paul Zehr
Science sways superheroes by Alan Boyle
Best Images:
The Goddamned Particle by Perrin Ireland
Your Skeleton – on the Internet by Daniel Lende
Animals With Misleading Names by Rosemary Mosco
The Bizarre, Breathtaking Science Photos of Fritz Goro by Tanya Lewis
American World War II Plague Posters by Michelle Ziegler
Beautiful biodiversity illustrations by Becca Stadtlander
Best Videos:
Friday Science Cinema by Justine E. Hausheer
When astronomers get video cameras…… by Niall
NSF Rhode Island Video Boot Camp participant Dr. Sunshine Menezes delivers her message. by NSFMessengers
Tagging Giants: Studying Whale Sharks in Cendrawasih Bay by Mark Erdmann
Variety is the Spice of Lice by TheFieldMuseum
Five Men Agree To Stand Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear Bomb by Robert Krulwich
Chuck Norris, tapeworms, and the future of science: video of my keynote talk by Carl Zimmer
Science:
Patients, Prisoners, and Mass Shootings — A Timeline by David Dobbs
Gorilla Youngsters Seen Dismantling Poachers' Traps—A First by Ker Than
Life on the Leg of a Crab by Craig McClain
Can you Shoot an Arrow Backwards – into Space? by David Dilworth
How to "downplay the achievements of science" by Eoin Lettice
Why Facial Disfigurements Creep Us Out by Joseph Bennington-Castro
Wisconsin’s Sand Rush by Kate Prengaman
A Way to Trap Carbon Deep in the Ocean and City Officials Declare War on Lawn Gardens by Rachel Nuwer
From Living Room to Lily Pad: Is the Fatal Amphibian Chytrid Fungus Spread via Pet Frogs? by Sarah Fecht
Just good friends? Attraction to opposite-sex friends is common but burdensome by Christian Jarrett
Just My Luck (or is it?) by David Nussbaum
The Bra Is 500 Years Older Than We Thought and 400 Years Worth of Water Discovered in Sub-Saharan Namibia by Colin Schultz
Learning from the Tubeworm by Michelle Nijhuis
The Real Life of Pi by Noby Leong
How would you like to sleep with the fishes? by aranyak
‘Get Over It’: Climate Change Is Happening by Eric Roston
Recycling the Seasons by Erin Gettler
Fusing chromosomes by John Hawks
No sweet outcome for PhD worker bees by Elizabeth Gibney
Q&A With Mariette DiChristina: Born a Scientist by Jeanne Garbarino
Lion's Mane Jellyfish Image: This Is (Literally) How Things Blow Up On The Internet! by Anthony Wing Kosner
The Endless Summer by Mark Bittman
Performance enhancement: Superhuman athletes by Helen Thompson
Discovery of ‘God particle’ has UNC roots by Samuel Mason
Just the facts ain't enough, ma'am by Wilson da Silva
Artificial Volcanoes Aren’t the Solution to Warming by Erik Klemetti
Dolphins May Be Math Geniuses by Jennifer Viegas
New Science Emboldens Long Shot Bid for Dolphin, Whale Rights by Brandon Keim
What it's Like to Witness a Grunion Run by Jason Goldman
Everything Is a Remix: The Sound of Horses Racing on TV Is Actually a Sample of Buffaloes Charging and Exploding Chocolate, Poisoned Scuba Suits, and the Bulgarian Umbrella: A Survey of Strange Assassination Tech by Alexis Madrigal
Secrets of the clam tongue: a case study in opportunistic science outreach and New nightmare fuel: the giant scaleworm Eulagisca by Miriam Goldstein
Pardon me–is this stool taken? by Bug Girl
10 species named after famous people by Bethan Jinkinson
Pancakes, served with a side of science by Aatish Bhatia
One fish, two fish and 400,000 zebrafish by Kathleen Raven
The Dirty Dozen: A wish list for psychology and cognitive neuroscience by Chris Chambers
Brain Scanning... Or Vein Scanning? by Neuroskeptic
What was the oldest Olympic sport? by Greg Laden
Dr Hornstein hasn’t gone the way of the dinosaur by Lucy Hornstein
Science Metaphors (cont.): Sub-Grid Physics by Ann Finkbeiner
Will we ever run the 100 metres in 9 seconds? by Ed Yong
Dinosaur Aunts, Bacterial Stowaways, & Insect Milk by Katie Hinde
Geneticists Evolve Fruit Flies With the Ability to Count by Liat Clark
Scientists take a bird’s eye view to prevent bird-aircraft collisions by Allie Wilkinson
Technique gets clear images from light reflected off blank paper by Matthew Francis
Vitamin D gets frequent testing, but the results are a bit quizzical by Jessica M. Morrison
How Placebo's Evil Twin Makes You Sicker by Elizabeth Preston
Galápagos Monday: When Conservation Means Killing by Virginia Hughes
‘Canopy Meg’ wants you to care about the rainforest by Samantha Larson
Person With Autism Manages To Do Something by Zoe
Using zombies to teach science by Tara C. Smith
Ecomorphs Converge On Suites Of Correlated Traits by Yoel Stuart
Is Society Becoming Over-Medicalized? Interview with Executive Editor of Reuters Health, Dr. Ivan Oransky by Shiv Gaglani
How land-inefficient is organic agriculture? by Mark Lynas
Record Heat Wave Pushes U.S. Belief in Climate Change to 70% by Mark Drajem
Media, Publishing, Technology and Society:
That plan to archive every tweet in the Library of Congress? Definitely still happening by Andrew Phelps
More on the Library of Congress and Twitter by Dave Winer (also see my Science Blogs – definition, and a history)
v1 by Rethink Digg
Example Visualizations using the PLoS Search and ALM APIs and More fun with Visualizations by Martin Fenner
ScienceWriters2012: The NC Scouting Report by Rosalind Reid
Could the iPad save magazines? by Molly Mirhashem
The techies in journalism are not the problem by Anna Tarkov
Readership of papers vs. blog posts by Jeremy Fox
Why Flip The Classroom When We Can Make It Do Cartwheels? by Cathy N. Davidson
Higgs this, boson that by Richard Panek
Beginner Blogging – The Prequel by Renee Dobbs
Power to the People (When it Comes to Funding Research) by Aurélie Coulon
Curation techniques, types and tips by Steve Buttry
No Internet For One Year: Tech Writer Tries Life Offline by Joanna Stern
Why Dave Winer Invented the Blog and How blogging came to be by Dave Winer
Introducing #smarttakes: pop-up aggregation from the Guardian by Ruth Spencer
‘False Balance’ in Some Coverage of Carolina Sea-Level Controversy by Sara Peach
Brought to book: Academic journals face a radical shake-up by The Economist
All’s Not Fair in Science and Publishing by Frederick Southwick
Let journalists do their jobs by David Wescott
How Academics Face the World: A Study of 5829 Homepage Pictures by Owen Churches, Rebecca Callahan, Dana Michalski, Nicola Brewer, Emma Turner, Hannah Amy Diane Keage, Nicole Annette Thomas and Mike Elmo Richard Nicholls
MIT Economist: Here's How Copyright Laws Impoverish Wikipedia by Robinson Meyer
Why ‘future of journalism’ confabs fail by Alan D. Mutter
Why paywall journalism is changing how journalists write by Tim Burrowes
ProPublica gets $1.9 million from Knight to expand its efforts in data journalism by Adrienne LaFrance
The trouble with content by Jeff Jarvis
The Scholar's Frenemy by PHLane
Dealing with Edits and Comments by hurleybirds
Don't Have Time to Tweet-bollocks! Twitter can even save you time as a scientist. by Scott Wagers
Communicating science in the age of the internet by Deevy Bishop
Laptops in Lecture? by Rhett Allain
What was the first science blog? by Paul Raeburn
Scientific particles collide with social media to benefit of all by Marie Boran
On science blogs this week: Scandal by Tabitha M. Powledge
Standing on the Shoulders of Bloggers: Carnival frustration searing my soul. by Thony Christie
The Rise of Open Science by Roger Câmara
The Web Is Not the Internet (You're Probably Getting That Wrong) by Abraham_Riesman
Delete the Save Button by Farhad Manjoo
How Reddit Became the Internet's Vigilante Voltron by Wylie Overstreet
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Blogs of the Week so far:
May 11, 2012: Academic Panhandling
May 25th, 2012: Better Posters
June 8th, 2012: Tanya Khovanova’s Math Blog
June 22nd, 2012: Parasite of the Day
June 29th, 2012: March of the Fossil Penguins