The Ed's Up #140
Book news
The first reviews are in for I CONTAIN MULTITUDES, and I'm delighted to say that the book got two starred reviews from both Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. (For anyone unfamiliar with them, they're the two big trade publications that booksellers, librarians, and literary types pay attention to.) The Kirkus review, in particular, blew me away:
"The author excels at objectively navigating the large body of research related to the microbiome without overselling its curative potential or sacrificing any of the deliciously icky details, and he delivers some of the finest science writing out there in language that will appeal to a wide audience. An exceptionally informative, beautifully written book that will profoundly shift one’s sense of self to that of symbiotic multitudes."
If that sounds good to you, you can pre-order the book here.
A New Origin Story for Dogs
Here's my long story about the origin of domestic dogs and why it's been such a bitch to solve. It's based on a new study suggesting that dogs were domesticated twice, and contains many many terrible puns.
"Tens of thousands of years ago, before the internet, before the Industrial Revolution, before literature and mathematics, bronze and iron, before the advent of agriculture, early humans formed an unlikely partnership with another animal—the grey wolf. The fates of our two species became braided together. The wolves changed in body and temperament. Their skulls, teeth, and paws shrank. Their ears flopped. They gained a docile disposition, becoming both less frightening and less fearful. They learned to read the complex expressions that ripple across human faces. They turned into dogs." (Image: Katie Salvi)
Can Neuroscience Understand Donkey Kong, Let Alone a Brain?
"The human brain contains 86 billion neurons, underlies all of humanity’s scientific and artistic endeavours, and has been repeatedly described as the most complex object in the known universe. By contrast, the MOS 6502 microchip contains 3510 transistors, runs Space Invaders, and wouldn’t even be the most complex object in my pocket. We know very little about how the brain works, but we understand the chip completely. So, Eric Jonas and Konrad Kording wondered, what would happen if they studied the chip in the style of neuroscientists? Could they re-discover everything we know about its transistors and logic gates? Forget attention, emotion, learning, memory, and creativity; using the techniques of neuroscience, could Jonas and Kording comprehend Donkey Kong?" (Image: Microslervos)
How An Icon of Evolution Turned to the Dark Side
"In the early 19th century, coal-fired power stations belched a miasma of soot over the English countryside, blackening trees between London and Manchester. The pollution was bad news for the peppered moth. This insect, whose pale speckled body blended perfectly against the barks of normal trees, suddenly became conspicuous—a white beacon against blackened bark, and an easy target for birds. As the decades ticked by, black peppered moths started appearing. These mutants belonged to the same species, but they had traded in their typical colours for a dark look that once again concealed their bodies against the trees. By the end of the century, almost all the moths in Manchester were black. Now, Arjen van’t Hof and Pascal Campagne from the University of Liverpool have identified the gene behind its classic adaptation. And in a wonderful twist, the gene turns out to be a jumping gene—a selfish bit of DNA with the power to hop around its native genome." (Ilik Saccheri)
More good reads
- “Soon we will see ‘chrono-’ attached to every form of medicine.” Jessa Gamble on how scientists are integrating the body clock into healthcare.
- On the origins of intravenous drips, “a radically progressive treatment ahead of its time”. By Rebecca Kreston.
- Why Sci-Hub Will Win: James Heathers argues that the the “balls-out illegal” aggregator of academic papers will triumph, not because it’s free, but because it’s better.
- Dan Vergano explains why the idea that cellphones cause cancer is a myth that will not die, and Aaron Carroll explains why a recent study was not what the media made it out to be.
- “Warner had just DMCA'd an artificial reconstruction of a film about artificial intelligence being indistinguishable from humans, because it couldn't distinguish between the simulation and the real thing.” By Aja Romano
- On the lost secret language of sawmill workers, by Sarah Laskow.
- There’s an international club of adventurers who are obsessed with palm trees. By Andy Wright
- “Last year, Elizabeth Holmes topped the FORBES list of America’s Richest Self-Made Women with a net worth of $4.5 billion. Today, FORBES is lowering our estimate of her net worth to nothing. Theranos had no comment.” OUCH, Matthew Herper
- Sarah Zhang explains why it matters that a new superbug was found in a urinary tract infection
- An amazing sped-up video of Elon Musk’s rocket landing on the SpaceX droneship OCISLY
- The Immortal Myths of Online Abuse: Anil Dash cuts through all the bullshit
- The countries where smiling makes you look dumb, by Olga Khazan
And that's it! Thanks for reading.
-Ed