I resist best-of-year roundups when I see the heads — but then find I usually like reading them, and lo and behold, find it instructive to do my own. While most of my attention last year went into pitching and then beginning work on The Orchid and the Dandelion, I spent a lot of time in Neuron Culture exploring other issues as well. A look back reveals some abiding interests amid my distractability: behavioral genetics; reading and writing; calling bullshit on bad media; how depression works and what it is; and the big transition in the science blogosphere sparked by Pepsigate.
I’ve pulled my own choice of Top 10 up top here, for those who want the short list approach. Same entries are also embedded in the chrono list further down.
TOP TEN NEURON CULTURE POSTS OF 2010
The depression map: genes, culture, serotonin, and a side of pathogens The most substantive post of the year, the one most relevant to the book I’m writing, and the most novel and powerful idea I blogged about this year. If the depression risk gene heightens risk for depression, how come the populations who carry that gene at the highest rates have the lowest rates of depression? A really juicy look at what we mean by “environment.”
The year’s funnest and most popular post, hands down, was Kill Whitey. It’s the Right Thing to Do, which reviews a David Pizarro study that is both rigorous and almost scandalously fun.
Does depression have an upside? It’s complicated. One of my favorite posts of the year. I was trying to respond to some slippery questions raised by Jonah Lehrer’s New York Times Magazine story on whether depression is adaptive from an evolutionary perspective. Tricky work, but I felt I got across what I wanted to here.
The Bright Side of the “Depression-Risk Gene” “The reclamation of the ‘depression gene’ proceeds apace, as a leading researcher on the Gene Formerly Known as the Depression Gene — that is, the short allele of the serotonin transporter gene — reviews the evidence for the advantages it confers.
Carr, Pinker, the shallows, and the nature-nurture canard. The debate over whether the internet rots our brains is interesting in its own right. But it also reveals a stubborn insistence on viewing nature v nurture as opposing forces instead of entwined strands.
Is page reading different from screen reading? This overlaps a bit with the concerns in the Carr-Pinker piece, and it too is responding to a rich and provocative post of Jonah’s, in this case about the future of reading. As someone on Twitter noted, my own essay turned out to be as much about writing on paper versus screen as about reading.
More metamedia: Malcolm Gladwell: Twitter, You’re No Martin Luther King. I had forgotten this one until I looked back to do this round up. This was my smack at Malcolm Gladwell for his article about limits of twitter. Fun in its own right, and nice to because a version of this ended up in the Atlantic’s tech blog, run by Alexis Madrigal. I consider that tech blog, incidentally, one of the most exciting things that has happened in the blogosphere this year. Madrigal had done great stuff writing at Wired Science, and he has simply exploded with creative ideas and great work at the Atlantic. It’s a lovely thing to see.
The Pepsi can explodes. Three-for-one here: When ScienceBlogs sold a blog spot to Pepsi. I was the second one out the door there, leaving the minute I got my posts exported. My exit post, a food blog I can’t digest, got a lot of attention, as did my rejoinder to Virginia Heffernan’s Times Magazine column, I state the problem most completely in Why I’m Staying Gone from ScienceBlogs.
The Marc Hauser scandal, which broke a month after the Pepsigate scandal, also several strong interests of mine and inspired multiple posts.The most important were Marc Hauser, monkey business, and the sine waves of science, which was my first; This Hauser thing is getting hard to watch, an update; and my last (for now), A Rush to Moral Judgment: What went wrong with Marc Hauser’s search for moral foundations.
NEURON CULTURE: THE YEAR IN REVIEW
February
Comes a Time for Neil Young. How I love this guy. Here Neil, who sometimes looks grumpy at all the stupidity that goes with being a music star, looks like he’s having a good time, and he’s so young and so beautiful and strong, and just LISTEN to him sing that out with Nicollete Larson. Now he’s old, sort of, and beautiful and strong, and he just keeps doing it. Long may he run.
March
Never metamedia I didn’t like: Cool/nifty versus funny-smelling/fishy stories: Why we need both kinds. One of several follow-ups to issues raised at ScienceOnline 2010.
Does depression have an upside? It’s complicated. One of my favorite posts of the year. I was trying to respond to some slippery questions raised by Jonah Lehrer’s New York Times Magazine story on whether depression is adaptive from an evolutionary perspective. Tricky work, but I felt I got across what I wanted to here, and it’s important stuff.
April
Genomes, cool conferences, and what the hell to tell people about behavioral genes
How does Williams syndrome prevent racism? It’s subtle
Your genetic info — not free, easy, or clear. After I wrote in my Atlantic article about getting my serotonin transporter gene assayed (which revealed that I carry that gene’s apparently more plastic short-short form), I started getting a lot of email — several a week — from readers asking how to have their SERT gene tested. This led to an interesting hunt.
May
“Push” science journalism, or how diversity matters more than size
Werner Herzog asks: Where’s Waldo?
June
iPad, therefore iKludge. On reading on the iPad. Still struggling with the mixture of this mixed blessing.
Carr, Pinker, the shallows, and the nature-nurture canard. The formatting went nuts in the move from Scienceblogs to Wired, but I still like this post, which addresses the stubborn obsession with casting nature v nurture as opposing forces instead of entwined strands.
July
The Pepsi can exploded, spraying far and wide. I was the second one out the door, leaving as soon as I could export my posts, adn my exit post, a food blog I can’t digest, got a lot of attention, as did my rejoinder to Virginia Heffernan’s Times Magazine column, But the most substantial post was Why I’m Staying Gone from ScienceBlogs.
An insubstantial post noting that The Onion sequences Ozzy Osbourne’s genome became one of my biggest hits ever, because it got Dugg, and I guess because people really love Ozzy. Go figure.
My own favorite in July was Good parents, bad kids, and the distraction of nature-nuture. Here I reviewed a Times piece about how good parents could end up with bad kids. Methought the author got lost amid the nature-nurture weeds.
August
was the month of Marc Hauser — so I give him his own virtual month, below, so I can note the other oddities I covered that month:
Royal incest: the arguments for. Regards my story on same at National Geographic. Someone had to make them.
In other news, I was one of the first to note that Archeology grad student pulls the cover off Gitmo growth, a story that Nate Berg just wrote up as a nice front-of-book piece in Wired.
I also moved to London for a while. It’s really truly quite nice here.
September
My move to London, and to Wired.com, inspired quite q run.
The depression map: genes, culture, serotonin, and a side of pathogens The most substantive post of the year, the one most relevant to the book I’m writing, and at once the most novel and powerful idea I wrote about. If the depression risk gene heightens risk for depression, how come the populations who carry that gene at the highest rates have the lowest rates of depression? A really juicy look at what we mean by “environment.”
The year’s funnest post: Kill Whitey. It’s the Right Thing to Do exploded all over the net when it ran, and well it might: Researcher David Pizarro put together a study that was both rigorous and almost scandalously fun.
Malcolm Gladwell: Twitter, You’re No Martin Luther King. I had forgotten this one until I looked back to do this round up. This was my smack at Malcolm Gladwell for his article about limits of twitter. Fun in its own right, and nice to because a version of this ended up in the Atlantic’s tech blog, run by Alexis Madrigal. I consider that tech blog, incidentally, one of the most exciting things that has happened in the blogosphere this year. Madrigal had done great stuff writing at Wired Science, and he has simply exploded with creative ideas and great work at the Atlantic. It’s a lovely thing to see.
Special Virtual Month for Marc Hauser
The Marc Hauser scandal broke in August and ran rampant into September. I jumped on this story right away because overreach fascinates me, and because the scandal it involves so many factors that make science a fascinating study of how people work — but sometimes not in the way the researchers set out to show. Those in bold here are the most substantial and comprehensive posts.
Marc Hauser, monkey business, and the sine waves of science The ugly beginning. (Aug 11)
Hauser wake cont’d: Could the hivemind prevent fraud & misconduct? Mmm. Maybe. (Aug 13)
Hauser update: Report done since JANUARY. That’s a long time. (Aug 14)
Updated: This Hauser thing is getting hard to watch. The Chronicle of Higher Educations spills some beans. (Aug 20)
Hauser & Harvard speak; labmates & collaborators cleared Aug 21
Journal editor’s conclusion: Hauser fabricated data. A major blow. (Aug 27)
Edge corrects — no, make that ERASES — the record on Hauser. Not so good. (Sep 5)
A Rush to Moral Judgment: What went wrong with Marc Hauser’s search for moral foundations My article at Slate. (Sep 7)
In Marc Hauser’s rush to judgment, what was he missing? Fun and beauty, among other things. (Sep 7)
In September I did some radio on the whole affair, in Speaking Skeptically about Mark Hauser and morality research.
Later it rolled into The Boston Globe on the Hauser Fallout and Harvard opens the (exit) door a crack for Hauser.
How to Set the Bullshit Filter When the Bullshit is Thick More metamedia. Much attention paid this year to the question of how reliable scientific results are. This piece considers how science writers might adjust their approach to account for this kind of uncertainty. I rather like this post.
How I Wrote “The Orchid Children,” via Open Notebook. What it says.
November
The Bright Side of the “Depression-Risk Gene” “The reclamation of the ‘depression gene’ proceeds apace.
In Why Do Moms Kill Their Kids?, I considered an answer that Eric Michael Johnson, of Primate Diaries fame, offered to this uncomfortable question. The art alone — beautiful, horrifying — is worth the visit.
Optogenetics Relieves Depression in a Mouse Trial. In which blue light lifted the spirits of blue mice. This followed work I’d written up a few years back in A Depression Switch? – My New York Times Magazine feature on Helen Mayberg’s work.
December
If You’re Gonna Touch My Junk, At Least Grab the Data The TSA’s appalling lack of data-tracking on whether what they’re doing actually works.
Arsenic. In The Real Scoop on Aliens Oops Arsenic in Old Lakes and Is That Arsenic-Loving Bug — Formerly an Alien — a Dog?, I noted that the arsenic paper smelled funny, and I took particularly sharp exception to NASA’s handling of the affair in The Wrong Stuff: NASA Dismisses Arsenic Critique Because Critical Priest Not Standing on Altar. Finally, I noted some historical parallels in Arsenic and Primordial Ooze: A History Lesson.
AAnd that’s all, folks. Bonus for those who got this far: A repost of actor Brian Cox teaching Shakespeare to a two-year-old. This kills.
