“You’ll Die Too.” Texas Evangelicals Top the Week’s Longreads
I have loved Texas Monthly ever since my parents, third-generation Texans raising me in Houston, were wise enough to be among the …
Aglitter This Week: Paleo Poo, Contentious Comb Jellies, Dead Butterflies, et alia.
Some I read and liked, others just look good. Not news: Most of us carry Neanderthal genes. News: Collectively we carry about 20 …
Stuff You Wish Would Go In Your Book But Won’t
Last year I talked to a primatologist in his mid-80s, still sharp, still in his office most days, a pleasant spot in …
Love Poems About Elephant Skin, Rhino Skin, Hippo Skin, and Snake Skin – For Science
I’ve been reading some of Harry Harlow’s papers, and am in wonder at his seminal “The Nature of Love,” his 1958 Presidential …
If Birds Left Trails Like Tracer Bullets, It’d Look Like This
Dennis Hlynsky, a photographer/filmmaker and professor at Rhode Island Institute of Design, has been filming various bunches of birds — murmurations of …
Sex Reverses Cognitive Decline of Aging. At Least in Rats.
From the lab of Liz Gould, who quite knows her neurogenesis; she’s one of those who proved a few years back that it …
Why Do Military Brats Kick Butt in Reading and Math?
Helen Epstein, in an aside in her fine piece on public-health innovator Sara Josephine Baker, suggests it rises partly from the excellent …
William Faulkner Is One Tough Interview
I’ve been combing through various of the Paris Review “Writers At Work” interviews, which are spectacular. William Faulkner looks like a pretty …
Janet Malcolm’s Inescapable Truthfulness
At the New Yorker’s “What We’re Reading” blog, Sasha Weiss articulates some of the many reasons I so enjoy Janet Malcolm: Reading …
Will the FDA Regulate Just Genetic Risk Data, or All Risk Data?
The latest in the 23andme versus FDA saga, in which the FDA halted 23andme from offering health-risk analyses of the genotyping service …