The Ed's Up #62

The Long War Against the Iron Pirates

"Disease is an act of piracy. When microbes infect us, they steal our resources so they can thrive at our expense. We fight them off with direct attacks, using an army of immune cells and antibodies. But we also have subtler countermeasures: we can, for example, deprive them of the nutrients they need." (Image: Kevin Boyd)
 

More good reads

• Nine things I wish people understood about anxiety. Highly recommended, by Kady Morrison.
• TIME have gone and ruined a years-long run of mocking by choosing a really good Person(s) of the Year: the Ebola fighters.
• 10 controversies in climate change that are more interesting than, “Is it happening?” Compiled by Alice Bell
• "After hibernating for much of the past 7yrs, the New Horizons spacecraft awoke today on Pluto’s doorstep." By Nadia Drake.
• "A distinguishing feature of Ethiopia is that both religion and science are bred in its bone." Great piece by Amy Maxmen
• "No one, not even the dozen or so groups who intensively study [stem cell] reprogramming, knows how it happens." Great state-of-the-union feature by David Cyranoski
• “Drunk driving, then you wake up.” Maria Konnikova on the science of misheard lyrics. 
• Do we protect nature for nature’s sake, or for our own? Michelle Nijhuis on bridging the conservation divide
• An interesting call for microbiologists to ditch the term "pathogen". Solid case here.
• There is a bird called the cinereous mourner, and its larvae look like caterpillars. Carl Zimmer discusses.
• A new study shows that most exaggeration in science/health news comes from scientists and press releases. Ben Goldacre writes about how to fix the problem. And Mark Henderson and Virginia Hughes have the best reactions—both own their responsibilities as PIO and journalist respectively. (My own brief reaction.)

More good links will be released in tomorrow's linkfest on Not Exactly Rocket Science.

You can also follow me on Twitter, find regular writing on my blog. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you can sign up yourself.

And that's it! Thanks for reading.

-Ed