I've got your missing links right here (12 February 2011)

Top twelve picks An amazing post by Greg Downey on "uncontacted tribes" and the perils of using technical terms that sound like everyday ones. Does grief proceed through five stages? Is it better to let it all out? Here’s a stonking debunking of myths about grief, including the surprising origins of the "stages of grief" model, by Ruth Davis Konigsberg Army ant week on Myrmecos has been a joy. In particular, he may have outdone himself with this top photo. And I loved this: "Capturing a well-composed, properly exposed image is challenging. And then 300 ants simultaneously decide to kill you." An autistic man who communicates using the visual language of photos, by Steve Silberman. Carl Zimmer explains the amazing feats of fleas’ ‘feet, plus another good take from NPR. This story is brilliant for the video and St Tiggywinkles Hospital. Behold Bora Zivkovic’s incredible opus on clock genes The average human eats 100 trillion genes a day, by Emily Anthes “He recently produced a series of light paintings – dubbed "Light Skeletons" – in the snow, with light as his paintbrush and, well, the night as his canvas.” By Jennifer Ouellette In which @jtotheizzoe wonderfully relates differences between reprogrammed stem cells and embryonic ones to The Wire You've always wondered how long a severed head stays conscious for, haven’t you? By Vaughan Bell Robert Krulwich on carnivorous furniture. Yes, you read that correctly. One of the most important skills a science communicator can have: knowing when to say "I don't know”. By Emily Finke Science/news/writing Required reading for skeptics: "I am desperate, scared, guilt-ridden and sometimes ill-informed. I am vulnerable, not stupid.” What do we know about the woman trying to derail federal funding for embryonic stem cells? A great feature by Meredith Wadman The real Dr House: Medical detectives find their first new disease An evolutionary can of worms. Compare this Nature story by Amy Maxmen with this press release of the same paper When a new "noninferior" antibiotic is big news, we're in a whole lot of trouble. By Maryn McKenna Two cases of people using bites from venomous snakes to get high "Think twice before mixing Triassic milk with your cornflakes." Top stuff from Lucas Brouwers on the origin of milk “How did dinosaurs have sex?” asks Brian Switek. A filthier person would make a “saur-us” joke... Can parasitic worms be used to treat autism? The Scientist has a feature, but PalMD isn’t pleased. Mark Henderson won a Medical Journalists’ Award for this feature on cancer in Eureka. It’s really very good and you should read it. There was a new paper on sexual discrimination against women in science this week. I was hoping for some good critical analysis, and Alice Bell provided it, as did Gwyneth Dickey Zakaib (with some great comments) and Raima Larter. Could the Pakistan floods have been predicted? Well, they sort of were. Excellent stuff by Anne Jefferson "Neither discovery would've happened w/o intense collaboration between animal experts & human experts." Virginia Hughes on collaborations between doctors and vets. An artist grafts a camera attachment to back of his head for an art project. His immune system, clearly a philistine, rejects it Vaughan Bell on the nature of female groaning during sex. Dear men, that’s the sound of your egos bursting. David Attenborough narrates wonderful footage of a Madagascan spider that lives in snail shells suspended from bushes “It took me six months to mount the squirrel." No this is about taxidermy, you filthy deviants. Great piece by Amber Williams Graphic time-lapse video captures Jumbo sex At least 30 UK neuroscience units to be lobotomised under cuts proposed by BBSRC Why opals aren’t like armadillos, and why they might be useful for swimsuits. By Viv Raper on SciCurious’s blog "Let’s say good-bye to the straw-feminist... [and] her antithesis, the value-free mouthpiece of scientific facts,” says Cordelia Fine. "Well sir, your genetic test reveals a lower than average risk of diabetes. However, incest." Brian Christian won the "Most Human Human" Award for the person most easily identified as a person in a Turing test Dodos weren't fat. The painting adds ten pounds. By Brian Switek. Keep calm and carry on: the data. People don’t actually panic that much in a crisis. Peer reviewers apparently get worse with experience. New postdocs make the best peer reviewers People need language to fully understand numbers There's an endangered species waiting list & the walrus is on it. It's semi-threatened. Endangered-ish. Ben Goldacre asks why politicians find it so hard to make evidence-based decisionsCold birds grow better memories to deal with winter, by Ferris Jabr Native plants evolve to fight off invading species, by Mary Beth Griggs Objectifying gaze triggers conflicting outcomes for women (and an old related piece from me) Which two undergrad schools produce most of the students getting PhD's in the USA? Clue: they’re both in China. The study that dispelled the idea that homosexuality was a mental illness An awesome fossil snake with legsCrested gibbons sing in different dialects As of this week, we can see the entire sun. Amazingly, it's STILL a massive ball of fire from the back. PLoS blogs have nabbed Hillary Rosner. Go read her intro post where she talks about how she grew to love science, having once hated it. Moving mosses and sailing stones, by Jennifer Frazer Sleight-of-hand master: "the ideal audience is Nobel Prize winners…'I am smart so I can’t be fooled.'" An excellent introduction to epigeneticsHeh/wow/huh The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator The most informative piece of technical communication you will ever see. Today's fun fact: narwhal flesh has the same concentration of vitamin C as an orange. "Sir, you have scurvy; here's a narwhal" The ultimate purpose of evolution has been discovered Feeding blacktip sharks from the air (and a rubbish heron). It really kicks off at 00:32 It’s a game about correlationsWolverine? Or two Bat Men?Microsoft applies make-up to Nokia's corpse A Valentine's card for geeks and journalistsThis kid is a senior in college biology and doesn’t understand why E.O. Wilson is speaking to him. He wants answers. He is a moron. Wonderful: a Kickstarter campaign to replace racism with robots in "Huck Finn." In 1965, Ray Kurzweil appeared on a gameshow called I've Got A SecretInternet/journalism/blogging A taxonomy and analysis of claims about how the internet with save us, doom us all. I missed this the first time round but Carl Zimmer’s thoughts on "not everyone agrees" is essential reading for science journalists Riffing off John Rennie’s manifesto, Caleb Garling discusses how to fix truthiness in science journalism AOL has bought the Huffington Post. United, they will push small CD-ROMs advertising woo through your front door... Capital has a good take on the deal, Slate’s piece starts off wonderfully, but this Reuters piece (in my opinion) misses the point. The reason why the HuffPo is so full of flashy widgets compared to the New York Times is that it doesn’t have any other content worth looking at. A wonderful discussion on science writing by two peerless writers: Rebecca Skloot and EO Wilson Sigh. Compare and contrast this article, and the paper it was based on. High heels? Sigh. Gawker redesigned itself. People complained. Chris Mims says that Gawker’s redesign is the future of Gawker. Period. Ivan Oransky: "It's journalistic malpractice to not have full study in front of you when reporting." Too bloody right! Carl Zimmer tells the story behind his NYT microbiome story. The Washington Post installs a Report-the-error button on every page. Scott Rosenberg commends them and offers advice