The Ed's Up #93
This Beetle is Ruining Your Coffee With the Help of Bacteria
"I am writing a book about partnerships between animals and microbes. In the process, I have consumed a frankly obscene amount of coffee, to the extent that the dedication might just read “To coffee, with thanks”. So, it is with mixed emotions that I now write this post, about an animal that is ruining coffee with the help of bacteria." (Image: Neil Palmer)
How To Make Better Health Predictions From Our Gut Microbes
"Contrary to what some companies might tell you, we’re still not very good at looking predicting what any particular community of microbes means for our health. One common approach is to compare microbiomes in people with or without a disease, single out species that distinguish the two groups, and use their presence or absence to make predictions. But those same bugs might have the opposite effect, or none at all, in another setting. Alyxandria Schubert from the University of Michigan used a less reductionist approach—one that embraces the complexity of the microbiome rather than shoving it aside." (Image: Scott Wylie)
More good reads
- “On the face of it, earthquakes seem to present us with problems of space: the way we live along fault lines, in brick buildings, in homes made valuable by their proximity to the sea. But, covertly, they also present us with problems of time.” The peerless Kathryn Schulz has a beautiful, terrifying piece in the New Yorker about the really big one—an earthquake that will, at some point, destroy a sizable chunk of coastal Northwest America. (And here’s a follow-up from Eric Holthaus at Slate.)
- Nine years ago, we threw a machine at Pluto and this week, it skirted past the dwarf planet within 72 seconds of its predicted time. And look at the pictures it took! Nadia Drake wrote about the incredible achievement, about Pluto’s moon Charon, and about what the images mean (as has XKCD). The New York Times has an interactive that shows what happened. Robinson Meyer tells the origin story of Ralph, the camera that took the new photos. Adrienne LaFrance writes about the women behind the programme. Michael Ruane writes about the long wait of mission scientist Andy Cheng. And John Wenz interviews the two children of the man who discovered Pluto.
- “Hides are places designed for watching wildlife, but they are equally rewarding places to watch people who watch wildlife.” Helen Macdonald muses on hiding from animals.
- “The history of M.E. is akin to locking an entire orphanage in a cellar and bulldozing the house.” Reporter Brian Vastag writes an impassioned open letter to the NIH director about life with ME, and the lack of funds for studying it.
- First robust genetic links to depression emerge, but it's the way they found those links that matters. An important study, covered by Heidi Ledford.
- “The point is simplicity. And in Toki Pona, simple is literally good. Both concepts are combined in a single word: pona.” Roc Morin on the world’s smallest language.
- “They’re like vampire beetles wandering in the ant nests.” Carl Zimmer on a sophisticated social parasite.
- “Here’s What it Takes to Study Dolphin Vaginas.” Everything about this Diane Kelly post is gold
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
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