Nota Bene
ddobbs | June 23, 2010I'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:
A great rompy scary post from @susanorlean on how her book bounced around many publishers and editors.
Keith Kloor at Collide-a-scape has a round-up of stories on the "credibility of climate experts" report
"memory performance boosted while walking"  Beautiful. Perhaps why walking oft solves writing probs.  via @mariapage:
"Theory Is A Force That Gives Us Meaning" From @kerin at…
ddobbs | May 28, 2010
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A press release about Snails on methamphetamines works for me.  The story is about memory. The jokes are about snails:
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Snail Joke #1
A turtle gets mugged by a gang of snails. Cop is interviewing the turtle afterwards, still at the scene. Turtle still flustered. Cop asks, "Just start at the beginning."
"I don't know," says the turtle. "It all happened so fast."
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Snail Joke #2
Guy opens his front door and grabs the paper off the porch. There's a snail on it. He gives a flick of the wrist, and the snail sails off the porch into the garden.
Three weeks later there's a knock at the…
ddobbs | March 15, 2010
I've been following a new birding blog lately, "The Daily Wing," kept by Vermont bird guide, dragonfly follower, and writer Bryan Pfeiffer. It's a nice mix of
⢠birding how-to, with guidance both basic and intricate, such as his lovely entry on a bird-attraction technique he calls spishing (especially effective in winter):
The woods were otherwise silent. Vacant. But I suspected otherwise. So I stopped and spished.
"Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh. Psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp-psssp. Spshsh-spshsh-spshsh-spshsh."
Two white-throated sparrows jumped into view from a tangle of catbrier. Then several…
ddobbs | March 12, 2010Never thought I'd run an ad on my blog. But this is just so ... satisfying. And quite pretty. My favorite part is when the dog's feet leave the ground.
h/t @taylordobbs
ddobbs | February 3, 2010
I was thrilled this morning to learn that this humble, erratic blog was named one of Top 30 Science Blogs by Eureka, the new monthly science magazine recently launched by the Times of London. I find myself among some most admirable company, including giants, longtime favorites of my own, and a few blogs new-to-me-but-presumably-really-good-anyway.
Given my history of ambivalence about blogging, my sporadic rhythm, my not-best-practice of ranging far and wide, and my generally low traffic, I find this recognition a surprise, but a happy one. I feel a bit like I've been upgraded (possible…
ddobbs | 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, that hypothesis -- a simple but deeply transformative amendment of current views -- hoids that many 'risk genes' for behavior and mental problems magnify not just maladaptive responses to bad environments but advantageous responses to good environments. That is, these "risk genes" confer not just…
ddobbs | October 11, 2009Charlie 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 most dramatic and tragic attempts at K2 in 1953, pioneered the modern study of high-altitude physiology, practiced and taught medicine for decades, and at one point ran the Peace Corp. Amazing man. He was one of many physicians and scientists who have loved climbing and made huge contributions in…
ddobbs | September 27, 2009Maybe best argument yet for expanding the US rail system. I need to go here:
ddobbs | September 21, 2009Hubbard Park, Montpelier, VT, 9/21/09. Via Neil Young
Posted via email from David Dobbs's Somatic Marker
ddobbs | July 8, 2009
Ed Yong, echoed by Mike the Mad biologist PhysioProf asks what the heck investigative science journalism would look like. I hope to write more extensively on this soon. In the meantime, a few observations:
To ponder this question -- and to do investigative reporting -- I think it helps to have a sense of the history of science, which embeds in a writer or observer a sense of critical distance and an eye for large forces at work beneath the surface. Machinations in government surprise no one who has studied the history of government and politics. Likewise with science.
Science -- the search…
ddobbs | June 23, 2009
Perhaps because I so enjoyed the time I spent at sea learning about fish, I particularly enjoyed this collection of Nick Cobbing's photos of ice, sea, and people who work them â scientists, fishermen, adventurers. Cobbing has a great eye for color and form, particularly those of the icy north and the sea; his study of the Greenland ice, fast fading, is particularly stunning, and I very much like his photo account of the voyage of the Nooderlicht, pictured above â a 100-year-old schooner restored and then sailed from Svalbard to Greenland. And don't miss "The Watch Keeper," which is about…
ddobbs | April 28, 2009Leave it to Vaughn Bell to find this stuff: emotional maps of different cities. Got to get a hold of this -- and as Vaughn explains, you and I can, with free download. (But leave the author some $. It's the right thing to do.)
Nold came up with the idea of fusing a GSR machine, a skin conductance monitor that measures arousal, and a GPS machine, to allow stress to be mapped to particular places. He then gets people to walk round and creates maps detailing high arousal areas of cities.
The biomapping website has some of the fantastic maps from the project.
His book, called Emotional…
ddobbs | March 26, 2009A heads-up: to those in or near NYC:
Tuesday, March 31, at 6 pm, at 20 Cooper Square in NYC, I'll be giving a talk/discussion on blogging and long-form journalism -- particularly on the different demands, pros and cons, possibilities and constraints, and reader and writer experiences those two different modes of writing (and reading) impose and offer.
The event is part of the NYU journalism Science, Health, and Environmenatl Reporting programs's "Inside-Out" series. WSJ science columnist and former NASW president Robert Lee Hotz will sit down with me to discuss this and other topics.
We'll…
ddobbs | March 19, 2009Were the makers of that sheepherding-art video I put in an earlier post (and further below in this post as well) pulling the wool over our eyes? Can you really get sheep to do that stuff? My sister Ann, who sent me the link to start with and who has spent some time training sheepdogs and watched others do so, says Yes:
I think they're being true to "extreme sheepherding". Watch the tiny dots in the Pong game and you'll get a good idea; the tiny dots are the sheepdogs. The walking sheep is speeded up, but yes, it's great sheepdogs and great shepherds, hence the "extreme sheepherding". From…
ddobbs | March 19, 2009"Faith" is a fine invention
For gentlemen who see --
But microscopes are prudent
In an emergency.
Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
via A Word a Day, 3/17/09
ddobbs | February 22, 2009Came down from Vermont (home) to Boston yesterday for a 3-day vaca with the 4 and 7 year-old. Much-anticipated trip, everyone eager to escape the snow and same four walls and indulge some big-city excitement (like science museums).
The 7-year-old started a travel diary in a little 1.5x3-inch notebook. His first entry, written in the backseat about a half-hour after departure from our home in northern Vermont:
Many trees beside highway. Still not out of Vermont.
and later, when there were actually a few breaks in the forest cover:
Many wide, grassy plains. Dense forest on right side.
and…
ddobbs | February 13, 2009Oh man. This is good.
Via Kottke, who has other mixes as well.
Soviet Army dance ensemble + Run DMC = the invention of breakdancing in the mid-1900s.
ddobbs | February 12, 2009Despite the rain on my window, it's a fine day indeed, with many wonderful celebrations of Darwin's 200th ringing throughout the blogoshere.
Most of these, naturally, focus on Darwin's theory of evolution and its many implications and reverberations. I much admire that theory. But what I find most fascinating about Darwin is not his theory of evolution but his method of empiricism. For as vital as was Darwin's theory of evolution was, his impact on how we view ourselves is rivaled by his impact on how we view and do science.
This and many other perverse oddities struck me when I was…
ddobbs | February 11, 2009
Just lost my physical science book... How is that possible? It's so BIG.
People do not believe in science.
masturbation IS a science
why did i decide to get involved with this computer science networking stuff? i am an arts person! what was i thinking? lol
sitting here doing science homework , o fun.
painting my nails... but should probably do my science homework?
Science nerd Alert:I just spent an hour learning about the evolution of early tetrapods. Evolution is so damn cool
its 7 pm i have 3 hours to get all caught up on my science paper design a wine poster and type of my life plan for…