Want to talk of books, lovers, and mothers? Of course you do. On February 14, at 6:30 p.m., at Melville House in Brooklyn, fellow Atavist author Cris Beam, Wired and New York Times Magazine contributor Clive Thompson and I will be talking about memoir in the digital age — and Cris Beam’s Atavist hit Mother, Stranger and my own My…
Monthly Archives: January 2012
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Why Open Science? Michael Nielsen ‘Splains It To Ya
by David Dobbs •
In the wake of my post yesterday on the sudden surge of the open-science movement, I thought a primer on the subject would be useful for those lacking time to read my feature about why so many scientists want to ditch the traditional academic research and publishing model for something more open and decentralized. I…
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Testify: The Open-Science Movement Catches Fire
by David Dobbs •
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Glowing Maps of Scientific Collaboration
by David Dobbs •
This lovely map of scientific collaboration is done by research analyst Olivier Beauchesne at Science-Metrixm who examined scientific collaboration around the world from 2005 to 2009. I love the way the patterns in the EU, so dense and flaring, look like the center of an explosion. Here’s the same EU pattern up close: I would bet…
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Neuron Culture to SOPA: Drop Dead
by David Dobbs •
I’m stealing this direct from my colleague Maryn McKenna, who keeps the fabulous SuperBug blog here at Wired. Much of the Internet is dark today, to protest the ludicrous law known as SOPA. Here are some links, from McKenna, with which to eduficate yourself about his awful proposed legislation: Constant readers: Today, Wikipedia is locked, Boing Boing…
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Tortoise Sex, Via the Eyes of Lucky Jack Aubrey
by David Dobbs •
One of the many pleasures of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels, which follow through 20.5 volumes the Napoleonic-era adventures of British Royal Navy Caption Jack Aubrey and his surgeon/spy/naturalist Stephen Maturin, are the closely observed and imagined encounters with wildlife. O’Brian, being the masterful novelist he is, never just shows us the wildlife; we see that…
Culture of Science, Uncategorized
They Froze for Science — and Got the Eggs
by David Dobbs •
In winter I sometimes warm up by reading books with real cold. For a few years years I shuttled between Rick Bass’s Winter, about his first winter in Montana in the 1980s, and R.M. Patterson’s magnificent, shivering Dangerous River, of his days trapping the Yukon in the 1920s. Last week, partly to commemorate the centenary of…
Culture of Science, Uncategorized
Our Sickening Rush to See PTSD – and What It Costs Vets
by David Dobbs •
When Iraq-war veteran Benjamin Colton Barnes shot park ranger Margaret Anderson dead last week, the speculation started almost as soon as the gun reports faded: Barnes must have PTSD. I first saw this speculation on Twitter, where I suggested it was a tad early to speculate, since police were still trying to track Barnes down…