Courtesy either David Slater or Naruto, depending on what you think of nonhuman agency
- The new movie The Martian got its start as a blog. It’s out the week NASA announces the discovery of water on the red planet. So why, Lisa Messeri asks, does the science of Mars fare so poorly against Matt Damon?
- Tim Flannery reviews two extraordinary-sounding books about the social lives of animals. In related news: macaquetor-network theory at work. (In possibly-related news: the woolliest sheep in the world is in Australia. Or was, before it was emergency-sheared.)
- Turns out it wasn’t just Volkswagen manipulating its emissions tests. Oops! But the story of how VW went down this road is very interesting and very STS.
- A conference at the CUNY Graduate Center called “The Way of the Flesh” on April 7-8 is now taking submissions.
- A stunning graphic about the history of colors from Lapham’s Quarterly.
- Cheese in evolutionary perspective.
- Arctic dinosaurs discovered!
- And in case you missed it, the new MacArthur geniuses.
