The Ed's Up #215

A Breast-Cancer Surgeon Returns to Work After Breast Cancer

"Earlier this month, Liz O’Riordan found herself once again, scalpel in hand, staring down at a woman with breast cancer. The patient was 65 years old, and had reacted to her diagnosis with stoicism. Fine, she had said. I have breast cancer. Chop it out and move on. O’Riordan had done just that many times before, in her career as a breast-cancer surgeon. But this case was different. It would be the first operation she would do after having been treated for breast cancer herself. It would be the first time she donned a surgical mask, after years in a patient’s shoes. (Image: Liz O'Riordan)
 

These Crickets Can’t Sing Anymore—But They’re Still Trying

"It took several years for the crickets of Kauai to fall silent. When Marlene Zuk first visited the Hawaiian island in 1991, she heard the insects chirping away, loudly and repeatedly. But every time she went back, the chirping diminished. In 2001, she only heard a single male, apparently singing into the void. The crickets had disappeared from sight, too. But when Zuk returned to Kauai in 2003, she started seeing them again, seemingly in greater numbers than before. They were there, sitting on blades of grass, illuminated by her headlamp. They just weren’t singing." (Image: Will Schneider)
 

People Have Believed a Lie About Rabbit Domestication for Decades

"It is often said, in both popular articles and scientific papers, that rabbits were first domesticated by French monks in 600 AD. Back then, Pope Gregory the Great had allegedly decreed that laurices—newborn or fetal rabbits—didn’t count as meat. Christians could therefore eat them during Lent. They became a popular delicacy, and hungry monks started breeding them. Their work transformed the wild, skittish European rabbit into a tame domestic animal that tolerates humans. This was the story that Greger Larson from the University of Oxford heard when he first started studying domestic rabbits. Almost on a whim, he told his student Evan Irving-Pease to find a reference from the Vatican that they could cite. “I said: I’m sure there’s an edict or something,” Larson tells me. “Evan comes back a couple of weeks later and says: ‘Er, small problem, it doesn’t exist.’” (Image: Peter Cziborra)
 

Here’s How The Scientists Running for Office Are Doing

"Last November was a pivotal moment for the Democrats, who scored a surprisingly large slew of electoral victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere. But it was also somewhat of a victory for science, as at least 17 candidates with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) also won. Ralph Northam, who became Virginia’s governor, is a pediatric neurologist. Cheryl Turpin and Hala Ayala, who were both elected to the Virginia State House of Delegates, are respectively a science teacher and a cybersecurity expert. The so-called blue wave was also, at least partly, a nerdy one." (Image: Brian Snyder)
 

Why is Nigeria Experiencing a Record-High Outbreak of Lassa Fever?

"In 1969, an American missionary nurse named Laura Wine came down with a troubling fever while working in the Nigerian town of Lassa. The local doctors thought it was probably malaria, but Wine didn’t respond to the usual treatments. She eventually died. Shortly after, two more nurses contracted the same mysterious disease. One also died. The other, Lily Pinneo, was evacuated to Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, and survived. From her blood, and those of her colleagues, scientists isolated a new virus, which they named after the town where the infections began. Since then, scientists have learned a lot about Lassa fever, and the virus that causes it. But for all that knowledge, no one knows exactly why this disease, which simmers gently in Nigeria from year to year, has recently come to a dramatic boil." (Image: Reuters)
 

Friends of the Ed's Up

Here's where I promote the work of people I care about--people who make incredible art that I think is worthy of your attention and support, but whose fierce intelligence is also match by a genuine warmth of spirit. 

Story Collider features true personal stories about science. In the latest episode of the podcast, Adam Ruben and his friends create a Rube Goldberg machine for a school project, and science writer Leah Shaffer discovers an interesting way to manage her chronic illness -- hookworms. Directors Liz Neeley and Erin Barker also run workshops teaching storytelling skills to scientists. And there are live shows coming up in St Louis (Mar 7), Atlanta (Mar 12), Cambridge, UK (Mar 14), and Providence (Mar 16)

Flash Forward is a podcast about the future run by Rose Eveleth. It's part radio drama, part science journalism, and a lot of fun. The latest episode is a retrospective on the amazing third season.

Gastropod is a food, science, and history podcast run by Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley. The latest episode is on mustard.  

The Brain Scoop is a video show about natural history, museums, and occasionally taxidermy, hosted by Emily Graslie. The latest episode is about the art of discovering new species. 
  

More good reads

• Here’s an astonishing scoop from Stephanie Lee about how an Ivy league professor turned shoddy science into viral studies. The emails she gathered are jaw-dropping.
• Rebecca Robbins travels a $195-a-plate gala where a crowd of aging baby boomers was pitched on paying to sign up for a clinical trial testing young blood.
• Self-described famous person Lawrence Krauss faces several accusations of sexual harassment in this meticulously reported story by Azeen Ghorayshi.
• "Persistent surveillance no longer requires drones, however, or even dedicated cameras; instead, people have willfully embedded these technologies into their daily lives." By Geoff Manaugh
• A rare rainstorm in the Atacama Desert offers a clue to how life can survive in the most Mars-like place on Earth. By Sarah Zhang.
• A Jewish biologist in Buchenwald duped his captors by sending fake typhus vaccine to Nazi troops while giving real vaccine to his fellow inmates. By Arthur Allen.
• "It’s hard not to be awed by the Stoneman Douglas students." Michelle Cottle on how Parkland’s survivors are changing the gun debate.
• “If he is privy to such luck, then why does Hamid wield it to invalidate other people’s experiences?" Atlantic readers push back against the idea that online people have “an infatuation with being offended”
• How the shape of ancient dice reflect shifting beliefs about chance and fate. By Veronique Greenwood.
• Dan Engber makes the case against the octopus. He’s totally wrong, of course.  
• On treating Asians as perpetual foreigners. Superb piece by Mari Uyehara. 

You can also follow me on Twitter or find my writing at The Atlantic. My New York Times-bestselling book, I Contain Multitudes, is out now. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you can sign up yourself.

And that's it. Thanks for reading.

- Ed