December 9, 2009
Over at the Times Magazine Motherlode blog, Lisa Belkin ran a short post about my Atlantic "Orchid Children" piece a couple days ago, and some of the responses she got strike to an issue that has come up quite a few other places. I posted a note on this at Motherlode, and wanted to expand on it a…
December 7, 2009
1. Maybe it was just the headline ... but the runaway winner was "No pity party, no macho man." Psychologist Dave Grossman on surviving killing. Actually I think it was the remarkable photo, which looks like a painting. Check it out.
2. I'm not vulnerable, just especially plastic. Risk genes,…
December 7, 2009
I'm happy to announce that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publisher of many a fine book over the decades, will be publishing "The Orchid and the Dandelion" (working title), in which I'll explore further the emerging "orchid-dandelion hypothesis" I wrote about in my recent Atlantic story. (In brief,…
November 22, 2009
Brian Lehrer
I'll be talking with WNYC's excellent Brian Lehrer on his show this morning, from 11:06 to about 11:25, discussing my Atlantic article about the "orchid gene" hypothesis, which holds that many of the genes that are known to make us vulnerable to problems such as depression,…
November 13, 2009
I will suck your gruyere
Tyler Cowen on why people love vampire tales:
Vampire stories offer a platform for exploring the theme of pure, limitless, and eternal desire, yet without encountering the absurdities that might result from planting that theme in a realistic, real world setting, such as…
November 12, 2009
One of my favorite Roz Chast cartoons shows a woman dumping out the high-falutin' contents of a filing cabinet drawer â 16th century art, or something like that â to make room for a new drawer full of information about new TV shows. This is the finite filing cabinet model of memory, in which you…
November 12, 2009
Is this the foreshadowing of a highly unethical marketing practice? Marketing based on MAO-A genotype, as determined from mailed-in credit card applications and payments? Credit card companies will have in-house labs to extract DNA from stamps and envelope flaps (Sinclair & McKechnie, 2000; Ng…
November 12, 2009
Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, has asked the Pentagon for info on how many troops in war zones have been prescribed antidepressants while they were deployed. Cardin sent a letter Tuesday to US Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressing concern about how antidepressants are being…
November 12, 2009
Hardly a day passes without yet another breathless declaration in the popular press about the relevance of neuroscientific findings to everyday life. The articles are usually accompanied by a picture of a brain scan in pixel-busting Technicolor and are frequently connected to references to new…
November 10, 2009
The video interview above, with NIH primatologist Stephen Suomi, is embedded within a feature of mine that that appeared today at The Atlantic website -- and is in the December 2009 issue now shipping -- about a new hypothesis in behavioral genetics.
This emerging hypothesis, which draws on…
November 6, 2009
James Fallows gets the shootings right, as he does so much else:
In the saturation coverage right after the events, the "expert" talking heads are compelled to offer theories about the causes and consequences. In the following days and weeks, newspapers and magazine will have their theories too.…
November 6, 2009
Posted via web from David Dobbs's Somatic Marker
The Maldives, featured in a Wired gallery of islands shot from space. A place crucial to the story I told in Reef Madness: Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral. It was in this unique archipelago that Alexander…
November 5, 2009
Tell me that doesn't leave you wanting more. Ed Yong delivers:
Male bats create tents by biting leaves until they fall into shape. These provide shelter and double as harems, each housing several females who the male mates with. Fruit bat sex goes like this: the female approaches and sniffs the…
November 5, 2009
Pardon my light posting lately. Flat out with big projects, travel, and the stacking of the wood for the winter.
This, however, is what has jumped out at me from the intertubez of late:
Meet the New Health Care Reform, Same as the Old Health Care Reform
At Top Schools, More Than Half the Profs…
November 5, 2009
Preston Gannaway, The Virginian-Pilot
When I did my story on the overextension of the PTSD diagnosis in vets (and elsewhere), I found Grossman's take on the psychic toll of killing (and almost being killed) among the most compelling. His "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in…
November 5, 2009
By way of demonstration, the group plugged in stats from the Oct. 11 playoff game between the Angels and the Red Sox:
BOSTON -- Things looked bleak for the Angels when they trailed by two runs in the ninth inning, but Los Angeles recovered thanks to a key single from Vladimir Guerrero to pull out…
November 4, 2009
Just heard of a neat article about why feeling stupid on a regular basis is actually a good sign if you're doing serious scientific research. The article is by a fellow named Martin Schwartz, a professor of microbiology and biomedical engineering at the University of Virginia, and it was…
October 27, 2009
A bit early yet, but as I'm traveling the rest of the month, here's my top 5 over the last month.
1. The Weird History of Adjuvants, in which we ponder the inclusion of eye of newt and such in vaccines, and the strangeness of the fact that dirty is good.
2. Why is the swine flu vaccine so late…
October 26, 2009
In a disturbing post at ScienceInsider, Jon Cohen and Martin Enserink explain why the swine flu vaccine is running so late. Or at least they try to explain why it's so late. For while all the suppliers are running into problems, we're not allowed to know what they are.
The delays are substantial…
October 21, 2009
Nurses and doctors have won a victory in their battle for their "right" to infect patients with easily prevented pandemic influenza.
Judge Halts Flu Vaccine Mandate For Health Workers
via pandemicchronicle.com
Posted via web from David Dobbs's Somatic Marker
October 21, 2009
"Book Launch 2.0" This kills me -- but maybe just because I've written books. (Oh yeah -- the links to the books. First two here. Reef Madness here. Buy 'em. Read 'em. They're better than the stuff you're reading now.)
This video should follow or be followed by Ellis Weiner's "Our Marketing Plan…
October 21, 2009
1. The tireless, and occasionally tiresome, advocacy on behalf of liberal bloggers and interest groups for the public option. Whatever you think of their tactics -- I haven't always agreed with them -- the sheer amount of focus and energy expended on their behalf has been very important, keeping…
October 16, 2009
Don't see this every day. From the excellent Dovdox, Alan Dove's scijo blog:
Awhile back, I commented on the finding that abandoned swimming pools at foreclosed houses are producing a boom in mosquito-borne infections. Now, it seems, some Floridians have found a way to deal with at least one…
October 14, 2009
via press.princeton.edu
I am extremely pleased to report that my friend Adrienne Mayor's riveting (if queasy-making) biography of Mitradates, "Poison King," is a finalist for the National Book Award. It's wonderful to see a skillfully executed and absorbing account of an obscure bit of history get…
October 14, 2009
"The Brite Nightgown," from Donald Fagen's First And Only Solo Tour (2006) -
Dana Blankenhorn, who brings a distinctive mix of skepticism, intelligence, and gruff impatience to his flu coverage, digests some unsettling stats from the JAMA articles. Some of his highlights:
* Health care workers…
October 14, 2009
For its pure strangeness.
The Makura-gaeshi (âpillow-moverâ) is a soul-stealing prankster known for moving pillows around while people sleep. The creature is invisible to adults and can only be seen by children. Anatomical features include an organ for storing souls stolen from children, another…
October 13, 2009
Mount Pisgah, diving into Lake Willoughby, way up noth
Vermont, my chosen and beloved place of residence, took the top spot last week in the Commonwealth's "State Scorecard" for healthcare, which ranks states based on access, quality, costs, and health outcomes.
For people who live elsewhere,…
October 11, 2009
Charlie Houston, right, in 1936 with Pasang Kikuli (center) and British climbing legend Bill Tilman
I used to do a bit of climbing and a lot of climbing reading -- a deep and rich literature.
If you read much about American climbing history, you'll read about Charlie Houston, who made one of the…
October 9, 2009
The healthcare debate in Lincoln, NE, earlier this year. photo: Nat Harnik, AP, via the NY Times
The tone of discussions of reform in both Congress and the blogosphere has changed remarkably over the last few days. It's gone from pessimistic to optimistic, and from a sense of retreat and a…
October 8, 2009
Probably dreaming.
But these the rise of the public option and the fade of the flu sometimes seem so real.
swine flu, public option, healthcare reform
