I’ve Got Your Missing Links Right Here (08 August 2015)

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Top picks

“This ridiculous vision—in which Japanese cities were destroyed by a giant bomb full of bats that were themselves carrying tinier bombs—was called Project X-Ray.” By Cara Giamo.

“They are none of these things now. They are bone and muscle and tissue.” Amazing piece from Meehan Crist on dissections.

This abandoned termite mound turns out to be 2,200 YEARS OLD.

An achingly beautiful essay from Veronique Greenwood on an island on the edge of nowhere, and the urge to explore

Excellent Azeen Ghorayshi piece on the decision to operate on intersex babies

Inside the goth chicken: Black bones, black muscle & a black heart. By Kat McGowan

Cracking piece from Jeremy Farrar on the recent Ebola vaccine triumph & what the future holds. And how Ebola vaccine success could reshape clinical trial policy—an excellent explainer from the Nature News team.

Six National Geographic photographers and the lions they’ve seen.

Seeds That Defied Romans, Pirates, and Nazis. By Robert Krulwich

“What if you’re not a forty-year-old, hundred-and-fifty-four-pound man in a business suit? What if you’re a woman?” Anthony Lydgate on the sexism of thermostats.

Losing your sense of smell takes away more than scents and flavours. Fascinating story on anosmia by Emma Young.

This cute robot, called Boxie, can elicit the most revealing information from you. An interesting piece about our relationship with robots.

Science/news/writing

Plague and anthrax – now you see them, now you don’t!

That horrible time when you fail at sex and a scientist is live-tweeting the whole thing and you’re a hyena.

This piece on genetic privacy and mystery poopers includes the phrase “scatological scofflaw”.

Caution urged over editing DNA in wildlife (intentionally or not) (Great lede)

Why medical nanorobots aren’t a reality yet

50 terms that psychologists (and writers) should avoid and why.

Mistakes were made: science edition.

Jericho the lion, Cecil’s brother who was reputedly also killed, is alive and not Cecil’s brother. But still a lion.

Do bears get drunk off of rotting fruit?

What sneaky monkey sex can teach us about the evolution of primate minds

America’s Great Lakes are filling up with the beads in your toothpaste. Now fish are dying

4-legged snake fossil sparks legal investigation into whether specimen was exported illegally

Where to move to escape climate-change-related doom: Switzerland, maybe.

Homo sapiens had sex with Neanderthals, Denisovans & other archaic relatives

Bees naturally vaccinate their babies

“It was an otherwise normal day when Madeline realized she had accidentally grown a brain.”

This 5-ft-tall carnivorous plant was just recently discovered—on Facebook.

After Damning Torture Report, Psychology Fights For Its Soul

Researchers designed a tiny robot that can walk on water and leap free from its surface!

These Six Rebel Psychologists Just Won A Long War Against Torture

The story behind that “Thank You Science” Ebola vaccine pic

Heh/wow/huh

Painter uses charcoal created in forest fires to paint trees that died to make the charcoal.

Here’s how you can generate a 3D hologram with your smartphone

Comment is Weird

Are You An Introvert, An Extrovert, Or A Sea Monster?

Internet/journalism/society

Project aims to keep memories of Hiroshima survivors alive

“Role models don’t have to be superheroes, or even exemplary; there just have enough of them”

Figment, feign, fiction & effigy all share a root.

This South Korean neighbourhood banned cars for a month — and people loved it

Hitchhiking robot that relied on human kindness found decapitated

The robots are increasingly concerned about the human uprising