A few months ago I posted here about “Chasing Ice,” a film following photographer James Balog’s quest to document the shrinkage of ice fields and glaciers as climate change melted them away. I was quite moved, when I saw it in theater in my current hometown, not just by Balog’s efforts but by the electrifying…
Monthly Archives: April 2013
Uncategorized
How to Place Rose Petals on Your Lover’s Skin (& Write About Science)
by David Dobbs •
The Guardian and the Wellcome Trust have been holding a science-writing prize contest lately, and to accompany it The Guardian has been running a superb series of interviews with science writers about how to write about science. Geoff Brumfiel, Helen Pearson, Roger Highfield, Linda Geddes, Jo Marchant, and many more have all weighed in — a…
Brains and Behavior, Uncategorized
How A Four-Year-Old Kicked My Butt at Blickets
by David Dobbs •
In the clip above, filmed in the lab of University of California, Berkeley, cognitive psychologist Alison Gopnik, a particularly charming 4-year-old girl named Esther is playing a game that Gopnik made up. The game is called Blickets. The goal is to figure out which of the clay figures are blickets, as indicated by which clay…
Uncategorized
Aglitter in the Net – Readings from April 2013, week 3
by David Dobbs •
Uncategorized
In and Out of Autism: Steve Silberman on Amy Harmon’s ‘Asperger Love’
by David Dobbs •
From Autism, Inside and Out, Steve Silberman’s review of Amy Harmon’s Byliner hit “Asperger Love”: Anyone who has spent time with autistic people can tell you that they’re intensely concerned with how other people are feeling, to the point of being overwhelmed. But they often can’t piece those feelings together from the usual clues of…
Anthropology, Brains and Behavior
The Most Dangerous Words in Genetics
by David Dobbs •
Prof. Steve Jones: ‘Nature or Nurture?’ from The Lost Lectures on Vimeo. “The most dangerous words in genetics,” says geneticist Steve Jones, “are ‘the gene for.’ It’s just one pithy and wise insight in a talk stuffed with them — an essential warning against hubris, an appeal to humility, and a very funny 20-minute romp…