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: 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
Ed Yong , Mo Costandi , Scientific American , and others have covered nicely a new paper finding that people with WIlliams syndrome (a condition I've been interested in since writing a long feature about it for the Times Magazine a few years back) show little or no racial bias. ... After I wrote in my Atlantic article about getting my serotonin transporter gene assayed (which revealed that I carry that gene's apparently more plastic short-short form), I started getting a lot of email — several a week — from readers asking how to have their SERT gene tested.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:19 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: Brains and minds
Reading, ants, reading about ants, and Ezra Klein fact-checks David Brooks
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:30 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Culture of science
How "This is Nifty" science stories are (part of) the foundation of democracy.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:36 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
Healthcare reform? Were we talking about healthcare reform?
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:28 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Healthcare policy
We don't have a government-run system. But our system is so expensive that our government's partial role is pricier...
Posted by David Dobbs at 6:46 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
This is a good example of how reflexive diagnoses, as PTSD has become for any combat veteran (and sometimes even prospective combat veterans -- i.e., troops preparing to deploy), can do harm. They can lead you to ignore other possible causes of the symptoms on display.
Posted by David Dobbs at 11:36 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Public health
Nurses and doctors have won a victory in their battle for their "right" to infect patients with easily prevented...
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:47 AM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Public health
The steps we've taken, while half-measures to be sure, reflect the state's essential decency and civility. Yet Vermont's distinction is not in curing the healthcare problem. We're just stanching the bleeding a bit better than other states.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:37 AM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
casaubon's book 02.13.2012
denialism blog 02.13.2012
respectful insolence 02.13.2012
evolutionblog 02.12.2012
starts with a bang! 02.11.2012
