On Tuesday, I posted here an excerpt of a longer transcript of an interview I did with author David Quammen recently about his writing. We covered the blessings of scissors and notebooks, the complexity of viruses and deadly diseases, the dangers of staring open-mouthed at bats, the nuances of narrative strategy, and that special moment when you suddenly…
Monthly Archives: January 2013
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How David Quammen Gets The Goods: An Interview
by David Dobbs •
The wonderful shop-talk site for science writers, The Open Notebook, just published the first of two interviews I did recently with author David Quammen about how he researched and wrote his magnificent new book Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic. This first installment covers how Quammen gathers the raw materials for his work; next week’s…
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The Atlantic, Scientology, and the Theft of Credibility
by David Dobbs •
At a publication like The Atlantic, a writer earns the right to occupy editorial space through merit, not a sheaf of twenties slipped to the editor. Wired Science blogger David Dobbs explains why The Atlantic’s sale of editorial space to the Church of Scientology is a blow to the publication’s credibility.
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Pandemics P*rn – Great Reads About Nasty Bugs
by David Dobbs •
Note: This post first appeared at Slate this past December 28, where it came at the end of a fine series on Pandemics; it seeks to direct you to the best reading and tweeting about the bugs out to kill us. Other Pandemic series highlights included Carl Zimmer’s Koala pandemic genetics: Viruses have inserted themselves into the human genome…
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Strange Voices & Apartments as Antipsychotics – T.M. Luhrmann on Schizophrenia and Culture
by David Dobbs •
How does culture shape the expression of mental illness or anamolous mental states? I’ve explored that questions several times at Neuron Culture, sometimes provoking sharp objections to the idea that culture has any effect at all on the expression of psychosis — some people are just crazy, the response goes, and culture has little or…
Culture of Science, Uncategorized
The Case for Selective Paternalism in Genetic Testing
by David Dobbs •
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Genotyping Adam Lanza Is a Lousy Idea
by David Dobbs •
When I first heard that the medical examiner for the Sandy Hook shooting had asked for a genetic profile of the apparent shooter, Adam Lanza, I suggested on Twitter that this would end badly: The results will almost certainly be close to meaningless, but any variants formerly associated with particular behaviors, rightly or wrongly, will…
Culture of Science, Uncategorized
Embrace Your Dangerous Genome
by David Dobbs •
Virginia Hughes is “sick of reading about the dangers of the genome.” So she complains over at Slate, eloquently, and I’m sick right with her. Hughes, who blogs at National Geographic and is among our sharper followers of genetics, doesn’t mean “dangers” as in hazardous habits of actual genomes: She means the overhyped danger of “The…
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How a Pickpocket Cleans You Out
by David Dobbs •
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Gizoogle Turns Yo MuthaF’in Website All Gangsta Yo
by David Dobbs •
Too good to be true — yet it’s true. Type a search term into gizooogle, and the site will gangsta-lingo-ize both the search results and the pages you go to. The fun is endless. I, for instance, become Dizzy Dobbs, lyricist n’ journalist , and author of “My f__in Muthaf___’s Lover.” (Gizoogle doesn’t use blanks.*) Dizzy Dobbs,…
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