Now on ScienceBlogs: WASH YOUR DAMN HANDS!...And Clean Your Stuff
David Dobbs on science, nature, and culture.
I write 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. (Find clips here.)
I've also written three books, including Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral, which traces the strangest but most forgotten controversy in Darwin's career — an elemental dispute running some 75 years. Oliver Sacks found Reef Madness "brilliantly written, almost unbearably poignant." Check it out.
If you'd like, you can subscribe to Neuron Culture by email. You might also want to see more of my work at my main website or check out my Tumblr log.
Category: Culture of science
He walked away from it cold, and went on to live a rich, fulfilling life. He and Moyers talk about something else for a bit. And then Moyers returns to the climb, "I know you did so much else, but I want want to return to that K2 climb again...," says Moyer. And Houston says, "The best thing I ever did."
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:20 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Mariners announcer Mike Blowers, asked before the game for his prediction of the game, predicted a rookie player would hit a homer into the second deck in left-center in his second at-bat on a 3-1 fastball. Man did it.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:23 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Brains and minds
Good times never seemed so good, indeed. I would never have imagined what an impossibly infectious, joyful thing that could be. It was the most incredible large-group social event I've ever been a part of.
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:41 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Sports
The curveball further explained; Koufax Ks Mantle; and how even Koufax was better than his peerless stuff.
Posted by David Dobbs at 7:36 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Sports
The good curves do that: Even when you have that millisecond of curveball detection beforehand, they still seem to take a bend sharply and suddenly late in their path, as if some invisible hand gave them an extra tap. Here's how they (appear to) do that.
Posted by David Dobbs at 3:22 PM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Art
In a few slender leg bones and fragments of milk-stained pottery, archaeologists recently found evidence of one of the more important developments in human history: the domestication of horses. Unearthed from a windswept plain in Kazakhstan, the remains were about 5500 years old, and suggested that a nomadic people now called the Botai had learned to ride a creature that had captured mankind's imagination thousands of years earlier.
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:48 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Nota Bene
Oh I could do that. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z19zFlPah-o&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z19zFlPah-o&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Posted by David Dobbs at 8:50 PM • 1 Comments •
Category: Science policy
"Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4 p.m. Bring wine and caviar only.". Woman emails party invitations while asleep. Hat tip: BoingBoing
Posted by David Dobbs at 9:42 AM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Medicine
CNN has a fascinating and rather frightening story about the toll football (or the concussions acquired playing it) take on...
Posted by David Dobbs at 1:51 PM • 4 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Books
This is a rare book -- a serious but seriously fun work about the complicated process of thinking that is bright, lucid, and lively while still being true to the science. "How We Decide" is the thinking person's "Blink."
Posted by David Dobbs at 10:45 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
