The Ed's Up #177
Book news
I'm delighted to be a finalist for the LA Times Book Prizes, in the Science and Technology category, alongside books like Luke Dittrich's Patient H. M., and Mary Roach's Grunt.
The NASA Rocket Scientist Leaving Mars for Politics
"Everything I’ve done so far in my career has been to study the big questions about the universe. And right now, that doesn’t feel big enough. That contribution feels so pitiful when our rights and environment and families are on the line. You need to have a seat at the table. The only way we’ll change Washington is if we change the people who we send there." (Image: Scott Audette) 
Africa's Other Elephant Is Fading Fast
"They estimated that in 2004, there were between 32,800 and 35,400 elephants in Minkebe. But in 2014, there were just 6,500 to 7,400 left. In just one decade, poachers had killed around 25,000 forest elephants—between 78 and 82 percent of the park’s population. “It was an enormous shock,” says Poulsen. “To be quite honest, I would have guessed that other studies had overestimated the loss. I was expecting a decline, but I didn’t expect it to be that high.”" (Image: Nathan Williamson)
A Probiotic Skin Cream Made With a Person’s Own Microbes
"Teruaki Nakatsuji and Richard Gallo from the University of California, San Diego, have discovered that some bacteria which naturally live on human skin produce chemicals that kill S. aureus—the same species that Fleming was studying. But rather than harvesting said chemicals, the duo went after the bacteria themselves—isolating them from people with a skin disease called atopic dermatitis (eczema), growing them, and adding them to a cream. The result: a personalized ointment for killing S. aureus—and hopefully treating eczema—using bacteria that come from a person’s own skin." (Image: Marcio Jose Sanchez) More good reads in science and technology
- Mars is going to be a legal minefield. Maggie Koerth-Baker reports.
- How to draw an exoplanet. Marina Koren speaks to the artists who illustrate NASA discoveries (like the newly discovered sun with seven exoplanets around it.)
- In which parents looking for "natural" remedies inadvertently fed their kids deadly nightshade. By Sheila Kaplan
- “In truth, hardly anything works very well anymore.” Ian Bogost on technology for technology’s sake
- It’s unseasonably warm for this time of the year. Robinson Meyer asks climate scientists how they feel about enjoying abnormal weather.
- How Mammoth Cloning Became Fake News
- Yet another failed drug trial has prompted soul-searching about the leading hypothesis about Alzheimer’s.
- That viral video of tigers chasing a drone is from a slaughter farm.
- Cat poop parasites don't actually make you psychotic
- Drawing life at its start, cell by cell
- Liberté égalité falconry. Terrorists are building drones; France is destroying them with eagles.
- How the BBC makes wildlife films that look like Hollywood movies
- Why US-born panda Bao Bao is leaving for China: panda diplomacy, explained.
- Brief but amazing camera trap footage of jaguar vs. giant anteater
More good reads in politics and society
- "I was a Muslim in Trump's White House. I lasted eight days." Essential reading from Rumana Ahmed
- Trump’s attacks on the press undermine the public’s capacity to think, act, and defend democracy. By James Fallows.
- Scott Pruitt, who has repeatedly sued the EPA, now leads it. Emails reveal his tight links to the fossil fuel industry. And an EPA employee reaches out to Eric Holthaus with a message.
- "Trump’s doom loop: incompetence breeds failure breeds illiberalism." Ezra Klein on why the President will only get more dangerous the more he loses.
- “With the rarest of exceptions, great reductions in inequality were only ever brought forth in sorrow.”
- Google commits $11.5M to racial justice groups to fight bias in policing and sentencing.
- CNN reports that the White House asked the FBI to knock down recent Trump-Russia stories
- “The consequences of this decision will no doubt be heartbreaking.” Trump rescinds bathroom rules for transgender students. Here’s why that matters.
- “Let me be as clear as I can be: The president’s selection of H.R. McMaster to be his new national security adviser is unambiguously good news.”
- “The invitation strikes me as more important than the disinvitation." On the fall of Milo Yiannopoulos.
- The case for shyness. By Megan Garber
- I have so far died of lung cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, intentional self-harm, GI bleeding, and surprisingly, uterine cancer.
- An hour-by-hour breakdown of how Trump spent his first month in office.
- How to talk to your Facebook friends about fake news.
- And finally, an amazing unified theory of fuckers.
And that's it. Thanks for reading.
- Ed
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