Friday Link Dump

Science

- There's a new flu strain running around in China. As is often the case, Maryn McKenna over at Wired has the most important piece to read.

- Allie Wilkinson's piece in Ars Technica about a climate change's irreversibility, but not inevitability... it's a weird distinction, but it makes sense.

- Another good post from Keith Kloor on GMOs, but I'm not a fan of equating Monsanto with GMOs. One is a company, the other is a technology. Just because the technology is used by the company, that does not imply that the two are related.

Not Science

- The most important video I've seen in a while. Normally, I dislike TED - but this is important. Lawrence Lessig on money and politics

- Google bought up Nik Software (tools for editing photographs), and recently released them all for cheap. I've been using them for less than 24 hours and I am in love... absolutely amazing. You can try them for 14 days for free. Only downside is you can't use them for non-destructive editing, but still.

Music

Haven't been listening to much music lately, but this song is amazing:

More like this

WHOO! FREE book on GMOs, written by actual scientists and farmers, compiled by a former anti-GMOer who is now convinced of GMOs utility:
Before I get to the substance of this post, let me state that I'm not a big fan of genetically modified food crops (GMO crops). And there are few bloggers who have spent more time blogging about antibiotic resistance (never mind spending part of his professional career addressing the problem).
There is a food crisis sneaking up on us right now. A lot of them, actually. A lot of little one, some big ones. There are always places in the world where food has become scarce for at time, and people starve or move.
So far, my new experimental Skeptical Search Engine has been used hundreds of times, and the top searchers are: