Curiosity selfie (NASA)

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.