I’ve Got Your Missing Links Right Here (08 November 2014)

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Top picks

The 10 most controversial psychology studies ever published. Excellent list from Christian Jarrett.

A Tiny Stumble, a Life Upended. The NYT is publishing a great series on falls, by Katie Hafner.

Doug Emlen talks about the astonishing weaponry of dung beetles. The image is great.

This is a really fascinating history of the chapter, and how it has shaped the way we read. By Nicholas Dames.

Kat McGowan has written a great couple of pieces on Michael Tomasello’s work on why humans are more cooperative than other apes and why imitation made us great.

This is such an important op/ed on a huge downside of cancer screening & the problem w/ the “early detection = good” mantra. By H. Gilbert Welch.

Metascience could rescue the ‘replication crisis’. An important perspective on fixing psychology’s woes, vt Jonathan Schooler.

In a Mother’s Milk, Nutrients, and a (hormonal) Message, by Carl Zimmer

Lice evolved more recently that primates. Earlier estimates of their age were… lousy. A great take on a comprehensive new paper on insect evolution, by Gwen Pearson.

Want an explanation of Google’s cancer detector plans that isn’t just a tech journo wetting themselves with hype? Here, from Cancer Research UK

News/writing/science

What happens when grief doesn’t stop.

Find the planets in this image of a young solar system.

Humans inadvertently changed this fish’s genitals by building roads:

Remember, remember, the canine distemper

“It’s not a field expedition until your cameraman gets covered in bats”

“She wasn’t always a morbidly obese, custardy baby-making machine…” Bec Crew on the termite queen.

Amaze balls: testicles make more unique proteins than any other tissue in the body

Amazing video and explanation of comb jellies eating other comb jellies twice their size

How Ebola healthcare workers get dressed: a photo series.

“a key pair of sanitary oversights:… a culture of laissez-faire defecation and poorly clad feet.”

From Laika to the Russian sex geckos: a guide to animals in space.

Tilapia use pee to attract females

Birds found using human musical scales for the first time

The terrible impact of irrational fears of Ebola on tourism and wildlife throughout Africa

This Man Lost His Episodic Memory in a Traumatic Brain Injury, and Twitter is Helping Him Get it Back”

Norovirus uses our gut microbes to infiltrate our cells (by Carl Zimmer). And so does poliovirus (by me).

This 2013 paper suggests that the old story of kestrels seeing UV in vole urine may be bollocks

Half of stars lurk outside galaxies

The paper that started the whole oxytocin hype craze isn’t very statistically strong.

We don’t know the ocean. The images you have in your head are wrong.

“Punxsutawney Phil on steroids” lived in shadow of dinosaurs. HT @slugnads http://t.co/eGpE1qfptQ

Les Dethlefsen did a great Reddit AMA about the microbiome

Two takes on the SpaceShip Two crash: a straight one and an angry one.

What’s inside a flu shot? Besides AWESOME SUPERPOWERS.

New coating makes batteries much safer if they’re accidentally swallowed.

Can we really discriminate between a trillion smells? Or just 10?

Obese women earn less than thin women (or obese men). Virginia Hughes picks through the possible explanations

An etymological map of the brain

Some trilobites sported twin digestive tracks, a design seen in no animal alive today

Penguins, transform and roll out.

This is considerably worse than an earworm

NYT op/ed claims that “Science Isn’t Sexist”. Emily Willingham replies; also, it gets the Red Ink treatment

Heh/wow/huh

Flying Rocket Cats Come Alive In Animated Medieval Book Gifs

“Do you want to build a snowman?”

“This is my life we’re talking about here. And people need to respect that.”

Incredible shot of an owl swooping at the camera.

Me, all the time

“This is a ‘sexy BA’ at best.’ Women with PhDs review Amazon’s “sexy PhD” costume

For your viewing pleasure, a GIF of hundreds of hot air balloons (Note: Ronald Macdonald)

The Perpetual Disappointments Diary, with demotivational slogans & pages like “Notes toward an Incomplete Haiku”

Internet/journalism/society

Huge congratulations to the winners of this year’s AAAS/Kavli awards, including David Dobbs for his amazing piece on the social life of genes, George Johnson for his consistently excellent cancer reporting, and Mara Grunbaum for her original style of science writing.

Meet the Mysterious Creator of Rumor-Debunking Site Snopes

BuzzFeed: we don’t do clickbait because it doesn’t work.

“An employee at the NYC Health Dept has been suspended for 20 days for answering the phone in a robot voice.”

In which Megan Garber discovers that Samuel L. Jackson was the Internet’s first ironic spirit animal

“I’ve just had tiny cracks in this wall of indifference until finally the wall wasn’t there any more.” 15 rules for successful creative freelancing.

“That sense of Ouija boards as date facilitators carried on into the 20th century.”

Man Regrets Jumping Onto Whale Being Eaten By Sharks

The First Bra Was Made of Handkerchiefs

“Like a lyric poem, a chairlift suspends you in space while moving you through it.”

“Words might be the atoms of storytelling, but sentences are the molecules.”

Amazing lede in this Christopher Nolan story