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 […]
Continue reading →The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c Chris Stringer www.colbertnation.com Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive We sapiens weren’t always the only Homos. Not long ago we shared it with Neanderthals, Denisovans, even hobbits, it seems, and perhaps others, most of whom were technically humans, which is to […]
Continue reading →Every decade or two, the American Psychiatric Association reworks its Diagnostic Statistical Manual, or DSM, to try to have diagnostic categories reflect the current state of theory and practice. Given enormous evidence that we’re currently overdiagnosing things and medicalizing normal behavior, many had hope that the upcoming DMS-5 — the fifth major revision — would show some restraint. Instead it seems that the DSM-5 may include a new proposed “mood disorder” called “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder,” or DMDD.
Continue reading →Note: I post this again because various males have recently forgotten when it’s best to STFU. This post originally ran in January 2011. Thanks to Isis and DrugMonkey & Janet Stemwedel and Jezebel for calling this to my attention, amid much distration, and Kate Clancy and Christie Wilcox for initial inspriation. Plus, Mom. I thank Mom once again, and my sisters. More on that below. Plus: This latest […]
Continue reading →Someone should have warned Naomi Wolf what slippery material she’d get encounter by taking a neuro angle into Vagina: A New Biography. As Zoe Heller explains in her smart, raucous, ripping review in The New York Review of Books, [Wolf’s] original plan was to write a book surveying cultural representations of the vagina through the ages. […]
Continue reading →Five years ago, guitar player, raconteur, writer, genome geek and Duke professor Misha Angrist surrendered his DNA to the eyes of the public, and to his own restless, rambunctious curiosity. Over at the fine site LabLit, Richard Grant takes a smart, lively look at the smart, lively book that resulted: The history of science and medicine […]
Continue reading →When a researcher fudges data or engages in other fraudulent behavior, among those most wronged are the collaborators who did nothing wrong. Often there are many. Their reputations and careers can suffer horribly; they experience a horrible betrayal by someone they put enormous trust in; and they feel compelled to remain silent, lest they court […]
Continue reading →This guest post is by biologist and writer Emily Willingham, who first published it yesterday at The Biology Files. I asked her if I could post it here because it speaks to the importance of writing about behavioral science in a way that draws on data carefully rather than casually or by convenience to one’s argument; an […]
Continue reading →In winter I sometimes warm up by reading books with real cold. For a few years years I shuttled between Rick Bass’s Winter, about his first winter in Montana in the 1980s, and R.M. Patterson’s magnificent, shivering Dangerous River, of his days trapping the Yukon in the 1920s. Last week, partly to commemorate the centenary of […]
Continue reading →When Iraq-war veteran Benjamin Colton Barnes shot park ranger Margaret Anderson dead last week, the speculation started almost as soon as the gun reports faded: Barnes must have PTSD. I first saw this speculation on Twitter, where I suggested it was a tad early to speculate, since police were still trying to track Barnes down […]
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