I’ve Got Your Missing Links Right Here (11 July 2015)

ByEd Yong
July 11, 2015
4 min read

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Top picks

Two pairs of identical twins were mixed up at birth and raised as two pairs of fraternal twins. Then they found each other. It’s the plot of Comedy of Errors, but in real life. By Susan Dominus.

New horned dino Wendiceratops was named after professional fossil hunter Wendy Sloboda, who then got it tattooed on her arm.

“Here’s What it Takes to Study Dolphin Vaginas.” Everything about this Diane Kelly post is gold

A lizard mystery that remains unsolved, despite gluing magnets to their heads and fitting them with ping-pong balls. Wonderful story from James Gorman.

What do you do with a cannon that shoots dead birds? “An approved bird is then loaded into a cannon device and shot into the engine” By Elizabeth Lopatto.

Superb & sensitively handled investigation from Peter Aldhous on the silent monkey victims of the war on terror. Fantastic journalism, right here.

Why have we failed to get cholera outbreak in Haiti under control? Rose George finds out.

Meet the woman who can live on only 4 hours sleep. By Helen Thomson.

Flyboard: When you want to do more than just to walk on water

 

New/science/writing

This snake decapitates its prey, and leaves the heads alone

Bonobos are as good at using tools as early humans were

How did Texas longhorns get their long horns?

The “phytobiome“. Plant microbiomes getting attention, their own buzzwords.

British newspapers: where your own bloggers have to correct the spurious rubbish that you publish elsewhere in your pages. This time, on alien life and comets. Again.

HIV vaccine researcher sentenced to prison for scientific fraud

When did adults start drinking a lot of milk, and why?

It’s hard to fly by a world when you don’t actually know where it is

Proposed names for Pluto system’s features include Kirk, Spock, Skywalker, Leia, Toto, Dorothy.

Rachel Dolezal and the science of “sounding black”

Scientists discover why the seahorse’s tail is so square, but they still have no idea about you.

Wolves and monkeys, hunting together. We are all doomed.

How to become a fossil primate

“Drew’s goal is to give the community the science they need to try and preserve a sustainable food source”

How long is a film if you edit out the white people from films & show only lines spoken by people of color?

Bontebok can’t jump (and that saved the species)

Presence of nerve tissue suggests the spider’s sex life isn’t an entirely numb deal

Weirdo deep-sea anemone kills giant worm, burrows underground, turns up in random places.

Paul Nurse comes down on the right side of the endless Tim Hunt debate, and UCL correctly stands their ground

Ancient comb jellies had skeletons, but they still lost the arms race

Cone snails turned a defence mechanism into a weapon for eating fast-moving fish prey

After we reach Pluto, none of us alive today will see a new planet up close for the first time again

Carl Zimmer explains what makes a good explainer

Why is sleep so elusive? The first of a three-part series

The tarantula hawk wasp. Bloody hell, nature

Geneticists reveal what makes great rice

“We have to get beyond the opposing extremes that science is either 100% correct, or else just another point of view”

 

Heh/wow/huh

Greeks apologise with huge horse

Clickhole wins.

Is this the weirdest science paper ever? An elephant cured of its autism will bring world peace

Zoos have been doing this for ages!”

So, You Want To Be a Freelancer.

 

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