A team from the Antarctic Heritage Trust found some century-old negatives from the Shackleton’s 1914-1917 expedition. Some lovely photos, like that above, amidst them. Note the artful use of three men at varying distances to capture a sense of depth the photo would otherwise lack. Shackleton took some good photographers. Story at Imaging Resource.…
I wish I could remember who pointed this out on Twitter: Small Town Noir. A wonderland of strange stories and mug shots, from back in the day. On the back of Harold Kelty’s mug shot, a police officer wrote, “With Bill Harlan and John Hawk, stuck up Hutchinson Gas Station near New Wilmington, Pa.” The…
For posterity and ease-of-finding, here’s a chrono list of my more substantial publications of 2013. Fifteen pieces published elsewhere; one here at Neuron Culture; 30,000 some-odd words, not counting the interviews. A lighter year than some, since I was working mainly on The Orchid and the Dandelion, which I should finish in 2014 for publication in 2015.…
My latest at the New York Times looks at the work of child psychologist Richard Tremblay, who finds that violent criminals don’t become violent — they just stay that way. To understand the violent criminal, says Richard E. Tremblay, imagine a 2-year-old boy doing the things that make the terrible twos terrible — grabbing, kicking,…
As today is the anniversary of Amundsen’s win of the race to the South Pole, it’s a good time to remember a related failed journey — not Scott’s running up, but a side trip from Scott’s expedition taken by three men who set out to collect some eggs for science, suffered beyond belief, found the eggs,…
Though not all at once. Two fine and unusual angles one consciousness, that most ephemeral thing without which not much seems to happen. First, Brandon Keim, at Aeon, asks Do cockroaches have a form of consciousness?: These days I don’t much like to think of those ant-massacring mornings, but I did after reading about Backyard Brains,…
This morning Aeon published a revised version of my story “Die, Selfish Gene, Die,” which originally ran last Tuesday. The title is the same, the subtitle altered: Die, selfish gene, die For decades, the selfish gene metaphor let us view evolution with new clarity. Is it now blinding us? In the original (as in the…
Does this add up? Everyday Math is drill free. It’s jargon full. Complaints are widespread that it is confusing for parents and children. And it doesn’t build on concepts or scaffold understanding. It has children learn 2 plus 2 in 500 different ways, many of which involve answering questions like, “How did Tanya add two…
Below is a corrective comment I left below Jerry Coyne’s second of two posts (his first is here) critiquing “Die, Selfish Gene, Die,” my recent article in Aeon about complaints from some biologists that the “Selfish Gene” framing of genetics and evolution was hindering both public and scientific understanding of genetics and evolution. This is rather a tempest…
The company announced today that in reaction to the FDA’s order to marketing health-related information based on its genetic testing, it will cease providing that information to anyone who signed on after the FDA sent its letter on November 22, 2013. MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–23andMe Inc., the leading personal genetics company, today announced that it…