I've got your missing links right here (23 June 2012)

Top picks The EU released a teaser video of its campaign to get young girls into science. It did not go down well. The Knight Tracker has a copy of the video (now taken down) and collated all the reactions. Really fascinating piece about how complicated "informed consent" is becoming in the era of big data. By Erika Check Hayden. Vivid, well-told feature on the climate wars, by Tom Clynes. How flight beat float: Megan Garber on the death of the dirigible. The only good abortion is my abortion. This piece by Maggie Koerth-Baker is amazing not just because it's brave but that it allows others to be brave. Salute In 1935, a radio program sponsored by the FDA wrote a ditty praising arsenic. Great post by Deborah Blum. Most people who bang on about science literacy are talking crap. This brilliant piece shows why. I was sad as a kid when I learned that tractor beams weren't real. But they might be! Astonishing. Your brain looks different depending on whether the data analysis is done on a Mac or PC These are wonderful: famous landmarks, seen through the eyes of hundreds at once Women with super-vision live among us, and one scientist is trying to track them down. Cool piece by Veronique Greenwood. XKCD: All 786 known planets drawn to scale "If you were a mantis shrimp, your rainbow would be unimaginably rich" – two greatposts on the nature of colour "Caution about over-interpretation. Over-interpretation." – Vaughan Bell’s template for all neuroscience stories Typically excellent piece by Carl Zimmer on how the microbes within us are turning doctors into wildlife managers.Science/news/writingWorld's slowest shark even slower than previously thought. Teach With Portals. Great idea from Valve. Hermaphroditic banana slugs chewing off each others penises after sex. As you do. Skip straight to step 5! Discover wants you to send an experiment to space and they’ll give you $1500 to do it. Henrietta's revenge: HeLa cells continue to wreak havoc on other cell cultures Abandoned Russian neuroscience lab in haunting photos "We need to stop trying to teach every child as either a future scientist or a future failed scientist,” argues Deb Blum. How microbes build mountains. From Deep Sea news: I thought I was a plant, but now I think I’m a killer! 600 years later, engineers are realizing the dreams of da Vinci and making human-powered helicopters Do cephalopods dream of aquatic sheep? With mandatory Cthulhu reference NEOShield: Europe leading the way on asteroid deflection Are drug company R&D depts reading blogs? Antidepressant paper corrected after NeuroSkeptic post Excellent BBC problem on the cult of TED. And TED’s problem us summed up by the fan who says "the difference between TED [&] church is all the talks are verifiable by science." LMFAO Can you smell what the rock is preservin'? Brian Switek on Archaeopteryx, turtle porn & shark... something Why do spammers say they're from Nigeria? So only most gullible respond [pdf] The gigapixel camera: allowing you to spy on people with as little skill or planning as possible Scientists trace wiring plan for entire mouse brainNobel laureate directing African HIV centre? Good news? Oh wait... it's Luc Montagnier Good news: you have a beautiful baby. Bad news: two tapeworms What makes us laugh? Teenager survives harpoon through the brain. In at the front, out at the back. Amazing x-ray. This awesome view of the Arctic sea ice atop the Blue Marble could soon be the stuff of history: Korean scientists are fighting back against proposed anti-evolution textbook changes Making The Connection: The Oceans In Contemporary American Culture Extinct toad is not actually extinct! AbyssBox - a high-pressure aquarium tank for deep-sea life. But how to stock it, sez I This post about the world's fastest supercomputer has a truly inspired headline Is this vanishing fat-tailed lemur a ninja, or is it just hibernating? Wired's tribute to Alan Turing’s many achievements I think this may be the best photo ever: jumping dolphin with octopus on its genitals "Matthew Power is the kind of writer everyone dreams of becoming." Here, he journeys to the island of the tree kangaroos. One woman and her giant tortoises – Virginia Huhes recounts her visit to the Galapagos Be the opposite of Prometheus! BFI & Wellcome Trust launch screenwriting prize to encourage films inspired by science FOIA reveals safety problems at CDC pathogens lab - violations for which CDC would poss shut down any other lab The ultimate bouncer: an absolutely great post on the P-glycoprotein efflux multi-drug transporter. Simon Baron-Cohen on what the McLean brain bank breakdown means for autism research Later Terminator: We’re Nowhere Near Artificial Brains The Legend of Mike 'The Durable' Malloy, History's Most Stubborn Murder Victim If any man could save the northern white rhinos, it was him. But Congolese Government inanities smothered his plans This is what a honeybee looks like as it loses its stinger Sinners and winners in the race to protect the oceans revealed Heh/wow/huh Paper mistakenly says earth orbits the moonYou Chose Wrong. All the various ways of dying in choose-your-own-adventure books 21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity I love that the winner of the Wellcome Image Awards was undoctored, and actually used in a scientific context. This whale spouts rainbowsGlaminals. Love the starfish. An awesome display of counter-trollingJournalism /internet/society Fellow science writer Jonah Lehrer was caught recycling material from old columns for his new New Yorker blog. (Disclosure: Jonah and I used to be on ScienceBlogs together; I’ve recommended his writing on this blog; we haven’t met but are mutually supportive acquaintances.) But yes, even though they’re all his words, this is a problem. Paul Raeburn says the “journalism issues are simple and clear” and he’s absolutely right. The Daily Beast sums up what happened. Robert Wright muses on the bigger picture. Slate has some thoughts on the Big Ideas culture. Felix Salmon has some advice on blogging. And at some point, the bloody Huffington Post retweeted Jonah’s apology for recycling content! And then I died of irony poisoning. Twitter going down is funny ... also kind of scary in the age of uber-connection Brill. Pick up your dog's poo, and get free wi-fi. I love this idea, but fundamentally, it rewards owners of dogs that produce heavier poo. Blogger Asserts Copyright, Newspaper Editor Gets Irate "Facebook has the governance structure for you" Another brilliant piece by Alexis Madrigal Taliban to US: "If you don't stop killing our kids w/ drones, we'll kill them with polio." World to Taliban: "Erm..." The lawyer for FunkyJunk is now suing The Oatmeal and the American Cancer Society and the National Wildlife Federation Gatwick's Border Agency shocking conduct towards ethnic minority women, gays and those w/ HIV When Science Media Becomes a Parody of Itself Using stats to spot sockpuppetry and dodgy reviews on TripAdvisor How a D-list superhero taught Adam Rogers that w/ great parenting comes great responsibility (oldie but goodie)