- Everybody go right now and support the effort to make a LEGO kit of the HMS Beagle. (But why does the creator’s Flickr photo set include a Jemmy Button figure, but not the official LEGO Ideas site?)
- In related news, the evolutionary success of smallness, and Rebecca Higgitt argues that Newton’s Principia is more influential than Darwin’s Origin. Fight!
- In praise of virtual classes: “Human brains have evolved with a flitting, fleeting ability to maintain focus on any one thing.”
- This article from Nautilus has won the AAAS’s Kavli Award for Science Journalism.
- The graph isomorphism problem is no longer a problem.
- “When there are incidents, trains are located by deduction.” That and other devastating lines can be found in this fantastic Atlantic investigation of the challenges of the large technological system/gigantic computer more commonly known as the New York subway.
- CRISPR and the dream of genetic manipulation, version 3.
- Former American Science blogger Lee Vinsel’s 95 theses on innovation.
- Astronomers have found a dwarf planet in the Solar system, more than 100 AUs away.
- And the many historical uses of beards.
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Transparent aluminum! And other weekly links for Wednesday, November 11, 2015
- Secret laboratories, destroyed samples, doctored tests: the World Anti-Doping Agency’s report on Russian athletics is so, so juicy.
- Relativity vs. quantum mechanics, round N+1. Also, here’s MIT’s Dave Kaiser on the politics of general relativity.
- Former American Science Blogger Henry Cowles is co-editor of a Focus section in the latest Isis on “Bounded Rationality and the History of Science.”
- Cool maps of the series of tubes that make up the Internet.
- Before Kurt Vonnegut was Kurt Vonnegut, he worked for General Electric.
- Revenge of the nerds: scientific celebrity financed by tech billionaires.
- Helen Macdonald on mushrooms, particularly the legendary Cambridge History and Philosophy of Science annual Fungus Hunt.
- And all you Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home fans (for non-fans, that’s the one where the crew has to save the whales) will be excited that transparent aluminum is now a real thing.
Links for Tuesday, November 3, 2015
In case you missed these from the past week:
- We’re featured on Public History Commons!
- A new paper in Science and Engineering Ethics questions the widespread use of “publication consultants” at every level of research, especially in biology and medicine, and suggests that their use should be made more transparent.
- Greenland is melting away, and the New York Times has a wonderful (and beautifully designed) account of Earth science in action.
- If there are aliens, they’re probably robots by now.
- Giant ancient earthworks in Kazakhstan have only been discovered with NASA’s help.
- Theranos, a company that has raised $9 billion on a promise to revolutionize blood testing, is coming under fire for its central claim: that it can produce results using only a pinprick’s worth of blood. “While hot Silicon Valley start-ups like Uber and Airbnb have run into regulatory hurdles, as a medical technology company, Theranos has bumped up against something else: the scientific method.”
- Quantum mechanics v. relativity.
- Microbiomes? The Times is on that too this week. Here’s a feature on the American Museum of Natural History’s new exhibit called “The Secret World Inside You.” And here’s the writeup of two new papers in Science and Nature, urging a national microbiome research initiative.
Links, Links, Links for Monday, 26 October, 2015
- We’re sad to report the passing of the eminent Early Modernist historian, Lisa Jardine.
- A new approach to federal heart research funding: raise the peaks and archive the valleys.
- New digital humanities project allowing you to “explore the early modern social network”–Six Degrees of Francis Bacon.
- Why we have no f***ing idea how to computationally simulate a human brain.
- The galaxy that got too big: why bigger isn’t always better.
- On galaxies and stars, a beautiful article on the most mysterious star in our galaxy.
- Better living through venom?
- Paul Kedrosky’s sociology of engineering explanation of one of our favorite subjects, the VW emissions scandal.
- And finally, we had a wonderful time at the 2015 Joint Atlantic Seminar for the History of Medicine, and Evan wrote a round-up of his time at this year’s SHOT in the land of Breaking Bad.
Links for weekend reading, Friday, 16 October, 2015
- The Chemical Heritage Foundation is merging with the Life Sciences Foundation.
- How Margaret Hamilton’s code got humans onto the moon.
- MIT historian/engineer David Mindell on robotic futures.
- Lisa Messeri on teaching the anthropology of outer space to STEM students.
- Aliens should be the last hypothesis you consider. But…
- Tuesday was Ada Lovelace Day.
- Alex Wellerstein on consulting for “Manhattan.”
- DNA is being engineered to authenticate art, though it doesn’t escape the ordinary problems of provenance.
- Humans as superorganisms.
- Lots of links about the newest Nobel Laureate in economics, Angus Deaton.
- This incredible story by the podcast 99% Invisible about engineering near-catastrophe just won a Third Coast radio award. Listen to it.
- And this blog’s own Elaine Ayers has a new essay on Richard Spruce and Victorian bryology.
Hit me with your best SHOT
I spent last weekend in Albuquerque, at the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) annual meeting. On the way from the airport to my motel, the cab driver took me on an unsolicited “Breaking Bad” tour of the city. We saw the motel where lots of drug deals went down in the show (and, he noted, in real life.) We skirted the parking garage that was the site of a significant plot development. We waved hello to Jesse Pinkman’s house.
In the spirit of my cab ride, here’s an ad hoc excursion through a few things that went on over the weekend. Continue reading
Lots of Links for Friday, October 9, 2015
- Mice (aka Major Tom) as harbingers of human expansion.
- Mars had LAKES!
- On metaphysics and science–why science can’t tell us whether science can tell us everything.
- Announcing Tropy, a Mellon-funded digital tool designed to help researchers organize, share, edit, and search the images they take in the archives.
- New climate change finding: rising sea temperatures (along with climatological events) have been bleaching our coral reefs.
- The money you spent on your calc textbook went to build an incredible house.
- Why did Europe’s weather model get Hurricane Joaquin right, while America’s model got it so wrong?
- A legend passes.
- Scientists test ape memory using some hilarious techniques.
- Did America’s tea trade with China create our first millionaires?
- Just in case you don’t want to win a Nobel Prize.
- “An object lesson in what happens when STEM majors don’t take enough courses in the humanities.”
- “Pharm-bitrage“: buy cheap drug brands without generic competitors, jack up prices, and profit while generics await approval.
- The folly of big science awards.
- And finally, did you catch our new posts on what Reddit can tell us about the future of science and on blood, bones, and a new T. rex for the Smithsonian’s Fossil Hall?