Now on ScienceBlogs: The Galaxy's Biggest Valentine
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write articles on science, medicine, nature, culture and other matters for the New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Slate, National Geographic, Scientific American Mind, and other publications, and am working on my fourth book, The Orchid and the Dandelion, which expands on my recent December 2009 Atlantic article. In August 2010, I'll be moving to London for a year to work on the book. I'll also serve as a senior fellow at City University London's MA science journalism program.
You're encouraged to check out my third book Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career; subscribe to Neuron Culture by email; see more of my work at my main website; or track Twitter feed, my Google Reader shared items, or my Tumblr log, which gets it all.
Category: Nota Bene
I'm 'posed to be writing, really writing (insert argument over what's really writing in comments), but hit so many juicy bits in my morning read today I wanted to share. Here's my eclectic mix for the day:
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:27 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Art
Mayflys on radar, Agassi's memoir, climate change doubters, psycho theory of mind, and passing the buck to your genes
Posted by David Dobbs at 12:23 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
Celeste was the product of emogenics, the breeding programme to optimizes genes and environments for those with heightened sensitivities to external stimuli. She was about as close as anyone had come to the ideal: she was a human nerve-ending in a cotton sundress.
Posted by David Dobbs at 4:58 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Environment/nature
So who didn't show up for this dance when the music first started playing weeks ago? Was the press trying to do the story but failing to reach staff scientists and convince them to supply the neededinformation and documents? Were there scientists trying to draw attention to the story and failing to get the press's attention?
Posted by David Dobbs at 12:19 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Public health
Evolution, healthcare reform, baboons, and Cheever in his underwear
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:01 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Journalism & media
Mind, brain, and body (including those gene things) While reading Wolpert's review of Greenberg's book, I found that the Guardian has a particularly rich trove of writings and resources on depression , some of it drawing on resources at BMJ (the journal formerly known as the British Medical Journal). ... The backchannel is the twitter stream that audience members now rather routinely produce while a conference speaker or panel holds forth at the front of the room; it carries hideous dangers for the unwary, unprepared, or just plain unlikeable speaker.
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:42 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Books
As alert reader Alex Witze pointed out , these photos were taken by stormchaser Mike Hollingshead in Nebraska and Kansas in 2002 and 2004, and have passed around the net in other guises ever since. ... He has some doozies. You may be shocked but not surprised to hear that Insurance Company Dropped Customers With HIV .
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:05 AM • 1 Comments •
Category: Genetics & genomics (incl behav genetics)
I'll try doing this now and then, maybe regularly, to gather the more notable tweets I get in my twitter...
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:41 AM • 0 Comments •
Category: Environment/nature
"An eastern towhee belted out a plucky reeEEP! I kept spishing. A northern cardinal emerged and uttered its short, bright peek note. Two hermit thrushes popped onto a white oak branch, flicked their wings and repeated a couple of soft chuck calls.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:59 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
It was in this unique archipelago that Alexander Agassiz found the evidence he felt proved beyond doubt that Darwin's theory of coral reef formation was wrong, dead wrong.
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:57 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
