The Ed's Up #188

The Spider Web That Gets Stronger When It Touches Insects

"Raya Bott and colleagues at Aachen University in Germany have now shown that cribellate silk adheres to insects in a previously unknown and unsettlingly macabre way. When an insect touches the strands, waxy chemicals in its outer surface get sucked into the woolly nanofibers and reinforce them, turning the tangled mass of delicate threads into a solid, sturdy rope. The victim literally becomes a part of the web, inadvertently strengthening the instrument of its own capture." (Image: Hana Adamova) 

Even the Threat of Budget Cuts Can Hurt American Science

"A $2 billion windfall is clearly better than a $1.2 billion shortfall, but that extra bolus of money is not the obvious bonanza that it seems. Congress may be holding back the Trump administration’s desire to cut funding for scientific research, but the threat of such cuts still looms. And in that atmosphere of uncertainty, it’s hard for agencies like the NIH to work out how to effectively channel money into research. Here’s the thing: Even if Trump’s cuts never take place, their very proposal creates a climate where funding agencies can’t make the best use of the resources they already have, or think strategically about the future." (Image: Reuters)
 

How an Icon of Evolution Lost Its Flight

"In 1835, the Galapagos Islands shaped the thoughts of a young British naturalist named Charles Darwin, and helped inspire his world-shaking theory of evolution. For that reason, the islands have become something of a Mecca for biologists, who travel there to see the same odd creatures that enthused Darwin. "I like seeing wildlife in general, but some of these creatures have become iconic in evolutionary biology,” says Leonid Kruglyak from the University of California, Los Angeles, who visited the Galapagos in 2012. The famous finches, with their well-adapted and variously shaped beaks, are especially famous, but Kruglyak found them underwhelming. He was more drawn to the flightless cormorants." (Image: Charles J Sharp)

 

More good reads: science and technology

• In a significant blow to global efforts to fight climate change, Trump “betrayed the world” by deciding to pull the USA out of the Paris agreement—an indefensible decision that most Americans, and most Republicans, do not agree with. Trump also got the science of climate change completely wrong during his big speech. Robinson Meyer explains what exactly Trump’s decision heralds for the planet and for America. He also talks to one of world’s top climate scientists who argues that leaving Paris is going to be highly damaging. Meanwhile, US states and cities are rising to the challenge on their own.
• MEANWHILE, melting ice means that the Arctic seafloor is farting itself open, and epic tides swamp Hawaii, offering a glimpse of what life will be like in the decades to come.
• Does a spider use its web like you use your smartphone?
• Ashley Ahearn's podcast Terrestrial is a wonderful look at how we make choices in a world that has changed. The latest episode on couples making decisions about having kids in an era of climate change is ace.
•  “My déjà vu is so extreme I can’t tell what’s real any more.”
•  Some people are turning to outer space for relief from Trump news.
• Adrienne LaFrance on how Moana's animators made such a realistic ocean
• Iron-dumping ocean experiment sparks controversy
• We’re just throwing robots into the sun now
• A fish fathered a clone of itself.

 

More good reads: politics and society

• 'Free Speech' has been redefined as plausible deniability for prejudice. Laurie Penny calls bullshit. Along similar lines, Andre Perry writes: "Stop treating hate groups like a philosophy 101 course, before someone else gets killed."
• "This is not valor, it is the celebration of violence against those who cannot respond in kind." By Adam Serwer, on Gianforte bodyslamming a reporter, and toxic masculinity.
• Rebecca Solnit on "the corrosive privilege of the most mocked man in the world"
• The president’s son-in-law suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities to create a secret channel to Moscow.
• Trump is cutting programs and budgets for civil rights & anti-discrimination.
• “By acquiescing to violence, corruption and collusion, GOP leaders are inviting more of the same.”
• A linguist analyzes covfefe.
• The reader responses to the Tizon slavery piece, published in the Atlantic, continue to be fascinating.

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And that's it. Thanks for reading.

- Ed