The Ed's Up #145

The first hardbacks arrived at my door this week. These are the UK editions; the US ones are out in 25 days! As always, you can pre-order your copies here or sign up for one of the growing list of speaking events. 

Also, some of you may know that Tangled Bank Studios optioned the rights to the book. They're adapting it into a series of online videos, billed as a digital cabinet of curiosities. We filmed the trailer for it this week. Here's the set; I'm hidden, somewhere in front of the green screens. 

And now on to the stories. 

"Travel back in time to 260 million years ago, just before the dawn of the dinosaur era. Journey to what is now South Africa, and make your way to a river bank. Then, wait. If you’re lucky, you might see a small, hand-sized creature poking its head out of the mud. It looks like a fat lizard, with bulging flanks and stocky legs. But if you managed to grab it and flip it over, you’d find that its flanks are bulging because its ribs are exceptionally wide, broad, and flat, reinforcing its undersides. It’s almost like the little creature has half a shell. This is Eunotosaurus, and despite its lizard-like appearance, it’s actually one of the earliest known turtles." (Image: Andrey Atuchin) 
 

Adorable Ducklings Have Abstract Thoughts

"A devotee of Locke would argue that the ducklings are just picking up simple traits—perhaps a smell, sound, color, or shape. But Kacelnik and his student Antone Martinho III showed that they can do more. The duo presented newborn ducklings with pairs of objects that were either identical or different in shape or color. And they found that the birds could learn these traits. They weren’t imprinting on a specific shape or color, but on the concepts of “same” or “different.” They were looking beyond the individual objects to think about how they are related. In short, “they were abstracting properties,” says Kacelnik." (Image: Nguyen Huy Kham) 
 

The Surprising Musical Preferences of an Amazon Tribe

"Play two notes that are three steps away on a musical scale, like C and the F-sharp above it, and you have what’s called the Devil’s Interval. It’s a great example of dissonance—a sound that seems unpleasant, tense, and jarring. By contrast, consonant notes, like the octave or perfect fifth (C and the G above it) sound pleasant and agreeable, like the notes belong together. To Western ears, the difference between consonance and dissonance is stark, and we greatly prefer the former to the latter. Many scientists have suggested that this preference is universal and innate. That’s certainly what McDermott thought when he first started studying music 15 years ago. But he has since changed his mind. (Image: Josh McDermott) 
 

The Unbearably Slow Adoption of Genetic Cancer Tests

"In the world of cancer medicine, bureaucracy can be as difficult an adversary as tumors. And sometimes, the biggest wins aren’t in making splashy, technology-driven scientific discoveries, but in doing the thankless, unglamorous logistical work that allows patients to actually benefit from said discoveries. “It’s about making sure that the things we’ve done are genuinely going to help people,” says Rahman." (Image: Joshua Roberts) 
 

How a Hotline Helped Control Dengue Outbreaks

"The hotline worked well. Since its inception, in September 2011, it has fielded more than 300,000 calls. But more importantly, Rehman’s team learned that they could use the volume of calls to forecast dengue outbreaks a few weeks in advance. And their predictions helped public health workers to focus their efforts in areas at greatest risk. “The forecast was being distributed to a large range of hospitals, and a lot of health workers acted upon it,” says Lakshmi Subramanian from New York University, who co-led the project. “It’s a system where the results were actionable.” (Image: Akhtar Soomro) 
 

'Kissing' Corals Filmed in the Wild for the First Time

• Thomas Dixon’s brain can’t make new memories—so he built an app to store them. By Nidhi Subbaraman
• “That may be the moment when the cells in your eyes create an unexpected and beautiful chord.” Veronique Greenwood on why things look blue at dusk and dawn.
• Thanks to that meddling Dan Vergano, you can no longer buy skulls on eBay. Fine, I’ll have to get them myself. *puts on gloves and face-shield, walks out the door*
• Amy Harmon tackles the origin of square watermelons, and other myths around GMOs
• There are six main kinds of stories, says an AI. By Adrienne LaFrance
• Carl Zimmer plays the Game of Genomes, by getting his entire genome sequenced and recruiting scientists to explore its depths
• Important Helen Branswell piece on how credit for discovering Ebola went to one guy while many others were erased
• How John Temple found the man who saved his parents’ lives 70 years ago.
• The seven biggest problems in science, as identified by 270 scientists, and how to fix them. By Julia Belluz, Brad Plumer, and Brian Resnick
• And finally… Buzzfeed explains the ongoing shitshow that is British politics to Americans. One of the few bright spots in a month of absurd self-punishment. 

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And that's it! Thanks for reading.

-Ed