The Ed's Up #94

I've Got a New Job! 

Before I hand you over to your regularly scheduled dose of stories, some news! I'll be joining The Atlantic as their new full-time science staff reporter. I couldn't be more excited to join people like Megan Garber, Adrienne LaFrance, Robinson Meyer, Becca Rosen, and others whose work I've long admired. I'll still be based in London--gonna get a sign for my door that says "London Bureau Chief" on it--and I'll still be doing a weekly blog post for Phenomena, and this newsletter will continue. But otherwise, The Atlantic will be where you'll find the rest of my work, both shorter news stories and long-form features. This will all happen in September. In the meantime, I have a book to finish. 
 

A Fossil Snake With Four Legs

"“And then, if my jaw hadn’t already dropped enough, it dropped right to the floor,” says Martill. The little creature had a pair of hind legs. “I thought: bloody hell! And I looked closer and the little label said: Unknown fossil. Understatement!. I looked even closer—and my jaw was already on the floor by now—and I saw that it had tiny little front legs!” he says. Fossil-hunters have found several extinct snakes with stunted hind legs, and modern boas and pythons still have a pair of little spurs. “But no snake has ever been found with four legs. This is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery.”" (Image: Julius Cstonyi) 
 

How Giant Prawns Could Fight Tropical Disease and Poverty

"The dam had unintended consequences. By restraining the saltwater, the dam favoured the growth of freshwater algae and plants, which in turn fed large numbers of snails. The snails are hosts for parasitic flatworms that cause schistosomiasis—a horrible water-borne disease that damages the kidneys, bladder, intestines, and liver. As the snail population boomed, they triggered a huge outbreak of schistosomiasis, which spread with unprecedented speed and still persists today. In some places, more than 90 percent of villagers are infected. In damming the river, Senegal also damned the people along it. But help is at hand. A team of scientists led by Susanne Sokolow from Stanford University has been working on a way of stopping the outbreak by bringing the snails—and their parasites—under control. Their plan? Add prawns." (Image: The Upstream Alliance) 
 

Abruptly Warming Climate Triggered Megabeast Revolutions

More good reads

• Extraordinary Jon Mooallem story about two guys who meet prisoners on their day of release, to stop them from "blowing away in the wind"
•  “They worked on, without the money they needed. In fact, less than 2% of the $3.3bn donated to fight Ebola in West Africa was earmarked for frontline staff in Sierra Leone’s health system.” Amy Maxmen’s e-book on the mistreated heroes of the Ebola response: a great bit of journalism
• There's an escape release in every car trunk, thanks to one woman kidnapped and locked in hers. By Sarah Laskow.  
• “To my first pronounced patient: your time of death was five minutes earlier. I’m so sorry for the delay.” Shara Yurkiewicz on the awful uncertain business of calling someone’s death.
• The skeleton flower goes from white to translucent when exposed to water. By Kate Sierzputowski
• Every year, a shadowy cabal holds a secret meeting in an undisclosed city to choose Pantone’s "Color of the Year". By Claire Cameron
• Epigenetics: "It’s not heretical, it won’t upend Darwin, or give you supernatural powers." By Adam Rutherford.
• "Does the vagina need to be gamified?" When pelvic floor exercises meet the quantified self, by Rose Eveleth.
• The Long, Strange Trip to Pluto, and how NASA nearly missed it, by Kenneth Chang. And summing up a week of amazing Pluto science, here’s Alex Witze
• A beautiful, moving, thoughtful essay about women and the "midlife crisis" from the immensely talented Jessica Zimmerman.