I’ve got your missing links right here (30 September 2012)

ByEd Yong
September 30, 2012
4 min read

Shorter list today – I’ve been travelling.

Top picks

Feel Ben Goldacre’s ire in every syllable of this extract from his new book: Bad Pharma

WOW! Watch from INSIDE a mussel’s shell, as a starfish shoves its stomach in and starts digesting

This chart details how to establish a permanent human presence in space. And it. Is. Amazing.

Amazing post by John Hutchinson on how thick rhino skin is, what a skinned rhino looks like & a big heart full of love for rhinos

What fresh sorcery is this? Hg(SCN)2 plus fire = bizarre root tendril monster thing.

WOW! Curiosity finds evidence of an ancient Martian riverbed!

“If every person on Earth aimed a laser pointer at the Moon at the same time, would it change color?”

Excellent article on the 17th century discovery of sperm and eggs by Matthew Cobb.

Two great pieces on the pseudoscience of food: Keith Kloor on how anti-GMO activists are polluting science communication with tactics commonly used by anti-vaccination people; and

Google Sea View. Incredible.

Mothers: your children are on your mind. No, literally, bits of them are inside your brain. By Emily Willingham.

In which Megan Garber chats to Randall Munroe of XKCD. I have a case of awesomeness poisoning

This headline will NEVER be beaten: “Buddhist “Iron Man” Found by Nazis Is from Space”

News/science/writing

Woman has new ear grown on her arm and attached to her head. Warning: graphic. Also: amazing.

How to carve a drop of water with a knife

Bot passes as human in a first-person shooter Turing test

Hummingbirds are just as efficient when flying backwards or hovering forward.

GM trials slash dengue mosquito numbers

Picture the Predator’s face…but on fish genitals

Cancer rates set to drop 17 per cent by 2030. Also gives absolute rates. Excellent. “Stupid times require stupid solutions, says Romney”

Drugs Live: The Ecstasy Trial” aired on Channel 4 earlier this week. It sounds absolutely awful.

Common sundew snatches prey up with super-fast catapult.

Psychology (and probably all of science) needs more replications,” says new President Elect of SPSP

Experimental setup: listen to laughter while a scientist burns your hands with a laser

Trees come from the air, explains Feynman

French doctors stand trial over cancer radiation scandal

More power to rangers: What can be done to stop record level of elephant poaching?

Russian chemist provides independent scientific testimony, jailed for her troubles

Great Ilana Yurkiewicz post on the RCT that shows gender bias in science is real, and why it matters

PLOS kicks of a riot when it announces that it will retract papers whose major conclusions are not supported.

Remember the horrendous Science It’s a Girl Thing video? Here’s a contest to make a better one.

Lawd, this cancer story irritates me: MD Anderson’s unqualified hype, CNN’s “Breaking news”, the piss-poor sci-comm.

So exactly why can’t we open the windows of an airplane? AV Flox talks to Michael Habib who lays it all out beautifully

Asiatic cheetahs snatch livestock. Amazing 2nd photo.

In Prehistoric Britain Cannibalism Was Practical and Ritualistic. (Now, just impractical and slapdash).

 

Heh/wow/huh

A hummingbird skeleton  next to an elephant bird femur

Well HELLO, you handsome devil

Why weapons forged from fallen stars will give you cancer

The Stone Balancers of Flagstaff

Easy mistake to make.

Heh. The Onion issues a correction

What kind of dinosaur is Godzilla?

 

Internet/journalism/society

Writers and their pet punctuation marks

Drones. Crap.

Driverless Cars Would Reshape Automobiles *and* the Transit System

Editor says blogs aren’t journalism, but then retires. More of this please.

Guardian plans a new pyramid scheme training scheme for journalists, to fill the jobs that don’t exist.

Jonah Lehrer speaks up about the accusations against him… and is STILL lying.

Extraordinary (if slightly bizarre) post about meeting a troll.

HA! Four words that should never appear in the same page 1 story: Cancer, Cure, Gina and Kolata

Five feminists hate-read Naomi Wolf’s book. Hilarious.

11yrs ago, I was at university. Meanwhile, this man was imprisoned at Guantanamo. Never charged, never convicted, now dead

Robin Ince on comedians, rape jokes, where’s the line? is there a line?

Fund newspapers w/ a broadband levy? Sure. Or you could make a product people actually want to buy..

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