The Ed's Up #90

Scientists Finally Decide Which Bit of This Weird Animal is the Head

"In 1977, British palaeontologist Simon Conway-Morris discovered the fossil of a truly weird animal, which he named Hallucigenia because of its “bizarre and dream-like quality”. He wasn’t kidding. The creature was so strange that it took fourteen years for scientists to work out which way up it stood. And now, nearly four decades after its original discovery, we finally know—clearly and conclusively—which end is the head."
 

More good reads

• Such a wonderful Helen MacDonald ode to field guides. Got a little emotional at the last 2 lines. Also: duck chart!
• Two weeks ago, Facebook disabled Nadia Drake’s account. Here's what's happened since, and why it matters. Superb post on all kinds of important online issues.
• "The phrase, 'the rabbit died' was, at one point, a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test." By Cari Romm
• Neural nets can "hallucinate" items that they were trained on, creating really trippy art.
• A “feeling for the organism” – David Baltrus is absolutely right on the need for natural history in the era of genomics
• This Tumblr of Epic Conducting Photos (and GIFs) made my day.
• Maria Konnikova on whether pornography is bad for us. Spoiler: no.
• You know when you get a splinter & your body expels it? Starfish can do that but to an EXTREME degree. By Liz Preston.
•  “Certain people, researchers have discovered, can’t summon up mental images — it’s as if their mind’s eye is blind.” Carl Zimmer on aphantasia.
• Can the Bacteria in Your Gut Explain Your Mood? Peter Andrey Smith on the science of the “gut-brain axis”

 

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

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And that's it! Thanks for reading.

-Ed